Planning director outlines comp-plan Phase 3 priorities; character districts stalled by state law
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Summary
Planning director BJ (Director Grieve) briefed council on Phase 3 implementation priorities for the town's comprehensive plan and said Senate Bill 382 prevents the adoption of proposed character districts as drafted; staff recommended shelving those items, salvaging Appendix F landscaping edits, and returning with reworked tree-protection and landscaping amendments.
Planning Director BJ (Director Grieve) gave a multi-part update on implementation of the town's comprehensive plan and upcoming planning files for the Feb. 10 meeting. He said staff has completed or substantially advanced roughly 57% of short-term (0'2 year) implementation items and expects to reach about 73% with Phase 3 work if council endorses the proposed priorities.
Director Grieve told council that Senate Bill 382 (state legislation enacted after the town's November 2024 hearings) prevents local enactments that create new nonconformities, which in effect blocks the character-district approach as originally drafted. He recommended shelving the character-district amendments for now and salvaging Appendix F landscaping standard updates (with two species removals requested by the town arborist). He proposed reworking the rest of the landscaping and tree-protection amendments and returning in the spring with revised, SB 382-compliant language.
Staff also previewed a text amendment to change temporary/political sign placement from 10 feet back to 3 feet from the back of curb (aligning with state statute), and outlined Phase 3 priorities including a three-year comp-plan review, rightsizing parking research, tree-protection rework tied to open-space priorities, ADU and home-based-business adjustments, and transitioning a bicycle-pedestrian advisory group toward multimodal planning work. Council asked for written materials to review ahead of a Phase 3 approval vote in February.
