By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

The purpose behind the revisions of Chapter 16 of the Los Alamos County Code is simple, Will Gleason of Dekker, Perich and Sabatini (DPS), said Feb. 15.

“The basic premise of this is simple,” he said. “Let’s make our development process more predictable, more straight forward and just less grey area for people to have to interpret.”

During an open house held Feb. 15 representatives from DPS, the contractor the County hired to assist in revising Chapter 16, presented the most up-to-date revisions.

This draft will be presented to Los Alamos County Council during its regular meeting March 15.

Ultimately, Gleason said the hope is that council adopts the revised chapter in the fall.

Amending Chapter 16 is being done in modules, Jessica Lawlis of DPS said. Module one deals with use regulations, module two addresses development standards and module three will focus on administration and procedures.

She explained all the modules build off each other. Public comments that were given for module 1 were picked up in module 2, which was the focus during the recent open house.

Lawlis added module two addresses district-specific standards; these districts include residential, nonresidential, and mixed-use zones. The module also focuses on overlay standards and universal standards that apply to all districts. These standards include dimensional standards, access and connectivity, off-street parking and loading, landscaping, screening and buffering, walls, fences and gates, outdoor lighting and signage.

“One of the great benefits that this update will do is make it simpler to understand what is in Chapter 16, and to layout on a page … some of the basic information about a specific zone,” Gleason said.

For instance, the proposed changes in the chapter for residential districts clearly show minimum acreage, lot width, setbacks, height and density, he said. Residents would have critical information on one page along with a graphic.

Here are some highlights from the presentation:

Park and Open Space Zones

In response to public comment, Lawlis said structure of park and open space zones was changed. Rather than one recreation park overlay, this draft proposes one new park and open space district with three sub zones. One sub zone, the public park sub zone, would contain any public park owned by the County. Another sub zone, Lawlis said, is the active open space sub zone, which is designated to any active spaces that have a larger impact on land use. For this sub zone there would be allowances for spaces such as sports fields, limited recreational facilities and the stables. Finally, the passive open space sub zone would be given to spaces that are passive recreational and have limited ability to have facilities and/or higher impact uses.

Outdoor lighting

A consensus hasn’t been reached for outdoor lighting standards, Lawlis said. However, the current draft of Chapter 16 meets national best practices from the Illuminating Engineering Society. She added work is being done to provide sufficient lighting while also providing safety and security. This section revises standards for site lighting, specialized lighting, right-of-way lighting standards to use current light measurement units.

“This section definitely falls more into the performance standard category than what you have,” Lawlis said. “There will be a level of administration that is going to have to look at lighting standards and measuring lighting, so that is a major update from what you have, and it will require lighting plans to be part of application submittals going forward.”

Signage updates

Significant changes are proposed for signage, Lawlis said. She explained this is due to federal regulations that mandate content neutral signage. One of the major changes is that the code speaks about permanent versus temporary signs. Permanent signage, which is freestanding or wall mounted signs, is regulated per square footage. Also, new standards will be proposed for temporary signs such as size and times they can be posted.

Access and connectivity

Gleason said work is being done to make access and connectivity more internal to each site. As well as have Chapter 16 be more consistent with pedestrian pathways through parking lots and make site visibility more germane to traffic. Existing driveway standards were carried over.

Off street parking and loading

Updates were made in Chapter 16 regarding what is required in terms of parking, Gleason said, as well as adding some consistent parking dimension standards, clarifying shared parking reductions, and making reductions for on-street parking, adding bicycle amenities and electric vehicle charging stations.

Landscape screening and buffering

Gleason said additional standards for landscape buffers, especially areas adjacent to residential sites, were included. Also, the revisions created more consistent streetscapes, setback areas, parking lot landscaping standards and boosted screening standards for storage facilities and other things people don’t generally want to see.

The public weighed in on the proposed revisions. One participant, Wendy Staples, encouraged reviewing the amendments to outdoor lighting.

“I am very much in agreement with the concept of dark skies and a big concern that I have … is that you would provide guidance to Planning and Zoning and that sounds wonderful but I … live on Nichols Street and I have a street light right outside my front door … recently I had a new LED put in … it was so incredibly bright, it scares me what type of light we have going for in this proposal,” she said. “I was able to get it removed … however, please, please, we need to have flexibility written in this because it was like daytime at midnight in my front yard … this is a huge thing … we need to be careful with what we do because we could ruin this town … what was in my yard is the new type of lighting and that is very, very, bright. I don’t think anyone would want that in their front yard let alone a parking lot, which glares throughout the canyons … what makes Los Alamos beautiful, is its nights skies.”

To give feedback on Chapter 16 revisions, email Lawlis at Jessical@dpsdesign.org or Bryce Ternet at Bryce.Ternet@lacnm.us.