Lakewood Planning Commission opens first hearing on Envision Lakewood 2040; staff and public seek clarity on implementation and sustainability

Lakewood Planning Commission members held the first of two public hearings on the city’s draft comprehensive plan, Envision Lakewood 2040, on April 9, hearing a staff presentation followed by public comment and extended discussion by commissioners. Staff said the document sets a 15-year vision and that a separate implementation framework with data-driven targets will be developed after adoption.

City planners described the draft plan as a high-level, advisory framework that pairs vision elements (a vision statement, guiding principles, 25 goals and 160 strategies) with a new future land use map and nine future-land-use categories. Roger Waddell, Comprehensive Planning manager for the City of Lakewood, summarized the item and told the commission the meeting was the first of two public hearings on the draft plan and that the Sustainability and Community Development Department would request adoption after consideration. Christie Ivanoff, senior planner, said the draft reflects “extensive” public outreach, including three city council-appointed advisory groups and multiple surveys and events.

Why it matters: Envision Lakewood 2040 will guide city policy and regulatory updates, including a zoning ordinance rewrite that staff says must be consistent with the plan. Several speakers and commissioners asked for clearer statements about which existing plans will remain in effect after adoption and whether the forthcoming implementation framework will be formally adopted or remain an internal, changeable staff work plan.

What staff presented: Ivanoff and Katie McCain, Lakewood’s new sustainability manager, outlined the plan’s structure and the public-engagement record. Ivanoff said the public process included three advisory groups that collectively logged about 1,000 volunteer hours and that staff mailed 85,000 postcards and received roughly 92,000 words of direct feedback. She said the draft organizes the city’s priorities into two core elements — vision elements and future land use — and that the formatted final draft contains the same policy text presented in prior study sessions.

McCain described the proposed implementation framework as a separate, follow-up document that would list specific initiatives, measurable targets and indicators to track progress. She said staff intends to “get the metrics right” and warned against collecting measures only for their own sake; she described one example initiative (a residential compost drop-site program) to illustrate how targets, initiatives and indicators might be linked. McCain said greenhouse-gas targets are included in the draft plan and reiterated staff’s working guidance of a net-zero goal by 2050 and an 80 percent reduction goal by 2040, and said the plan will incorporate science-based targets into the implementation work.

Public comment highlights: About a dozen people spoke in the hearing’s public-comment portion. Topics included housing affordability, parking requirements, urban agriculture and equestrian land use, the future of a storage-site property, and neighborhood concerns about potential rezoning.

- Max Nardo, housing and land use specialist with the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, praised the plan’s housing-diversity and parking components and urged staff to tie housing strategies to environmental goals. Nardo said reducing parking minimums can enable more compact, affordable housing and cited other cities’ experience: “No single legislative action did more to contribute to housing creation than the elimination of parking minimums,” he said, attributing that observation to a Minneapolis planning director’s experience.

- Lauren Scanlon, a resident and member of the GEFCO Commission for Equine Agricultural Heritage, said she and others farm and keep horses on parcels of one to two acres and asked how the draft plan’s land-use categories will affect properties used for urban agriculture and equestrian activities. She said she and her husband recently obtained a Lakewood business license to sell farm products and that the family faces trade-offs when investing in permanent infrastructure (for example, a barn that could cost on the order of $200,000) if future zoning might limit agricultural uses.

- Christopher Golder, vice president of development for Public Storage, asked staff to make mini-warehouse (self-storage) uses an example or permitted use in the draft “production and innovation” future-land-use category for a site at 1398 Sims Street. He told commissioners that the company’s outdoor storage on a portion of the site is a lawful, preexisting use and that the firm is seeking a clear path for redevelopment of a vacant portion of the property.

- Multiple neighborhood representatives, including Paul Ditson (advisory-group participant) and Russia Nauer (Alameda Homeowners Community Association), asked how vacant parcels currently zoned for single-family would be treated under the new map and how residents would be notified if sites moved forward for redevelopment. They said neighborhood-specific traffic, safety and context concerns need clearer explanation in implementation steps.

Commissioner and staff discussion: Commissioners pressed staff on the legal and procedural status of related plans and the implementation framework. Several commissioners asked staff to clarify three items before the commission’s next hearing on April 23: (1) which existing plans remain in force or will be readopted as part of the Envision Lakewood 2040 adoption, (2) whether the implementation framework will be formally adopted by Planning Commission and City Council (and therefore carry continuing legal or policy weight) or remain an internal, flexible staff document, and (3) how sustainability targets from the standalone Lakewood Sustainability Plan will be treated once the comprehensive plan is adopted.

Staff answered that the resolution to be included with the April 23 packet will identify the citywide plans staff recommends be readopted or remain active. Staff said the intention is to fold sustainability goals into the new comprehensive plan so the city has a single, unified document; staff also acknowledged there are legal and procedural questions about which documents City Council and Planning Commission must or should formally adopt and said they will work through those distinctions with the city attorney. Staff further said they plan a study session on the proposed implementation framework around August and that work on measurable targets will continue through the summer and fall.

No final action taken: Planning Commission did not vote on adoption. The hearing ended without a formal decision after the commission lost quorum late in the meeting; staff and commissioners scheduled a second public hearing and the first presentation on the zoning rewrite for April 23, 2025.

What to watch next: Staff will post an updated packet for the April 23 meeting that, according to staff, should include a draft resolution clarifying which supplemental plans staff recommends remain active and how the implementation framework will be handled procedurally. Staff also expects to present a proposed implementation-framework study session around August 2025.

Ending: Commissioners thanked staff and public participants, scheduled the next hearing for April 23, and adjourned the meeting when a quorum could not be maintained.