Lakewood City Planning Commission members on Feb. 19 reviewed the draft Envision Lakewood 2040 comprehensive plan and asked staff to return with firmer implementation details, including measurable targets and a clearer adoption timeline.

Commission Chair Kolkmeier opened the study session by describing the two-track process: the comprehensive plan provides the citys vision and strategies while a zoning ordinance rewrite would translate those policies into regulatory language. Roger Waddnell, comprehensive planning manager, told commissioners the draft comp plan provides 25 goals and about 160 strategies and a future land-use map meant to guide the zoning update.

Commissioners pressed staff on whether the draft includes adequate quantitative measures. Commissioner Buckley said the goals felt largely qualitative and asked how the plan will ensure accountability. "How do we know that we've achieved any of these grand goals, or that any of these strategies have worked if we don't have some way to measure it?" Buckley asked. Several commissioners echoed that request for metrics and a public timeline for the separate implementation document.

Christy Ivanoff, senior planner and project manager for the comprehensive plan, described the draft vision elements and the public-engagement work that informed them. "Lakewood is a welcoming, safe, inclusive, sustainable, and innovative community with thriving neighborhoods, attainable housing, economic opportunity, inspiring parks, and vibrant cultural amenities," Ivanoff read from the draft vision statement. She summarized engagement figures: three council-appointed advisory groups composed of 47 residents collectively contributed roughly 1,000 volunteer hours and reviewed multiple plan iterations, and the project team gathered thousands of community comments via events, pop-ups and online surveys.

Ivanoff and Waddnell said the document before the commission is the core policy text — vision statement, guiding principles, goals, strategies, a draft glossary and a future land-use map with nine categories — and that a formatted version with supplemental narrative and graphics will be posted ahead of public hearings. The schedule they cited: a city council study session on March 17, planning commission public hearings on April 9 and April 23, and a city council hearing on May 12.

Several commissioners urged including specific targets in the plan rather than deferring all metrics to a later implementation document. Commissioner Kolkmeier said separating implementation into a different document could reduce legal force if the commission and council later diverge on adoption and urged staff to clarify the adoption and review process for the implementation plan. Commissioner Furman and others suggested that some aspirational objectives (for example, goals tied to waste reduction, homelessness, traffic safety or greenhouse gas reductions) are appropriate to state numerically in the plan.

Staff and consultants said they favor separating the implementation framework to allow updates over the 15-year horizon of the plan, arguing flexibility can keep metrics useful and current. "Once we have the goals and strategies firmly adopted, then we can really dive into identifying those metrics," Ivanoff said. Waddnell added that separating may allow periodic adjustments if tracking methods or available data change.

Commissioners also offered detailed drafting suggestions: referencing existing council work on housing and inclusionary tools, restoring sustainability metrics the city previously adopted (several commissioners cited targets tied to 2020 baselines), refining strategy numbering and cross-referencing repeated strategies under multiple goals, and clarifying the glossary definition for "naturally occurring affordable housing." Commissioner Kochemeyer asked that strategies tied to municipal actions (for example, municipal fleet decarbonization) aim higher than a planning study and instead target elimination of carbon where feasible.

What happens next: staff will refine the policy text and formatting for the publicly posted draft and present the formatted version to planning commission in advance of the April hearings. Commissioners asked staff to return with a clearer timeline and public-engagement plan for the separate implementation document and identified specific strategy language they want revised ahead of public hearings.

The session included sustained discussion; commissioners voiced broad support for the draft's direction while pressing for clearer metrics and implementation accountability before formal adoption.