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HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19880809 RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION AUGUST 9. 1988 Chairman Welton Anderson called meeting to order at 4:30pm. Answering roll call were Michael Herron, Jim Colombo, Ramona Markalunas, Mari Peyton, Roger Hunt, Jasmine Tygre and Welton Anderson. COMMISSIONER'S COMMENTS There were none. STAFF COMMENTS Alan Richman: There was a Moratorium announced last night at City council meeting by resolution. It will be subject to ordinance. For now it is for a 2 week period until Council can hold a public hearing. The things placed under administrative delay are demolition on single family duplex and mUlti-family residential structures and subdivision residential activity which affects tonight's application. We can't process it tonight. Michael: I think it makes sense under the circumstances moratorium that was adopted in the R-6 zone I think had escape clause for people like the Hamwi application. going to exist now? but the like an Is that Alan: There will be an escape clause. The resolution we presented last night had a series of activities that will be exempt. Michael: Would this applicant have been vested at the last meeting if we had approved it? Alan: No. Vesting would not have occurred until final approval by city Council. Hamwi: We would have been vested had we not gotten kicked off the original scheduled P&Z meeting that we were told we were scheduled for and then you asked for a delay because you were so busy with the Hadid thing. So you kicked us back until last meeting and then of course last meeting we forgot to send out public notices which means we would have gotten approval last meeting. We have invested a tremendous amount of time, money and effort in this and through no fault of our own we have been delayed to the point where we would have been through our City Council approvals and through the Building Dept. We were delayed a month because you were too busy after scheduling us because you wanted to ramrod the Hadid thing through. We have been re-scheduled twice PZM8 .". 88 now. We were approved save only public comment last time. And now we are getting buttonholed on this and I just think it is extremely unfair. Then this last time we would have been approved. We wouldn't be here now and the moratorium wouldn't affect us at all. Now what you are saying is you are trying to stop us in midstream. We are losing our vested rights or approvals with the 11 unit complex because of the moratorium. What you are going to do is throw us back years. City staff called us and canceled us on the agenda because they had to deal with a special meeting for Hadid. And then City staff decided they forgot to notify by public notice and we couldn't even get through the meeting last time. Cindy Houben, Planning Dept: Last time was definitely staff mistake. But as far as the first meeting goes it was just a matter of scheduling. Hamwi: We were on the schedule and then canceled. Marti, representative for applicant: I think that at this point what the applicant is feeling is that it seems in all fairness that perhaps this should go through the public notice today and then if the moratorium affects us, getting to City Council mumble But it seems that we have to look at today as if it were really occurring on the 19th or whenever it was when it should have been a public hearing. Alan: I will bring in the City Attorney if you would like. Marti: That would be great. Alan: The resolution is explicit. We are not allowed to process any submitted application and having P&Z take an action--But I will go get Fred. Marti: That would be great. Roger: I have to be very sympathetic with the applicant in this case. As much as I think the present proposal is a pity compared to the previous one, there is such a thing as right and wrong and I think he is being wrongly dealt with by this process. I would urge the staff to find applications like his to give them a loophole through this moratorium process. I don't think what the City is doing is right. It is just simple moral right and wrong. 2 PZM8.r.88 Jasmine: I notice a letter from the Housing Authority in regard to the discussion of the employee units, etc. And is that pretty much your recollection of what has happened with the Housing Authority? Hamwi: I am sorry. What was that? Jasmine: In the packet we have a letter from the Jim Adamski. Hamwi: I never got anything from the Housing Authority. Jasmine: He says he never got anything from you. (reading from letter) "Neither Mr. Hamwi nor any of his representatives have presented any numbers to the Housing Authority for the production of employee housing. They have approached me by telephone with "what if" scenarios for employee housing on the Hamwi site. I gave what information I could based on "what if" scenarios and request that they reduce their thoughts to writing and schedule a meeting with the Housing Authority to review how we could best assist them in the production of employee housing". Hamwi: I never have had any request whatsoever. I have never been asked. What you are reading me today is the first time I have ever been asked for anything. I have talked to Mr. Tuite. I have talked to City people and have never been asked for anything. And I really don't feel it is--I am not sure what they are asking for. Jasmine: Well, I am not really sure either. whole letter from Adamski kind of confused me. That is why this Hamwi: I think everybody is a little upset because of what I heard. Again I talked to Bill Tuite in reference to this on Monday. And he asked me "Well, had I heard anything? Had anybody contacted me from the City or anything?" And I said I never heard from anybody. I don't know. It is not for me to put it together as to how the City is going to deal with their funds. If in fact the City had some means in which to encourage or participate or make something feasible in employee housing that they would get back with us. But it certainly isn't--I can't believe it is my responsibility to--I talked to the Housing group and presented some ideas to them. We talked to different City people and everybody seems to say "We can't do anything". Adamski has never as much as called me on the phone. Jasmine: The thing that struck me in the reviewing this application based on our conversations with you informally last 3 PZM8 'is{ . 88 time was that there was still a possibility of going back to the original plan which Roger and I certainly thought was more beneficial to the community generally. And if it could work for you the applicant financially that you would express an interest in trying to do it. But you were going to need some kind of help. It seems tome that somewhere along the line you haven't been getting any help. Hamwi: None. Jasmine: And that bothers me. Hamwi: I did talk to the Board. I talked to the Housing Board. I went and talked to Parry Harvey and spent quite a period of time with him and his private housing thing to see if they were interested in it. Presented what we had is a basic concept. We had a developer that was looking for employee housing credits who would have been tickled to death to have had some sort of input from the city to say "Listen, we will help you make this happen". I went to Hadid himself. He was interested provided the City if it wasn't going to cost him an arm and a leg which it was going to. And the City to date--not one individual from the City has called me in reference to this gift. Not one. Now I have talked to Bill Tuite. I have talked to people at the city and I have talked to people at the Housing and it is not for me to put in some great proposal. We don't know what you are allowed to do. I think it was pretty straight forward that everyone agreed they can't waive fees. They have to be paid. We are not sure what you are and are not allowed to do with the Housing money because that is really not your bailiwick anyway. But the only people who have acted mildly interested in that whole deal have been yourselves. Welton: record) Have you read this memo from Jim Adamski? (attached in Hamwi: No. My representative nor myself have never received any phone calls nor anything in writing. Jasmine: What bothers me the most about this is that instead of standing on the point of ceremony with a situation like this, it seems to me that here is a situation where you have an opportunity to do something really good. You have got expressed rapport from city Council officials and the P&Z Commission. The applicant is obviously willing to work in this direction. The applicant needs help. And why we have to stand on ceremony with 4 PZM8.f- 88 this kind of stuff and have the applicant in the dark with this sort of thing--if in fact Adamski says "Well, what I really need to do is this, this and this". He would write you a letter or call you and say "What I need from you is--can you give me this information or do you have this idea". Whatever. Why can't they work together instead of making this a big formal thing and letting this whole thing slip through the cracks? This is a situation where the Housing Authority should be bending over backwards to try to work with the applicant and instead it seems to me that this memo just sounds like a very bureaucratic obstructionist approach to the problem. I find it really annoying. I find this appalling. Hamwi: When we talked the last time I said I would be more than willing to work with the City in trying to accomplish that but I have been walked around long enough through the bureaucracy I can't afford to sit out a winter and pay $2,000 a month just in payments on this thing while playing bureaucratic games with these people and now they put in this moratorium. Jim Adamski arrived. I will tell you what I know about this. Basically there is a debate between the applicant and the Planning Commission about that these folks have worked with the Housing Authority to put employee units on this site. Hamwi: There is no debate at all. What it is is a damned shame that we get beat to death or chased around or whatever where it gets to the point where the City makes it so an employee project is not feasible. And that is all there is to it. When you state that your are expecting something--we don't owe you anything! Adamski: In a statement by Paul Hamwi or his representative that they have tried to work us to put together an employee housing project on this particular site. We have not had those conversations. We have not, as it says in the minutes, crushed numbers with the applicant. Now we are very willing to sit down and talk with the applicant and see how we can assist them to produce the housing on that site. However up to this point we have not had any conversations with them except for a couple phone calls--"This is the concept-- what do you think, guys?" Asking me that. And I say "Yea, I like it. Let's put it on paper. Let's put some numbers to it and see what we can work with." So that is the only question I wanted to clear up with you today. 5 PZM8.,.88 Also I want to point out on the payment-in-lieu. It's being spent. We have it in the bank and we will know if we will be spending all of it real soon after tonight's election. Marti: Just one question, Jim. You don't recall stan Mathis, Larry McKensie, John Elmore and Fallon this site? meeting with last Adamski: Last Fall? No I don't recall. In fact up until yesterday trying to crunch numbers with the Housing Authority-- that wasn't last Fall. That was this year. I think the bottom line is we are willing to work with the applicant. Up to this point we have not had a concept with you. Hamwi: Let me make this real clear. I don't have another 6 or 8 months to toss around the idea of maybe something working out. A developer for the site out at the Aspen Club at the Club lots was the one that worked very hard and as of yesterday--referring to this--the developer and his representatives were still trying to work out to make this project work for them for the employee housing. That is when they called me and they said "We just can't--and stan Mathis was one of them again--and they had been talking with you and had some sort of scenario or someone in your office and had come in with all types of information. Adamski: They had not come in with all types of information. What I want to make clear is that I am willing and the Housing Authority is willing to work with you in every way we possibly can to make employee units. Up to this point no I don't want the illusion to be put out there--if there is the illusion--that we were sitting down crunching numbers and figuring out that we can't do anything. That is not the point. Jasmine: The point is this is the first time that you 2 are sitting down and talking about this at all. It just seems to me that it could have been much more helpful for the 2 of you or whoever else is concerned with this project that whatever resources the City has in the form of a Housing Authority or any other City staff should have been able to, before this point, to try to get together and see if there was any way to work together. That obviously has not been done. The end result is that we have a very unhappy applicant and a very unhappy P&Z and I just think that this is something that is very wrong. Hamwi: I unfortunately don't have the financial wherewithal to put together plans to have to present to the Housing Dept to see if there is some way that we can salvage something to bend some 6 PZM8.1- 88 rules that the City has created. It is not something the Housing Dept has created or anything else. It is a whole list of problems that we have gotten into. Jasmine: What really concerns me is that this is not the only possible place where something like this could happen. I would hate to think that this kind of thing is being enacted in various other locations with various other projects where there is an opportunity to do something and where these things fall through the crack because people may not have the time or the money or the infinite patience required to deal with this kind of garbage! Roger: What we need now is 2 weeks in which time communication between you 2 can take place. It appears obvious we are not going to be able to take action tonight although I haven't seen the City Attorney here. My disposition at this point is to table action for 2 weeks and hopefully in that time you 2 can get together and see if there is any possibility of either working the previous application or the present application. I happen to favor the previous application but at the same time I can understand the fix this guy is in by not being able to financially build the previous application which employee-wise was far superior to the present one. Welton: today. certain I can open the public hearing since it I will do that and continue the public of September 6, 1988. was noticed for hearing to date There was no public comment. MOTION Roger: I think it is time to indicate to the Planning Office by a motion from the P&Z that we forward to city Council our recommendation that at least this particular project should be exempt given the circumstances of where they are in the process and the delays that have occurred beyond their control. I put this in the form of a motion. Michael seconded the motion. Jasmine: While this application is being tabled I would certainly like to think that the Housing Authority or whoever else is concerned in pursuing the previous application to see if there is any way that that could work out. Hamwi: I wouldn't mind doing that. You people are recommending that my project be exempt. That is as much as I can ask for. I will definitely--if it can be put together that is fine. 7 PZM8.f.88 Jasmine: My direction is to see if there is more that the City could do to help this out. Roger: My recommendation is that we put this on our next regular meeting agenda to review september 6th. David White: Here we see a situation where someone wants to build something which is beneficial to the City in employee housing and it gets messed up. It really bothers me that we have to go to public vote like tonight to get things built instead of having the private sector come and do it. And I wonder why we, the P&Z, seem to be the defender of employees in a way. I am going to vote for this because I think that somewhere along the line we have to stand up for certain rights and when they are doing something for the community not just building a big hotel that they can get through the process too. Roger: The application before us is a change from the original application. The original application was oriented towards employee housing. That is the one I preferred and Jasmine preferred. But the hard cold facts were that as much as they tried they could not build it and come out without red ink. Now the application before us is more of a free market application. It is a nice application but not preferred. position is I understand the position the applicant is in. does have an approved application which expires September 1st. type My He AMENDMENT TO MOTION Maybe I had better include in my motion a recommendation to extend that application. Michael: I accept that and amend my second. Roger: But by the same token the applicant is being dealt an unfair blow by the "system". David: I meant more that this is one of more than 4 or 5 that I have heard that started out to be employee housing, got into the system, got screwed up and ended up something else. Then we get bits from what we could have had. Welton: Is it that the other previously approved project might possibly be built if there is some help from the Housing Authority? 8 PZM8.1.88 Hamwi: That is probably oversimplifying it. There is a couple-- Between the tap fees and we are pretty heavily fee-ed. So that by the time we get done with those problems, the project becomes just completely economically unrealistic. The problem is a little bit more than financial help. For example because of the double FAR--we have got a certain amount of land. We are supposed to be able to build a certain amount of square footage. But by the time the City gets down re-doing. We are allowed to build 13, OOOsqft of building until you go into this other FAR requirement that says that each unit requires X amount of square footage. When it is all done we are allowed to build 11 small studio units. Well we have got room on the property for allowing 1 or 2 bedroom units. And somehow the mentality of the city is that employees only live in little shanties and that they have a 1 bedroom or a 2 bedroom. We have tried to redo it with another way of saying "OK if we built 2 bedrooms or 1 bedrooms, we could up the anti. We could sell them for a little bit more. We could do something. So there is more in this than just financial help. Also the City has a total _?_, and not just the Housing, the P&Z has to realize that employees live in things other than studios. And that this probably should be something that once again we are waiving the GMP to encourage employee housing. Maybe we should waive the secondary FAR. They used to have a bonus in there. Now the city has cancelled the bonus for employee housing. But I can't wait for the city to go through another 6 months of re-thinking this problem. I am saying that there are a lot of things that can be done and I think that the City has a lot of power to be able to try. It is amazing how they can move so quickly if they want to move in one direction and I would think they could move just as quickly in another direction if they really wanted to put something together here. Welton: Cindy, the project that was approved--did that meet the minimum lot area per dwelling unit? Cindy: It was a growth management application in 1985 and it met the requirements. Welton: What was the mix of that project? Hamwi: All studios. We could put 11 studios on that project. Cindy: I think it was 7, 3 and 4. Hamwi: Correct. It was zoned for--by rights we have 3 and then we were going to give 4 and 4 free market. Then we actually had 9 PZM8 '1' 88 a developer who was very interested in going all 11 employee. But even with modular housing that we looked into it just didn't make any sense. Everyone voted in favor of the motion except Mari. abstained because of conflict of interest. Welton MOTION Roger: I also make a motion to direct staff to come before us at the meeting that has been tentatively cancelled with a list of applications who are in a similar problem as this so we can determine if they deserve a resolution of ours before Council. Michael seconded the motion as long as understanding that the applicants all opportunity to appear. it get is through notice and the an Cindy: There is only one other in process right now--the CBS application. I think the recommendation by staff was that projects that have been through growth management in the past year not be stuck in the process since most have already gone to final plat. Michael: So now we are going to penalize projects that have an exemption from growth management. Cindy: Well, they just happen to be in subdivision process. Everyone voted in favor of the motion. Meeting was adjourned. Time was erk 10