WOODLAND PARK • If they had known the Aug. 25 Woodland Park Planning Commission would be so short, the commissioners might have planned a work session.

In fact, Commissioner Kenneth Kennedy asked if work-session subjects could be pre-staged to be added to short agendas. Commissioner Larry Larsen asked why the planning commission couldn’t have a regular meeting on the second Thursday and a work session on the fourth Thursday of each month.

Planning Director Karen Schminke said that might give council too many cases to handle at a single meeting.

“Woodland Park has a labor-intensive-planning process when compared to other cities,” she said. “City council just doesn’t have the time to take on a lot of cases when they pile up.”

Commissioner Shawn Nielsen asked about setting aside one evening every quarter for work sessions.

The work-session question came up because of a joint council/planning commission work session that took place before the Aug. 18 council meeting. At that meeting, council members and commissioners decided to have the planning commission take up the draft ordinance on short-term rentals.

Now, on Sept. 8, instead of a regular meeting, the commission will probably have an involved and lengthy work session.

If all goes as planned, the commission will have the short-term rentals ordinance public hearing Sept. 22 and it will go to council Oct. 6 on initial posting.

“If we don’t get enough public input, the ordinance might be delayed,” Commissioner Carrol Harvey said. “We don’t want the short-term rentals moratorium hanging over our heads. We’ll just have to ask council to extend it.”

There was only one case on the Aug. 25 commission meeting agenda — a request for a one-year preliminary plat extension for the Pines at Tamarac by applicant and property owner David Garretson and presented by city contract-planner Will Charles.

The 20.6-acre, 26-single-family-unit project is located at 205 Sourdough Road in the Pines at Tamarac planned unit development on Lot 2, Block 1 of the Dayspring Christian Fellowship property.

The preliminary plat and PUD were initially approved in 2019 for two years. They were both extended in 2021, but preliminary plats are extended just one year at a time, while PUDs are extended two years at a time.

When asked why construction on the project hasn’t started, Schminke said, “Everything is taking longer than anyone expected. Also, costs are increasing almost by the hour.”

Commissioners voted to approve the extension. Unlike PUD extensions, preliminary plat extensions are solely in the commissioners’ hands — city council is not involved in the decision.

In other business, Larsen asked fellow commissioners to support the nomination of former Woodland Park Planning Director Sally Riley to fill a commission vacancy.

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