Council gets look at proposed Subdivision ordinance

Lakewood's proposed Subdivision Ordinance goes to Planning Commission in May.

LAKEWOOD – City Hall’s proposed rewrite of the Subdivision Ordinance continues to evolve amid questions about such things as its provisions on appeals and notification, whether the proposal would encourage gated communities and whether it even complies with the City Charter.

The proposal was the subject of a joint City Council/Planning Commission meeting Monday night.

During the meeting the proposed changes raised some concerns among council members, but they decided by consensus to move the proposal forward.

It will be heard by the Planning Commission in early May, then will go to City Council for a final decision sometime in June.

City Hall wants to streamline the subdivision process but also would limit neighbors’ rights of appeal administrative approval of subdivisions that would accommodate up to nine houses.

The changes, if approved by Council, would drop a provision allowing citizens or applicants to appeal to the Planning Commission any administrative decision on the final layout of “minor” subdivisions of less than 10 houses. Instead, the proposal would require appeals to be filed in District Court, where the appeal would run up against a battery of City Hall’s lawyers.

The new regulations also would impose an as-yet unspecified appeal fee that would be determined by Council.

Responding to questions about the appeal process, Planning Commission members and some City Council members said the public has unrealistic expectations that an appeal has a chance of overturning a decision because, if the application meets the requirements, it must be granted.

But such decisions are subjective, based on interpretation of the regulations, and are subject to challenges of the facts.

“They are open for review if, in fact, there’s an error,” said City Attorney Tim Cox.   Cox.

Councilman Doug Anderson said the plan to put many subdivision decisions in the hands of a City Hall administrator could violate the City Charter.

“The Planning Commission shall, not may, shall review and make recommendations to the City Council on land-use matters, including but not limited to zoning, rezoning, platting, annexations and subdivision of land,” Anderson said, reading from Article 9.1. (b) of the City Charter.

“I don’t know how we can go through this process and turn pieces of it over to the director when the Charter says this,” Anderson said.

Cox said the city has done otherwise for years, so that City Charter provision would no longer apply, then took exception to Anderson’s understanding of the Charter language.

“It has long been the practice for certain of these decisions to be made administratively,” Cox said. “Also, it’s a question of whether that (Charter language) refers to each specific subdivision case or whether the Planning Commission makes recommendations on subdivision, such as they are doing tonight,” Cox said, referring to the Planning Commission’s role in compiling the revised Subdivision Ordinance.

“Am I hearing you say because it’s been done, it’s OK to do it even if it wasn’t proper,” Anderson asked. “Where in the Charter does it say that subdivision can be done by anybody other than the Planning Commission or Council?”

Anderson got no direct answer to the latter question, but City Manager Mike Rock said current policy is the result of an opinion rendered by a former City Attorney.

” I remained concerned about that,” Anderson said.

Councilwoman Cindy Barroway noted that a number of provisions regarding gated subdivisions had been softened and said she is concerned that gated communities stifle a sense of community.

“We talk about our city and how we want to be an inclusive community and the thought there just goes against the grain,” Barroway said.

Mayor Bob Murphy rose to the defense of gated communities.

“This is a very small issue, very small likelihood that we are going to see much of that in the City of Lakewood. We don’t want to exclude the possibility. Any community wants to have available an entire range of housing options. This is one particular, very small segment of that entire range of housing options,” Murphy said.

Although the proposal was designed to streamline the process, the current Subdivision Ordinance covers more than 50 pages, the proposed draft is just over 30 pages. A number of requirements in the current ordinance, including such things as traffic studies, are removed from the proposal and farmed out to other regulatory documents maintained in different City departments.

Few people attended Monday’s study session, but the sweeping changes in the proposal drew heated comments at a recent Ward 1 town meeting.

“Because rezoning and subdivision go hand-in-hand, this scares me,” said former City Councilwoman Kathy Knoble. “It scares me because you are trying to remove another layer of public notification, public input.”

City Councilwoman Vicki Stack called the meeting after she became concerned over the proposed changes, especially the removal of citizens from any part of the process.

Tim Gelston, Lakewood’s Development Review Manager, said the proposed regulations allow the city to require subdivision applicants to arrange a public meeting. But Gelston conceded that the city relies on the applicant to relay citizens’ comments and has no means of verifying what’s passed along.

The proposal discussed Monday contains a number of changes made in response to the concerns voiced at the Ward 1 meeting.