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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 04/27/2021 PUBLIC HEARING April 27, 2021 Present: Matt Scherr Chairman Jeanne McQueeney Commissioner Chandler-Henry Commissioner Jill Klosterman Director of Finance Beth Oliver Deputy County Attorney Kathy Scriver Deputy Clerk to the Board This being a scheduled Public Hearing, the following items were presented to the Board of County Commissioners for their consideration: Commissioner Updates Commissioner Chandler-Henry reminded everyone that this Saturday was highway cleanup. Folks could contact the Eagle River Watershed Council to be connected with a team. She also acknowledged Birch Barron's recent article titled"Cloud to the Rescue"in the StateTech magazine. The article highlighted emergency services in Eagle County and how the Emergency Management team used Google resources and technology to help save lives and help during emergencies. Commissioner McQueeney spoke about the legislative session and encouraged people to get involved. She thanked staff for stepping up and providing some additional testimony. She would provide some testimony this afternoon on a childcare bill. It was easy to sign up and testimony could be provided remotely. Chairman Scherr spoke about the first time homebuyers classes at the Valley Home Store. The classes were free. County Manager Updates Jill Klosterman from the County Manager Office reminded people that Public Health and Vail Health were open for walk-in vaccine clinics. Folks could sign-up on eaglecountycovid.org COVID-19 Update Birch Barron, Emergency Management Director, spoke. The county was continuing to coordinate at a high level. At a national level, Colorado was one of the hot spots. The good news was the deaths remained relatively low compared to other areas. Over the past several weeks,Colorado had seen an increase in hospitalizations. Case investigations were still being conducted and what was being seen was case spread in areas where face covering and mask use indoors was not enforced. In outdoor locations where there was space and air flow,they were not seeing high levels of spread. The mask mandate had been useful in keeping schools open to in-person learning, businesses open, and the workforce working. The answer was not permanent face coverings or social distancing. The answer was vaccines. Eagle County was the third highest county in the state for vaccine adoption by population. The goal was to get 60%of the total population vaccinated by Memorial Day. The plan was to recommend on May 27,that all local public health orders be expired and resend the emergency declaration. Private business would still have the ability to require mask use. Local businesses or organizations that receive federal funding, like airports or transit,may also be required to have face coverings. 1 04/27/2021 Consent Agenda 1. Early Head Start Cost of Living Adjustment Kendra Kleinschnidt,Human Services 2. Agreement for Services Between Eagle County and Sun-Up Sealcoats for Parking Lot Maintenance Services Julie Pranger, Engineering 3.Agreement for the 2021 Overlay Project Between Eagle County and Frontier Paving Inc Nicole Trujillo,Road&Bridge 4. Agreement between Eagle County Public Health and Environment and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to Acknowledge the work to be done for the Child Fatality Prevention System Danielle Magargle/Heath Harmon, Public Health 5. First Amendment to the Agreement Between Eagle County and Town of Eagle to Eagle River Park Use Agreement Christina Hooper,Attorney 6. March 2021 Payment Report Jill Klosterman,Finance Commissioner Chandler-Henry moved to approve the Consent Agenda for April 27,2021, as presented. Commissioner McQueeney seconded the motion. The vote was declared unanimous. Constituent Input Chairman Scherr opened constituent input. Quin McCarroll, Eagle Valley High School student, spoke via video. He spoke about fire safety. He believed that Eagle County would be facing extreme to exceptional drought conditions this year, and fire danger would be high. He believed it was important for the community to take steps to prevent fire danger and make sure that everyone was prepared and safe. He believed that the actions that a lot of his peers took were dangerous and posed a great threat to the community. It was important to take steps to educate and teach people how to follow fire regulations. He proposed that every county building with a flagpole should be flying a red flag during"red flag" warning days and during Stage 2 fire restrictions. Pamela Chapman,Gypsum resident, spoke. She questioned the mask mandate. She believed that small businesses, especially restaurants, had been forced to work at reduced capacities and some businesses were now out of business. She believed it was time to fully open the county without restrictions. If not the people had no choice but to hold the county's policies responsible for every death, suicide, and adverse outcome from the continued forced mandate orders. Bobbi Jo Berella, Gypsum resident, spoke. She did not support the mask mandate. As an educator,the mask mandate appalled her. Kids were being taught that they should set themselves on fire to make others warm. Masks were not healthy and it was time to take them off. It was time to try something different. The children of Eagle County should not have their medical freedom taken away any longer. It was time to move past this, and it was time to start living again. Jennifer French, Gypsum resident, spoke. She asked that the mask requirement for kids be eliminated immediately. Data had shown that children were the least affected population group. Masking children bordered 2 04/27/2021 on child abuse,taking away their identy, cofidence,and unrestricted air. After a year of playing along, she was done. Individuals should be allowed to make the choice to wear or not to wear masks. Krista Keiser, Eagle Vail resident, spoke. She asked the board as governing leaders to promote living freely. Masking gave people a false sense of security and the unlawful mandate has resulted in self-righteous mask wearers condemning free and healthy people. Masking children was a disgrace when the science has shown it is unnecessary to mask up healthy kids. She encouraged the county to relinquish the power back to the people and remove the mask mandate. Kellie Riccca argued that people should have the right to choose whether or not they wore a mask. She asked that the county lift the mask mandate now. She spoke about the ineffectiveness of masks and the danger of wearing face coverings. Chairman Scherr thanked everyone for attending in person and stated that everyone was looking forward to the May 27th date when the public health order would be released. He encouraged people to stay engaged with local government. He closed public comments. Business Items 1. Resolution 2021-022 Designating April 2021 as the Month of the Young Child and Child Abuse Prevention Month in Eagle County Kendra Kleinschnidt, Human Services Megan Birch, Director of Human Services spoke about the celebration. The month was about asking the community to take an active role in supporting children and families. Executive Summary: In order to recognize April as the Month of the Young Child and Child Abuse Prevention Month,Human Services has prepared a proclamation for the BoCC to read. Commissioner McQueeney moved to approve the resolution designating April 2021 as the Month of the Young Child and child Abuse Prevention Month in Eagle County. Commissioner Chandler-Henry seconded the motion. The vote was declared unanimous. 2. Agreement for Professional Services Between Eagle County and SGM Incorporated for Engineering Design of the Eagle Valley Trail in the Dotsero Area Kevin Sharkey, ECO Trails Executive Summary: This is a new agreement for the design of the Eagle Valley Trail from the existing end of the Eagle Valley Trail west of the Duck Pond Open Space going west along US Highway 6 ROW to the railroad overpass bridge near the Dotsero Truck Parking Lot. This is one of the high priority missing segments of the Eagle Valley Trail. We are planning to construct this next year in 2022. The agreement is with SGM,who previously worked on the design in 2015 before the design was shelved in favor of funding the design and construction of Eagle to Horn Ranch Open Space Trail in 2016-2018. Commissioner Chandler-Henry moved to approve the agreement for professional services between Eagle county and SGM Incorporated for Engineering Design of the Eagle Valley Trail in the Dotsero Area. Commissioner McQueeney seconded the motion. The vote was declared unanimous. 3. Resolution 2021-023 to Adopt the Updated Goals of the Climate Action Plan for the Eagle County Community John Gitchell, Sustainable Communities 3 04/27/2021 Executive Summary: This resolution is for Eagle County adoption of the updated goals of the Climate Action Plan for the Eagle County Community. Eagle County's Strategic Plan includes a vision to provide regional leadership on climate protection and reduction of community greenhouse gas(GHG)emissions. Eagle County's Sustainable Communities team works to implement the Climate Action Plan in county operations and within the larger community. Beginning in 2015 Eagle County contracted with CLEER(Clean Energy Economy for the Region)to establish our community baseline, identify sources of GHG emissions, and track changes over time. Eagle County then contracted with Walking Mountains Science Center to engage stakeholders and create a community-wide Climate Action Plan aimed at reducing GHG emissions in 4 sectors; Transportation, Buildings,Waste, and Energy Supply. The Climate Action Plan, adopted by Eagle County and other local governments in 2016, established goals to reduce GHG emissions 25%by 2025, and 80%by 2050 (baseline 2014). In 2017 Eagle County contracted with Walking Mountains Science Center to develop the Climate Action Collaborative, which engages its members in community education and develops projects to achieve the goals of the Climate Action Plan. As a member of the Collaborative. Eagle County provides funding and works alongside the other local governments, businesses, and community organizations to reduce community GHG emissions. In 2020 the State of Colorado's Energy Office introduced the GHG Reduction Roadmap as a shared resource to guide community climate action throughout Colorado. In December of 2020, the Climate Action Collaborative added interim goals to reduce community GHG emissions 50%by 2030, and 70%by 2045, and also updated the priority actions in each sector to more closely align with the State of Colorado's GHG Reduction Roadmap. John Gitchell provided some background information about the resolution. The strategies were outlined in the plan. Kimberly Schlaepfer, Climate Action Collaborative Project Manager with the Walking Mountains Science Center, spoke. She thanked the board and Eagle County staff for their continued support for climate action work in the community. Commissioner Chandler-Henry expressed appreciation for all the information provided in the plan. Chairman Scherr spoke about the goals and strategies and believed beyond 2030 it got tricky. It was incumbent on the county and the community to take action. Commissioner Chandler-Henry moved to approve the resolution adopting the updated goals of the Climate Action Plan for the Eagle County Community. Commissioner McQueeney seconded the motion. The vote was declared unanimous. 4. Resolution 2021-024 for Temporary Regulations Amending the Development Review Process Morgan Landers, Community Development Executive Summary: The Planning Division is proposing Temporary Regulations to modify the development review process in response to scheduling impacts from COVID-19. The temporary regulations propose changes to timelines for pre-application conferences, completeness check timelines and process, and intake timelines and process. In-person public attendance and virtual participation is available for those desiring to provide comment on the proposed regulations. Morgan Beryl, Community Development Director, explained the intent was with the temporary regulations. Morgan Landers,Planning Manager,provided an overview. Concerns had been expressed in the public comment that they were bypassing the process to amend the land use regulations. However, they were only proposing temporary regulations which was a separate process. The resolution would only be in effect for 30 days 4 04/27/2021 as this was all that the regulations allowed. After that, there was a required public hearing to review the regulations and determine whether they should be extended for an additional six months. The intent was to try this out for six months to see if they could get through the backlog effectively. She stressed the temporary nature of the regulations. The primary changes were fairly minor. Currently the 10-working-day turnaround wasn't working. The pre-application conferences would allow more time. The final piece was the determination of completeness. Applications currently were required to be reviewed for completeness within five working days. This had been a struggle with incomplete applications. Chairman Scherr asked if the temporary regulations would still be necessary once they were through the backlog. Ms. Landers stated that there were periods of slow times and periods of ramped up times. Staff had capacity to take additional administrative files,but currently they were over capacity with their public hearing applications. There were multiple files that required public hearings that had multiple files associated with them. Ms. Beryl stated that the way the Land Use Regulations were oriented right now,there was no ability for the director to manage how or when files come in the door. This is responding in some ways to a backlog issue they've experienced, but it's more of a behaviour change and business model question. Ms. Landers stated that they were currently over capacity with staff managing public hearing applications because they take much more time to process and they still had some carryover files they received a while back. Commissioner Chandler-Henry expresses concerns for the open-ended nature of moving the pre-application conference from 10 days to first available and also the sufficiency review. It felt like for the developer community, there should he some bookends. She also didn't like the language of metering things. She believed the county should be responding to the needs in the community by being responsive. She asked what it would take to respond to community needs as they came in. Ms. Landers stated that the predictability was still there from the standpoint of open communication. When people request a pre-application meeting, they are given their date options right away. Quarterly updates were requested, which they could certainly do. They had staff that could do the work,but the capacity of the senior staff to take the complex application was lower at this time. Ms. Beryl stated that when she first started at the county there were three pre-apps scheduled a week on Thursdays. She noticed that staff was not preparing prior to the pre-application meetings. She reduced the number of meetings per week to be more prepared. Complex land use files take a lot of project management, coordination, review, analysis, and writing. There was a certain amount of complexity that one person could handle at one time and produce high quality work. Commissioner McQueeney liked the aspects of having a process of administrative review. She wondered if there was a way to provide some bookends on the timeframe. Commissioner Chandler-Henry believed that having a number out there that they could meet within that time would give her a little more comfort. Commissioner McQueeney appreciated that they identified an issue and wanted to deal with the backlog and quality of the ability to get work done. She supported giving it a try. She believed 30 days was an opportunity to look at this and possibly do six months or some other period of time. Chairman Scherr asked if staff wanted to table the resolution. Ms. Landers expressed comfort in tabling the resolution and allowing time to present something new for consideration. Beth Oliver, Deputy County Attorney,believed that made sense from a legal standpoint as opposed to making changes now and not allowing people to comment on the changes. Chairman Scherr offered the opportunity for the public in attendance to comment. Sarah Baker, land use attorney, spoke. She stated that she had provided some written comments. From the development community, she thanked the board for their attention to what this meant on the private side. She believed that having bookends was critical to scheduling. It's that certainty that the development community and the folks making an investment needed to have. She was sympathetic to the problem that staff was facing. The process now was not working for staff or the private sector, so the problem needs to be addressed. She believed the manner being proposed was correct. It could be a temporary solution,but it was not a long term solution. 5 04/27/2021 Dominic Mauriello spoke. He provided the board a memo as well. He expressed frustration and believed there was a lack of data in front of the board for them to be able to evaluate the situation. The county was obligated to abide by state statutes as far as how quickly an application had to be processed. He believed it would be helpful to streamline the process by starting the referral period at the beginning. He believed the resolution as proposed would only delay the process. This could slow down the building process. He believed there would be zero change in the 30 days. If staff wanted to change the regulations, they needed to go through the Planning Commission and there needed to be a public process. Matt Larson agreed with the comments made by Mr. Mauriello. He had faith in county staff and was sympathetic to the problem. He appreciated their efforts to come up with a better solution. Developers needed certainty and an efficient process. He supported county staff and understood the intent but asked that they be conscious of the developers' time. He wondered if the current delays were a result of COVID. Chairman Schorr believed it sounded like a tabling was needed to allow staff to continue this conversation with constituents. Commissioner Chandler-Henry requested data appropriate to the scope of work and then number of PUD files. It would be helpful to understand what staff were dealing with and what needed to be fixed. Chairman Scherr stated that he wanted to see something that worked for everyone. Ms. Landers believed it would be helpful for staff to understand if there were elements of the process that were appropriate steps. Chairman Scherr stated that he was interested in finding a solution that would work for everyone but could not say precisely what he was looking for. Commissioner Chandler-Henry believed that there needed to be a way to make things go faster,more smoothly and meet some of the identified goals. Ms. Oliver stated that there was no need to table the tile. Staff would simply place the item on an upcoming agenda. 5. The Board of County Commissioners will meet as necessary to review and take action on any issues related to the COVID-19 Local Disaster Emergency. Chairman Scherr stated that there were no items to review or take action on related to COVID-19. Work Session - Eagle County Room 1. Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable presents the Wildlife Interactive Map (WIM) Peter Suneson, Open Space Executive Summary: The Wildlife Interactive Map(WIM)was put together by Eagle County's GIS department as part of Eagle County's involvement with the Eagle County Community Wildlife Roundtable. This interactive tool will be shared with municipal partners and made publicly available to help educate and inform residents of documented wildlife habitat, migration corridors, and other areas critical for the survival of Eagle County's wildlife. The WIM is currently available here: https://arcg.is/ODmbnK Planning Files 1. Planning File: AFP-9128-2020, 663 Granite Springs Tez Hawkins, Planning Executive Summary: The applicant is seeking approval for an Amended Final Plat that extends the existing building envelope for Lot 14 of the Cordillera subdivision, Block 5 Filing 34 to the northeast for the addition of a 6 04/27/2021 viewing deck.The Amended Final Plat vacates unused areas of the building envelope to maintain the existing square footage of 19,594 sq ft. Mr. Hawkins presented the request. The property was accessed by a private road named Granite Springs Trail. The applicant was amending the final plat to allow for the construction of a deck. There were no changes to the building envelope proposed. Public notice was provided in the Vail Daily and Enterprise. The adjacent property owners were notified and notification of the hearing was placed on the property. Staff did not receive any comments during the public comment process. He indicated that staff recommended approval of the proposed amended final plat as the request met all five standards. Jule Pranger,Eagle County Engineering reviewed the standards for public roadway. She stated that the existing access was adequate and there were no changes in use. The driveway conformed to the requirements set forth in Eagle County Land Use Regulations. The building envelope contained slopes greater than 30%, so a plan would be required to evaluate the slope stability at the time of building permit. The building envelope was limited to a deck and patio only. No enclosed living space was allowed. Commissioner Chandler-Henry wondered if this level of review was required for this type of application. Mr. Hawkins stated that this was required per the Cordillera PUD Guide. Morgan Landers stated that Cordillera had a unique requirement in their PUD Guide requiring that all the adjacent property owners be notified and respond or a public process was required. Chairman Scherr opened and closed public comment as there was none. Commissioner Chandler-Henry concurred with staff findings. Commissioner McQueeney believed the proposal met with all of the needs. Commissioner McQueeney moved to approve the proposed 663 Granite Springs Amended Final Plan, Eagle Count File o.AFP-9128-2020, incorporation staffs findings,because this application meets the standard of approval for an amended final plat. Commissioner Chandler-Henry seconded the motion. The vote was declared unanimous. 2. TABLING: Kudel PUD Final Plat(aka Edwards Riverfront Estates) -PDF-9117 Steve O'Connor,Planning Executive Summary: TABLED: The applicant has requested the review of the land use applications be tabled to May 18, 2021. No project information will be presented or discussed during the hearing. Mr. O'Connor stated that a CDOT special use permit was required and they were waiting to receive additional information from CDOT. Dominic Mauriello stated that the applicant approved of the tabling. Commissioner Chandler-Henry moved to table file no. PDF-9117„Kudel PUD Final Plat. Commissioner McQueeney seconded the motion. The vote was declared unanimous. PlE COv,�,ri There being no further business e :.. d,the meeting was adjourned until May 4,2021. o 1 Attest _cote."' Clerk to the Board Chairman 7 04/27/2021