Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

like to call to order the city of Belton Planning Commission meeting. This is Tuesday, April 21st. Could we have the roll call, please? Chairman McFerson, here. Mayor Larkkey, here. Council member Bryan, here. Commissioner Christensen, here. Commissioner Crate, Commissioner Mcdana, Commissioner Rugles here, Commissioner Shut here, Commissioner Walton here.

All right. Thank you. Uh, first item that we have this evening is going to be review and approval of our minutes from the March 17, 26 meeting. Those have been distributed. Hopefully, you've had a chance to look at those. any corrections, additions, subtractions that need to be made or is there a motion to accept as printed? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from March 17th, 2026 as written. Second. Second it. Thank you. Motion, a second. Any other comments? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. I.

Opposed. All right, we will move on to new business. There are a few changes that will be uh made to the agenda that was originally announced and so we will address those as we go through uh item by item. Uh the first item that we have uh for new business this evening is the presentation of proj. This is a request from Jim's muffler for approval of a final development plan for an expansion of a vehicle repair general use in an M1 light industrial zoning district for additional parking and approval of preliminary and final plats for Jim's muffler, a one lot subdivision of44 plus minus acres located at the northeast corner of North Scott Avenue and East Marquy Parkway. and we will have our city planner, Miss Fernandez, present.

Thank you, chair. Um, an application was filed for a preliminary and final plat and final development plan to plat the property and expand the off streetet parking lot on the corner of North Scott Avenue and East Marquy Parkway. The property is bound by other commercial and industrial uses. The proposed parking lot expansion on the south side of the existing building uh is proposed to provide seven additional angled parking spaces specifically for customer parking. Uh the code requires that these types of expansions and other related items be brought into co- compliance um in the Norcot corridor overlay area. Um, so there are a couple conditions in the staff report um where the existing parking lot would need to be resurfaced, restriped where it does not meet property maintenance standards. Um, and the existing dumpster enclosure u would need to be um enclosed on the site. Um, and there are a couple of modifications requested by the applicant here. Since the property is zoned M1 light industrial, um we do require trash enclosures to be located in the rear yard. He is asking for modification to allow it in the front yard and shrubs to be used in lie of trees around the parking lot due to the power lines on the site. Um the proposed parking lot is surrounded by a six-foot landscape buffer. Um which is required for all off- streetet parking areas, especially along street frontages. Um and this is where the applicant has requested that modification. There are quite a few power lines around that area there. Um so he's requesting only shrubs be planted around there. Um which staff

believes is acceptable due to sight constraints. um but has requested that all um plantings be a minimum of three feet in height just so we are shielding any um lights from the vehicles to surrounding properties. Um the dumpster enclosure that's proposed here is proposed to be a movable dumpster enclosure. Um the current site doesn't allow the dumpster to be placed at the rear of the property. Um, but he has proposed to do a uh movable dumpster enclosure so it doesn't necessarily have to sit right in front of the property, but that is the easiest way for the trash to be picked up at this location. So staff believes that that's acceptable just due to um the lack of other locations for that um dumpster enclosure. Um, with that, uh, staff recommends approval of the preliminary and final plat and final development plan with the four conditions listed in the staff report. Uh, the applicant's here for questions and I can answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you. And I'll just ask the applicant, is there anything additional that you would like us to be aware of? Uh, saved by the bill. Sorry. That's all right. That was Jim. He he knew that we were we're asking uh anything that staff did not cover that you would like to make us aware of. Well, if you'll come to the microphone here, podium uh so that state your name and it on

those at home will be able to hear. Um, do the plants have to go? You see the drawing up there and that initial entryway there on the first one. Do they have to go all along there since all those light poles are there? The um street lights deals are there and all that stuff's there. You're not going to see them. I mean there just it's all blocked in that whole corner up there on the where the elbow kind of is there where the street. So just based on the requirements in the development code there does have to be a sixoot landscape buffer

all the way around the parking area. Um but if there are utility boxes or light poles you can definitely plant around those. Um, but that landscape buffer does have to be continuous. I just was asking. Yeah. And then the dumpster deal that there's no way to put it behind either side of the shop because you can't dump the trash truck can't get there. Can't get into it. So, that's kind of like the location where it would be, but enclosed, but Okay.

That's pretty much all I got. And I'm sure staff will give direction as far as like the the planting of the uh and have they given uh suggestions as to what type of bush or plant? I was going to put them little torpedo looking evergreens. Okay, that's my thinking. And that falls within our our uh plan for the city. I've seen everybody else put them in. So yes, that would be an acceptable Okay. shrub or tree small tree to put there. Yes.

Okay. All right. Any I will this was announced and this is one of the one of the changes. Uh this was announced originally as a public hearing and given notice but it was not necessary. And so I do want to give the opportunity if there's anyone here that would like to speak either in favor or in opposition uh to this request, if you'll come to the to the podium, state your name and uh and we would love to hear what you have to say. Ask once more anyone that would like to speak in favor or in opposition to this plan. So even though it's not a formal public hearing, we'll give you that opportunity since it was announced this way. Okay. Uh seeing none, anyone on the commission have any questions or comments that you would like to make? If not, we could entertain.

Mr. Chair, I'd make a motion to approve project 26-005 as presented. Second it. All right. Thank you. Do you have a motion and second? We'll ask one final time if there's any additional comments or questions. And seeing none, could we have the roll call, please? Commissioner Shut, I. Mayor Larkkey, yes. Commissioner Walton, I. Chairman McFerson, I. Commissioner Ruggles, yes. Commissioner Christensen, yes. Council member Pryan, I.

All right. And so what we just voted on was the final should have made this clear. This was for the final development plan. Uh we would also need a motion and a vote for the preliminary plat. Uh motion to approve the preliminary plat for proje. All right. Motion and two seconds. I hope you got who the second came from because I was faster. I don't know about that. Got two seconds. All right, we're going to change the meeting if that's not correct.

Put my name first. All right. Any any comments then? Could we have the roll call on the motion for the preliminary plat? Council member Pryan. I. Mayor Larkkey. Yes. Commissioner Christensen. Yes. Commissioner Shut. Hi. Commissioner Walton. I. Chairman McFerson. I. Commissioner Ruggles. Yes. All right. And we will try one more. This is for the approval of the final plat. And we would just need a motion and second for this.

I'll make a motion we approve the final plat. Second. Motion and second. And could we have the roll call, please? Commissioner Rugles, yes. Commissioner Walton, yes. Chairman McFersonson, I. Commissioner Shut, I. Mayor Larkkey, yes. Commissioner Christensen, yes. Council member Pryan, I. All right. Thank you. So we have approved all three items uh for for your request there gyms. So congratulations. Thank you.

Okay, moving on to our next item. Uh this will be presentation of P OJ26-006. It was a request from Freedom Flex for approval of reszoning from C2 general commercial to M1 light industrial and approval of a preliminary development plan and special use permit for a 13,750 ft flex space, minor major space, and 50,000 square foot of mini warehouse space in an M1 light industrial zoning district located on a 5.04 104 plus or minus acre lot at the southwest corner of East 171st Street and 58 Highway and South Prospect Avenue. And uh this item we are uh or we have received a request to have it continue to the May 5th planning commission. And so we would need a

motion to continue project 26-006 to May 5th 2026 planning commission. Second. Second. All right, we have a motion and our seconds for this. All those in favor of the uh continuing of this item say I. I.

Any opposed? All right, moving on to item C. Presentation of CPA 26-00001 request from community development staff for the consideration of an amendment to the 2050 comprehensive plan future land plan future land use plan map for a portion of the Graham efforts sub area bound by North Cast Parkway, South Mullen Road and East 195th Street and Interstate 49. 9. And uh this has been announced that there would be a public hearing for this, but we have uh had this request from staff withdrawn and so it is not an item that we will be considering and there is no need for a public hearing on this at this time. Uh, moving on to item D, presentation of UDCT26-00001, request from community development staff for approval of United Development Code UDC text amendments to articles two, permits and five, rental registration and inspection program in chapter 10, buildings and structures and appendix A, schedule of fees and charges related related to permitting and inspection process of related fees. And we will hear from our community development director, Mr. Wright.

All right. Thank you, chair. Um, before you this evening, our UDC text amendments for the some changes to both the permits article in the uh chapter 10 of the UDC and rental registrations, which is article five in the same chapter. Um, these are primarily related to just some cleanup items related to the rental registration program. um now that we've had it in effect for about 16 months. Uh just some things that we have learned over the past 16 months of um implementation of that. And then um on the permit section, it's really about um expedited timelines and penalty fees related to um work being done without a uh permit to ensure that we have um compliance in a timely manner. Um, so I'll just kind of walk through the redline version um that was in the packet. There's also a clean version in the packet that will be officially proposed to be put with the ordinance. Um, so in article 2 related to permits, um, the first uh change is to section 10-53 and really that's about changing um the validity of a permit application. So permit application is if somebody's submitting a request for a permit uh that currently is on file for generally 180 day or 180 days uh we're proposing to reduce that to 90 days. Um typically if somebody is going to obtain a permit they are going to obtain that within 90 days of application. There are um extensions in that process if we're still working with the applicant um going back and forth with plan review. So it's not immediately 90 days. It's more of if you've submitted a permit and it's just been sitting there for 90 days with no activity, we're going to withdraw that for from our system because it does create kind of this backlog that we have to follow up on. Um and so having permits that have been in

here for six months creates um some challenges for us. Um and then just a note um that every time that there's a passing inspection, the permits automatically extended for an additional 180 days from that passing date. Um, just to clarify that in the code. That's been our policy, but wanted to make that clear in the code. Um, the big addition to this chapter is a new section regarding work without a permit. Uh, we've had a a lot of issues over the last year uh with uh work being done without permits. most um property owners, contractors, um tenants comply fairly quickly with that, but there's always um a few at any given time that we have some challenges with. And so we've broken that out into minor and major permits. Minor permits are those permits that typically once you submit an application are typically approved within a few days and work is typically can realistically be done within a week to 10 days. And then major permits are those where there's usually plan reviews and construction can take six months to a year, year and a half to complete. Um and so there's two different timelines for each of those based on um kind of the expectation. So, if you get caught with doing work um and you're doing the minor permit, you have a stop work order and three business days to submit your application and 10 business or 10 days to actually obtain the permit. Um otherwise, it goes to uh violation. Um and then you have um 30 days to have your passing inspection. Um and then the major permit essentially it's on a similar time frame although you have 10 days to submit the application because typically there may be additional plans

that are required with that and then you have um 90 days to get the permit which is going to be the standard process for any permit and then beyond that it's essentially this just the normal process for those major permits. The exceptions are occasionally there are major permits where there may have been some work done clearly out of compliance with the code. Uh we just ask that those items be brought up to code within 60 days while they continue the rest of the project. Um so that's it on the permit side. On the rental regista registration side, um again just some general cleanup. The biggest thing here is uh we're trying to mirror the penalty process. um uh same as business licensing uh which is previously what business uh rental registrations were under. They were under a landlord license. Um and that essentially if um your registration expires, you have a 30-day grace period without any penalty fee. if it's not renewed within that 30-day period, um the ne the next day there's a penalty fee that's added and then that penalty fee accumulates um after each 30-day period. Um expiration dates are based off of um the original expiration date. So, if you don't renew for two two months, you're not going to get 12 months from that date. It's just automat it's you're not going to get 14 months out of a 12-month period. Um, and then inspection process. We're already doing this as well, but we have um a late regist or a reinspection fee. We're also adding late inspection fees, and those are for the rental registrations uh where they move somebody in without getting the inspection done. So, there's a penalty for that. Um, we already have that requirement, but again, because we've we've now implemented this, we're seeing how it works. we're realizing

where there are some additional improvements that need to be made in the code to better um ensure that that process is happening. And then clarifying that we already have it in the code that you're not required, you still have to register, but you're not required to have inspections if your unit is less than three years old. Um but we're just clarifying that, you know, if if landlords want to do that, they are more than welcome to schedule um once they've had one tenant in there. If somebody moves out within a year, uh they can get that inspection. And then failed inspections have the fee. Again, we're already applying that. We're just making that clear. And then the last section is to appendix A, which are the actual fees. And so the rental renewal late penalty uh late penalty fee in there is $50 per registration for each 30-day period passed due. And then the rental uh reinspections and late inspection fees are $20 per inspection or um for reinspection or each late inspection. And then just a catchall on here again this is also in our policy but wanted to make it clear in the code that we do have a return fee. So anytime that there is a payment that is made and that transaction is denied um we get charged by our payment processor. So uh we um include that fee plus essentially a small administrative fee uh to cover that. So that's a $20 return fee for each failed payment that bounces back. So those are the changes. I'm happy to answer any questions on any of those

questions or comments from commissioners. Seeing none, we could uh open up a public hearing on this because this has been announced uh that a public hearing would be made available. So, we will call that to order. Is there anyone that would like to speak in favor or in opposition to any of the uh UDC text amendments as they've been explained? One more time, anyone to speak in favor or in opposition? And we will close the public hearing on that. And uh we could entertain a motion. Motion to adjurnn.

You got a vote or Oh, he he said he didn't say what kind of motion. Motion motion to approve the UDC text amendments as presented. Second. All right. Motion and a second not to adjourn, but rather to approve the uh UDC text codes as they have been explained. For the record, I will withdraw my motion to adjourn for a second. because that's a motion that we have to vote on and we can't do anything about. So, uh, could we have the roll call, please? Commissioner Christensen, yes. Commissioner Shut, I. Council member Pryan, I. Commissioner Walton, I. Mayor Larky,

yes. Commissioner Rugles, yes. Chairman McFerson, I. So, that's what happens when we don't have Commissioner Mcdana here, right? uh make the the he's the expert the right motion for us at that time. Uh we'll ask the director, do you have anything in the way of a unified development code update?

Yes. Um we did receive chapter 2, which is the processes and procedures chapter last week. So, we reviewed that um and shared that with our city attorneys today. Um so, we'll continue that review. Uh we're about we're down to just a few other chapters that we've not received yet. So they are working on the zoning chapter as well as the non-residential design standards. So those are kind of the last two big chapters and then the rest of the chapters are relatively small. So there's the sign code which we don't anticipate any significant changes to that just some tweaks to that and then supplemental chapters which are just kind of additional things that get added towards the end but the bulk of the development code is coming together and hopefully we will have a draft here in the next month or two that we can share.

Okay, very good. And were there any other items that you had to share in the layover report? Uh yeah, in addition to the Freedom Flex uh development that was already continued to May 5th, we also have the plateau um preliminary plat revision that will be coming on May 5th. Um that's essentially the remaining undeveloped 60 acres of that uh single family subdivision. There'll be 180 new single family lots there. Um so we're excited to bring that forward at the next meeting. All right, great. Sounds good. And uh I'm sure by now everybody knows that Olive Garden is open.

We got an Olive Garden. Yeah. I I don't know how we got that, but uh it sure took long enough. Uh yeah, I tried.

We appreciate all the work that everyone put into uh to making that happen. That's for sure. And I think uh that we would be we would miss an opportunity if we did not thank all of the city staff, our public works department, especially our uh law enforcement, fire, u all of those uh the emergency services team. Uh, I saw the mayor right out front uh when the storm went through last week and uh it made me feel good to see how well our city responded. But what made me even more proud was when I saw how the citizens responded and helped out and jumped in to to help each other. uh made me really proud to say that I was from Belton and to see the coverage that we were getting from uh the local news. Uh I had someone texted me late Friday night that lives in Arizona and they said, "What is going on? I never see Belton in the national news. What's going on out there?" Uh and uh you know we we uh had what could have been an extremely dangerous and bad situation, but it was handled extremely well by all of our staff and and just appreciate the work that that all have done in in doing that. So,

all right. Now, we could entertain a motion. I'm just going to tag on to that. I talked to the city manager today and we're not done yet. Obviously, everything is not cleaned up yet. So, they were concentrating on the brush, which still isn't done. Um, but look for more announcements about trash and other items to get it back the way it was as close as possible and planting new trees and all that kind of stuff, I'm sure, is on the way as well. So, looking forward to putting everything back together again as as best we can. Absolutely. So, now I'm ready. Now you're ready. Motion to adjurnn. All right, we have a motion. Is there a second? We have a second. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed?