Members of the Englewood City Council heard two hours of comments and questions from residents during the Oct. 12 community forum regarding proposed amendments to city codes regarding issues surrounding parking recreational vehicles in residential areas.
The council scheduled the meeting to gather information on the issues from residents but the final decision on the amendments probably won’t be made until after the first of the year.
“This issue will not be an action item on the city council agenda until after the November election,” Mayor Jim Woodward told the crowd of about 70 residents. “After the Nov. 1 election, these issues will again be discussed at a study session and the consensus is we will hold a second public hearing, which probably will be at the second meeting in November.”
The council tradition is not to vote on an issue the night of the public hearing so the issue probably will on the agenda for second reading in December.
“If there are significant changes to the proposals and it sounds like there will be, the changed will be included and the issues will again be scheduled for second reading,” Woodward said. “So, the final decision probably won’t be made until sometime in January.”
Gary Condreay, Englewood Police Neighborhood Services Commander, moderated the Oct. 12 forum. He talked about how the proposed changes to the existing code regulations and answered questions from members of the audience.
He said, if residents don’t get the answers to their questions or the information they were seeking during the meeting, they can call him at 303-762-2434 or Police Sgt. Mark McKay, who is in charge of code enforcement at 762-2493.
Condreay explained most of the proposals are less restrictive than the current regulations. For example, he said one of the big proposed differences is changing the weight limit from 7,000 pounds to 10,000 pounds to align with state standards. He also noted the weight limit doesn’t apply to recreational vehicles.
There were smiles and laughter when one resident asked it the 10,000-pound weight limit applied to their boat that is a cabin cruiser that they live on when it is in the water.
Condreay said that is an interesting question and he’ll have to do some research to come up with an answer.
The issue was raised about the way the wording of the grandfather clause for existing gravel driveways that indicated any improvements requiring a building permit would make it necessary to bring the driveway up to the current hard-surface code.
Council members agreed there must deal with the grandfather clause wording because it was never the intention to require driveway changes if a homeowner did improvements like putting a shed in the back yard.
There were questions about the issues such as the sight distance requirements and the hard surface rules. Also there were several residents raised objections to the proposals and said they wanted the code regulations to remain as they are and to be enforced.