Monument Planning Commission, Aug. 9 – Variance approved for affordable housing project

By Leslie Hanks

The Aug. 9 Monument Planning Commission meeting was attended by Commissioners Chair Martin Trujillo, Vice Chair Danny Ours, Cathy Green, Sean Zernikow, Ray Egley, Greg Collins, and Chad Smith.

The planning staff started the meeting by explaining that the planning commissioners acting as the Board of Adjustment was appropriate. According to the Home Rule Charter, the Board of Adjustment has five members and the Planning Commission has seven. The staff said this was consistent with the charter which states: “the responsibilities of the BOA are to be absorbed by the Planning Commission, since positions on the adjustment board are difficult to fill.”

The first order of business was a proposed variance for a Final Plat of a proposed affordable housing project at 245 Front St., which had been previously approved but because of a staff error, the required applicant signatures were not submitted in a timely fashion. Without the variance, the applicant would be required to start the process over from the beginning.

This project is intended to provide affordable housing for community members. Several who testified, during public comment, that they were in favor of the variance mentioned Monument firefighters and first responders as those who might benefit the most.

Vice Chair Ours raised a question about language in the variance resolution, which implied that the applicant had somehow been at fault, when in fact it was determined that the planning staff had been in error. There was agreement that the resolution should be slightly reworded to properly reflect what had transpired and to clarify any potential confusion.

Planning Commission attorney Bob Cole had proposed that the applicant be required to sign a liability waiver, but community member Bonnie Hildebrandt asked the commission to support the variance without the liability waiver. Commissioner Green agreed that the variance should proceed without the liability waiver and suggested that the code should be revised so that this situation couldn’t happen again. She also raised concerns about whether the variance was the appropriate remedy for the situation.

Following the discussion about those technical issues, the Planning Commission passed the proposed variance unanimously, 7-0.

The remainder of the meeting was devoted to several other code revisions where language clarifications should make applicant requirements clearer and assist staff in being as specific as possible to avoid confusion.

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The next Planning Commission meeting will be held on Sept. 13 at Town Hall, 645 Beacon Lite Road. The agenda and packet can be found at https://townofmonument.org.

Leslie Hanks can be reached at lesliehanks@ocn.me.

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