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Planning commission reviews Fitzgerald annexation; no action taken
Summary
Commission reviewed an application to annex about 19.86 acres for a 12-lot planned residential development with trail reroutes and two required access connections; commission held the item for information and will revisit before a city council public hearing.
The Alpine City Planning Commission on Tuesday, February 18 reviewed an application by property owner Ken Fitzgerald to annex roughly 19.86 acres into the city and discussed a concept plan for 12 lots but took no formal action.
The discussion matters because the site is in the city’s wildland-urban interface and includes existing, mapped trails that would be rerouted as part of a planned residential development (PRD) overlay. Staff said the city must complete a 30-day notice and protest period for affected entities before the city council holds a public hearing; the staff packet identified March 11 as the earliest city council hearing date after that notice period.
Ryan (city planning staff) led the presentation and described the statutory and local steps: the applicant has petitioned for annexation, the city has a 30-day noticing period for affected entities during which any protests must be filed, and the planning commission’s role at this stage is to review zoning and land-use implications (not to make a final decision). “One of them right now, we're actually we're at the tail end of, once the city accepts the annexation petition to study it out further, the city is there's a there's a 30 day noticing period for affected entities,” Ryan said. He said the petitioned area is about 19.86 acres and that the applicant requests CR-40,000 base zoning with a PRD overlay.
Under the concept plan presented to commissioners, the developer proposes 12 lots (the smallest lot shown on the concept plan is about 37,000 square feet). Staff said the project would set aside a little over almost 5 acres as open space to meet PRD open-space requirements. The concept plan shows rerouted segments of three named trails (referred to in the packet as Canal, Flank and Corkscrew) and staff said the city’s Trails Committee will review and must recommend any trail changes before the council acts. Will Jones, chair of the Trails Committee, was reported as working with the applicant on flagging and engineering reviews; staff said the committee appeared “about two steps away” from a positive recommendation but needed to confirm alignments in the field. Ryan said the trails committee and the developer are coordinating with an engineer to confirm trail widths and alignments; he noted the Trails Committee had identified 4 feet as a minimum trail width in some locations.
Commissioners and members of the public raised access, parking and trail-use questions. Commissioners noted that, because the site is in the urban-interface overlay for fire protection, the development will require two points of access; staff said the plan shows road connections via Bald Mountain Drive and High Mountain Drive and that both roads will need to be completed for emergency access. Ryan also said off-site infrastructure (water, sewer, power) would need to be installed by the developer and coordinated with the city’s acting city engineer and city administrator, who had reviewed the proposal.
Commissioners discussed lot-size mechanics under each zoning option: if the property is brought in under a PRD overlay the minimum lot size for some lots would be 20,000 square feet; if zoned as a traditional CR-40,000 the smaller lots shown on the concept plan would need to be adjusted to meet 40,000 square feet. Ryan cautioned that annexation is an “all or nothing” action for the parcels petitioned: the city may not accept a subset of the petitioned parcels for annexation while leaving others out.
No motion or vote on annexation occurred at the meeting. Staff instructed the commission that the item will return to the commission on March 4 for additional review and that the city council public hearing is scheduled for March 11 after the 30-day notice/protest period concludes.
Next steps: staff will continue coordination with the Trails Committee and the city attorney on a pre-annexation agreement and will provide additional materials for the commission’s March 4 review; the commission may forward a recommendation to the city council after that review.
