Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Ryan, can you note the role?

Role is noted with all members in attendance. Deborah spear is attending via teleconference.

First we'll approve the agenda. Can I entertain a second motion and a second? So move solemn. Any discussion on the agenda? Seeing none all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed.

Aye.

Next item approval of the minutes. Can I get a motion and a second?

Motion to approve.

Second Aiken. Any discussion on the minutes? Seeing none all in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All opposed? We'll now move on to open forum. At this time, if any member of the public may may make a brief announcement or invitation request time in the agenda for an item not listed. All right. Seeing none, we'll close the open forum.

Now convene as the Board of Adjustment. The Board of Adjustment is a seven member board which has the power to hear requests for variances and special exceptions. The concurring vote of two thirds of the full membership is necessary for approval of any action by the board. A seven member board requires five votes, a six member board requires five votes, and a five member board requires five votes. In accordance with Robert's rules of order, we require a motion to approve a request before the request can be debated.

As a matter of policy, all motions are made in the positive. Board, under specific powers granted it by the state, shall authorize variances from the zoning requirements where special conditions existing on the land will result in unnecessary hardship for the applicant, financial disadvantage to the property owner shall not constitute proof of unnecessary hardship. And, before we get started, I'd like to make a note. I there is an item on the agenda tonight, item five b, the variances for Mount Calvary Church. I am a neighbor of that property.

I'm familiar with the conflict of interest, criteria, and I have no financial interest in the church. Do not stand to gain in any way. I'm not a member of the church. There's no quid pro quo or anything else that I would deem a conflict of interest. I plan to preside over the and discuss that particular item.

Mister chair, I'd like to make a statement as well. For transparency, I live on the next block just west of the church that has a project that's coming tonight. I also do not receive any financial or material benefits from the project or the church, and I will follow the chair's guidance on whether this is good for disclosure or if I need to recluse myself.

Thank you. Commissioner Hunter, any discussion on this?

I do have one thing to say as well. The company that did the architectural services for it is a company that I work for. It's not a project that I'm a

part of at all. The project manager's in another city. It's not something that I am involved with at all.

Thank you.

And I should also

Go ahead. Commissioner Speer.

I would also like to say that I'm with church so I think that this I probably do have a conflict of interest so I won't accuse myself from that particular voting.

Thank you commissioner spear noted. Any further discussion on this Excuse me. Okay. We'll move on to item five a, variants for accessory building. Notice hereby given mason wintabore has made a request for variance on Block 5 Kleitz edition also known as 1231 West A Street South the request is for a larger than permitted accessory building in residence r one b single family district to the floor area of accessory buildings on lots with an area of two acres or more shall not exceed 2,000 square feet for all buildings combined and all floors combined or 100% of the largest floor area of one story of the principal building whichever is less.

Thank

you Mr. Chair the first item on the agenda is a variance for an accessory building proposed at 12:31 West eighth Street South. The applicant is the property owner Mason Winterborg. The property is located in a residence R1B single family district. Request is for a 3,645 square foot accessory structure.

In the zoning district, the maximum allowed for an accessory structure is 2,000 square feet if the lot is greater than two acres. In this case, it is a three acre lot. The staff recommendation on the variance application is denial, and the Board of Adjustments action would be to approve, amend, or deny. Section 6,515 of our municipal ordinance lists the criteria for variances. One, due to special conditions, a literal enforcement of the provisions of the ordinance will result in unnecessary hardship, and the variance shall not violate the spirit of the ordinance, and substantial justice may be achieved as a result of the variance.

Unique circumstances apply to the property, which do not apply to other properties in the same vicinity or district. The variance is necessary for the preservation of a property right that is substantially the same as that possessed by owners of other property in the same district. The variance requested is the minimum variance which would alleviate the hardship and reasonable use of the property is not permitted under the terms of this chapter. The property in question 1231 West 8th Street South is highlighted in the blue box on the left map and a rough site plan is presented on the right half. It's the general location of the proposed accessory structure.

This does show that it would meet the required setbacks. This would be a site layout of where the accessory structure would be located. There's currently a two stall garage with the dashed box kind of to the left of the proposed structure. The proposed accessory structure would be a garage with a covered patio, office, and storage areas, as well as a bathroom. Here are the elevation drawings presented showing the proposed design of the structure.

The north elevation on the top left would be the front facing side, the side you would see from 8th Street South. East elevation would be facing towards the primary structure. West elevation would be facing towards the neighboring property. Here is a proposed floor plan for the structure. It would show a 60 by 40 garage along with a covered patio, office space, bathroom and storage area.

As I mentioned, the total square footage does then come up to that 3,645 square feet. And that does end staff's report and would stand for any questions.

Thank you, Ryan. I'll entertain a motion for and second for approval.

So moved.

Second.

Now open this up for public testimony if the applicant is present and would like to address the commission now would be the time. You can come up and yep. Just come up and state your name and residence. Thank you.

I'm Mason Winterbor. I'm here with my wife Katie. I was born and raised in Brookings. Don't intend to ever leave. I certainly appreciate your guys' time serving on this committee.

I understand what task you guys have in protecting the overall integrity of the town, aesthetically making sure we don't look like Fort Pierce. No offense to Fort Pierce but it's not as aesthetically pleasing as Brookings. One thing I wanted to point out, Ryan, guess I'm in the total square footage I think you mentioned 3,600 a couple times. Is that including what the the covered patio?

Correct. That includes the patio, the bathroom, office storage and the garage.

Okay, yep. I was going off of like for structure that has walls I was going off of the 3,284 square feet not counting the covered patio but I understand you guys count that. So again I just want to thank you guys. I understand what purpose you serve. Did a lot of investigation, met with multiple different builders.

Ultimately, plan one was just to attach it to the house and then I wouldn't have to be here taking up your guys' valuable time. After a couple different contractors gave their opinion, there was really, really two consensus with the house's layout on the property. You would obstruct too many doors, too many windows. You'd have to reposition the septic system. There are multiple 30 year old trees where the older I get, I appreciate trees because they take forever to grow.

I really don't want to cut down 30 year old trees. Where the main utility feed comes into the house, that would have to be completely rerouted. There was just too many headaches. Some of them, yes, monetary, which I understand is not qualification for a hardship. Some of them were also just from an aesthetic standpoint, it would not look good with how things are laid out on the property.

The one thing I scratch my head a little bit about and I understand you can't have a rule or something in the building codes or the zoning requirements for every single possibility. But right now, the language in the zoning code, whatever you want to call it, really caps out at two acres. There's no additional relief given for a three acre property, a four acre, a five acre property. We're sitting at three acres with that. I find myself constantly accumulating more tools, gotta remove snow, gotta remove ice, gotta pick up the leaves, gotta mow the grass, gotta keep the trees trimmed and whatnot and find myself seemingly weakly running out of space to put those things.

Also, I don't want to be that property that looks like a used car lot. I like to hunt and fish and with that comes additional pieces of equipment. So we're really looking for this variance so we can protect and preserve the look of our house. We can get things of value under a roof where they're going to last longer and we can keep our overall property looking more aesthetically pleasing. I feel like we're not going too overboard in wanting to exceed the 2,000 just because we do have three acres.

Our lot is naturally really protected and blocked by a lot of mature trees and other surrounding areas. So in my own assessment along with conversations with all of my neighbors that I've known for, most of them for twenty plus years, there is not that concern of it being an eyesore. It's going to match the house. It's not going to look like a pole barn. It's going to match the house.

It's going to look aesthetically pleasing. And I guess we're just looking to find some common ground and hopefully get the variance for something we've been dreaming about for a very long time. That's the reason we bought the property, the space to be able to do this. But I also do understand that we have restrictions in place. We're just asking to find some common ground and maybe come to an agreement on getting that variance. So I provided a lot of detail. Hopefully that was helpful. I guess I'd be open to any questions, comments, concerns anybody might have.

Yeah thank you. We'll call you back up if we do open it up see if anyone else wants to speak on the issue first. Okay. Anyone else that wishes to speak in favor of this variance request? Is there anyone here to speak in opposition to the variance request?

All right, seeing none, we'll open this up to, board questions and comments.

I'd like to ask a couple of questions to the applicant. So with the I understand this is mainly for storing vehicles and stuff like that. Would you be opposed to the idea of changing this up a little bit in terms of like maybe the covered patio is a concession and some of those other storage areas to maybe get the square footage down?

I guess I'd be open to it. We actually we're getting ready to renovate the entire house. It's 30 years old. It's dated. We kind of see this as a forever house.

So this drawing came from an architect and the covered patio just kind of went with, for lack of a better term, the overall vibe or look. And we just thought that covered patio tied in nice and would alleviate some of the feeling of, okay, there's a big pole shed next to a nice residential house. So I guess we would be open to it. That covered porch, I'd kind of hate to lose that to be 100% honest. The rest of the design, I mean, I guess we would be open to finding common ground.

But I feel like unless I park a lot of things outside and then provide kind of an eyesore that I'm trying to avoid, I feel like this drawing kind of represents the space that we do need. But yes, would be open to making some concessions.

So just to validate, you're saying that the primary use of the space is the storage?

Yes.

It also has in it a huge office So space as can you tell us more about that?

Yeah, I am a financial advisor here in town. With the evolution of technology, thanks to COVID, I find myself working at home more frequently. So I would turn that into almost of an at home office where I would see myself maybe on some Fridays, Saturday mornings, crappy weather out or have a sick kid, be able to conduct day to day work without having to leave the house.

Yeah, so that kind of aligns with some of my questioning is the use of the building and if there's anything compromise what that looks like. Hearing you say that it's going to be a personal office space and then also storage, it makes me take a pause to see like what could fit.

Yeah, I think we're just trying to keep it flexible just because maybe I have a desk and a computer and they're, I'm never going to bring clients to my house to meet. That would be done at my office but that room likely serve multiple purposes where I would have maybe a desk, a computer, a TV but then also it would be overflow storage space for things we just seemingly run out of room for. So I wouldn't be able to confidently tell you like it's 100% just serving this purpose or just serving that purpose. We're trying to design it in a way where it's very flexible and can capture a lot of use to give us our bang for our buck, I guess.

Any other questions? Mr. Chair?

One for the I was looking at the when I looked through the application, there's some properties named Rasmussen, Moriarty. Are those within city limits? Are those joint jurisdiction? Maybe Ryan or?

Those are outside of the city limits. Those would be in the joint jurisdiction area. Okay.

And included those. Understand that they're zone different where they're not in city limits, but they are totally surrounded by properties that are in city limits. And I'm guessing when my current development was brought into city limits, if those properties wouldn't have stables and horses or other things, they would also be into city limits. So I included that just to show like I can hit a golf ball from my backyard to two different properties that have over 7,000 square foot accessory structures or multiple structures where again trying to find some common ground. In my opinion, I'm asking for I think a reasonable amount over the 2,000 allowance and there are these people within a five iron from my backyard that have a lot of square footage for accessory buildings.

Mr. Chair, appreciate that as well. I understand that our job is to look at this as its own today. And I also respect that the ordinance as written, it caps out at 2,000 square feet. And while we'll discuss and make our determination based upon this in front of us today, based upon the ordinance as it's written, I would suggest or make the suggestion that staff or us do look at is this still relevant for properties that are above, and to your point, that are three or more.

And so I'd have us look what is the impact of the properties that are currently within Brookings and that does this still stand true for what we would want to do in the future to stay consistent.

Thank you. Any other comments, questions for the applicant? All right, hearing none, we'll close the public testimony. Ryan, can you call the vote?

Jameson? Here. I did have a comment not for the applicant or question for the applicant.

Yes go ahead.

Yep. Okay. And I appreciate all you've brought to us in your thorough explanation. And I do appreciate, know, having the extra space and the ordinance capping out at 2,000 square feet for two acres. I think where I'm struggling is if you take a thousand foot per acre basically is how the ordinance is written and you scale that to three acres we arrive at about 3,000 square

feet. The

request in front of us is for beyond that. Even if you take out the three sixty one square foot of covered patio, right, if you just look at enclosed square footage. And I think to keep this logical and to kind of set a precedent of something that we can apply elsewhere as this happens with the few dozen properties that are over two acres. In Brookings, I would like to propose if you'd be willing to to be open to this, propose that we cap the enclosed square footage for this at 3,000 square feet rather than over 2,000. It's just kind of whatever you propose.

It's something to hold it to, and I'd be interested to hear other commissioners' thoughts.

I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, and I agree. I wonder if that's not a amendment to the ordinance itself. I I think it is.

Yeah, this was something that was brought up once before, maybe like a year ago or something. Somebody had requested, but they were requesting multiple variances all in one go because they were doing something similar to like a poll barn. So I do appreciate the effort that you've put in to make sure that visually it's matching characteristically and the work you've done to make sure that you're meeting all the other regulations and everything. But yeah, I think at that time we talked about like, yeah, if you extended it out and just did a thousand per acre or something, I think this is probably close enough. I didn't even necessarily think that we covered patios in square footages, so I wasn't even thinking of that one before coming here.

But yeah, I just wanted to say I appreciate it, and I think the 3,000 square feet is definitely a good number.

Is it?

I'm not sure how to phrase it.

Is that something can we do that legally? Like is that that's okay to do? Like I'm just ask I'm generally asking like I don't. Can we put a cap on a project of variance and say we'll allow anything up to 3,000 feet on this property?

You can make an amendment to the motion. So I mean, a similar example, I think we've done that with like a sign in the past where we've kept it at a certain square footage for the variance of a sign. You can make an amendment to cap it at a certain square footage.

I just want to hold the number. That's okay thank you.

I would like to propose an amendment then to limit the square footage to 3,000 square feet of enclosed space. Not without the or without the 361 square foot of the covered patio.

Need a second?

I'll second that.

Yep. We'll need to open this now for public discussion. You have thoughts on this?

Something's better than nothing.

I'll put it that way.

Any other audience members wish to weigh in on this? Okay, we'll close public testimony. Open back up to the board. Thoughts or comments? Questions here?

Alright Ryan, call the roll please.

On the amendment, Aiken? Yes. Jamieson? Yes. Spear?

Yes.

Heinrich? Yes. Braun? Yes. Letty?

No. Solem? Yes. That motion passes. The original motion would now be to approve up to 3,000 square feet.

We just did that.

Call the vote vote on that.

On the main motion. Speer?

Yes. Heinrich? Yes. Braun? Yes. Letty?

No. Solem? Yes. Aiken? Yes. Jameson? Yes. Motion passes.

Thank you move on now to item five B. Mount Calvary Lutheran Church has made a request for variances on sub lots a b and C of the North 10 feet of Lot 8 And Lots 910, And 11, Block 2 Of Morehouse Edition and the South 55 feet of Lot 8, Block 2 Of Morehouse Edition, also known as 629 And 621 9th Avenue. The first request is for variance to expand a nonconforming building by more than 25% of its gross floor area as permitted under section 90 four-4C1. The second request is for a reduced front yard setback. The residents r two district requires twenty twenty five foot minimum front yard setback the third request is for reduced off street parking the fourth request is for variance for the location of the garbage receptacle and reduced landscaping requirements.

The fifth request is for a variance to exceed the maximum allowable building height of 35 feet. Ryan, can you introduce the topic, please?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This next variance is a group of variances proposed for an expansion of the Mount Calvary Lutheran Church located at 621 And 629 9th Avenue. The church is located within our residence R 22 family district. In that zoning district, churches are allowed as a permanent special use if they are located along a collector or arterial street.

In Mount Calvary Lutheran Church's case, they are not located on a collector or arterial, so they are considered a nonconforming use. So the first request for a variance would be to expand the nonconforming use beyond the cap of 25% expansion for nonconforming uses. The second request would be for a reduced front yard setback for a proposed carport as a part of the addition. The third variance request would be for a reduction of the required parking. The fourth variance would be for minimum required landscaping areas.

We did receive an updated drawing that did make a correction to the height and that variance will no longer be necessary. So it's just the four variances. The height variance is no longer applicable. The staff recommendation for the variance request is to approve. The Board of Adjustments action would be to approve, amend or deny.

Again, section 66.15 of our ordinance states that the following should apply for variance requests due to special conditions, a literal enforcement of the provisions of the ordinance will result in unnecessary hardship, and the variance will not validate the spirit of the ordinance, and substantial justice may be achieved as a result of the variance. Unique circumstances apply to the property, which do not apply to other properties in the same vicinity or district. The variance is necessary for the preservation of a property right that is essentially the same as that possessed by owners of other property in the same district. The variance requested is the minimum variance which would alleviate the hardship and reasonable use of the property is not permitted under the terms of this chapter. The church property is currently a number of parcels on the corner of 7th Street and 9th Avenue.

It does currently contain the existing church and a parsonage home to the south of the church and a parking lot to the south of the parsonage. The expansion plans would be to remove the parsonage and expand the church, building a new primary congressional area on the south side of the property. Looking at the forbearances that are requested, the first was a 25 expansion. They would be well beyond the 25% for gross square footage of expansion. The second variance would be for that front yard setback for the carport, which is proposed to be a covered extension of the building, a covered carport on the east side along a drive thru drop off pickup area along 9th Avenue.

The required front yard setback there would be 25 feet and the carport would have a minimum setback of three feet eight onefour inches. The third variance would be for reduced off street parking. Currently, there is a parking lot on the south side of the church. There is also a row of diagonal parking to the west along the alleyway. There would be some of the alleyway parking spots removed in this site plan.

They do show a request for boulevard parking that would not count towards the required off street parking. That would be considered on street parking. And so there would be a net shortage of 26 off street parking spaces for the third variance. And that fourth variance, as I mentioned, would be regarding landscaping. For a civic use like a church, the required landscaping would be 10 foot of landscape area along a front yard, in this case, 7th Street and 9th Avenue, and a five foot dedicated side yard landscape area, which in this case would apply to the alleyway to the west of the property, being that the property does abut that alleyway with the parking.

And there's really no way to apply that landscape dedication along that alleyway as the current site is built out. Elevation drawings shown here. The north elevation on the top, east elevation on the middle and south elevation on the bottom. Those give an elevation visual of the carport noted in two. That's second request for a variance.

Here are some renderings design renderings of the project using those elevations. And I would note, before I close my staff report, that this has gone through the Historic Preservation Commission. This project, it's in the University Residential Historic District. They were required to go through state historic review through an elevenone review process. They did meet with the Historic Preservation Commission a number of times and ultimately submitted a report to them that the historic preservation commission did accept. And with that, I would end my staff report and stand for any questions.

Thank you, Ryan. At this time, entertain a motion and second for approval. So moved, solemn. Second. Thank you. We will now open for public testimony if the applicant is present could please address the commission.

Thank you. My name is Kyle Rausch with Dakota Land Design, and I'm representing the owners on this project.

My name is Matthew Weiss, architect on the project with DesignArt Group.

Alright. So, you know, Mount Calvary Church, they're pretty excited to get to where they are currently with this design. And as you guys know, they've been through years of iterations on this project. The the church has been considering several different designs. And I think what's different about this design is we're

fully keeping it inside

designs the current land footprint and and most of these variances that we're talking today have to do with that and I'll I'll get into that kind of why we got there in a minute. The north portion of the church is 75 years old and so I'm I'm guessing it was built before it was a nonconforming use. And so it's been here a long time. It's definitely due for an expansion and some updating hopefully this year. So the the congregation is adamant that they wanted to be a compliment to this neighborhood and to the state historic and to the the historic district and as and as far as they wanted to be a compliment to the neighbors as well.

And we spent a lot of time going back and forth, getting a lot of neighbor feedback, making sure that we were kind of checking the boxes that we're hopefully needing to check. The original design that they had a year or two ago when they started, it met most of requirements. It had much more room for parking. They were expanding towards 6th Street. So getting towards if they can build on 6th Street, it can become a conforming use being an arterial, which would require that, wouldn't require that variance for a gross increase, 25% increase.

And then they had more room for trash receptacles, landscaping and everything else. However, after meeting with as many neighbors as possible and coordinating with the state and local historic preservation boards, the number one concern that everybody had was, to save, conforming historic homes in this district. And so we've modified and improved that design to accomplish those historic district needs and we've met most of our neighborly design requests. One thing I wanna say to neighbors that are here or that are listening tonight is that we really appreciate everybody's feedback and we've got decisions that we still need to make ongoing and so we want to keep communication open and make sure that you guys are reaching out and we're reaching out and definitely keeping communication. We don't have every answer as we go through selections whether it's landscaping or lighting and things that we need to do.

We still wanna get some information on that and make sure that we're getting your feedback. So Ryan, well I guess this sheet here would work. So the first variance, and I think you're voting on all the variances at once, so I'll just go through kind of all my notes on each variance. The first variance requiring the 25% expansion, of course, that's because we're not on an elect on Arterial or Collector Street. And essentially, backed as what I was talking about earlier, it's just because we wanted to stay within our land footprint.

The church does own a few properties south of the alley that's south here, and that was the original plan. At this point in time, all of those homes are going to stay preserved and be kept as homes. The second variance request regarding front yard setback exception, as Ryan stated, the only thing that is outside of our setback lines is the covered drive up, And this was a very important concern for the congregation when they hired us to, Matt and I to work on this design. You know, they just wanted something that was safe and convenient. And as we had parking constraints because we are minimized on our site, they just they just wanted somewhere where they could drop off, pick up all mobility levels and ages.

Obviously, there's all ages that go to this congregation and then that way if they need to park on the street or park a little bit further away, they can do so. We considered cantilevering the covered drive up and what we found was it doesn't fit kind of our historic appeal we were going for. It kinda modernized it. And so, you know, essentially, what we're asking for here is a variance for the two columns in the front of the covered drive because it you know, being cantilevered wouldn't have required a variance, but it is something that's very important to the church. The third variance is requesting a reduction of on street park of off street parking.

And as Ryan talked about, we're currently working with the city, and that's kind of our next step is to finalize some boulevard parking instead of building a sprawling parking lot outside of our boundary. And again, I mean this was actually brought up by the neighborhood, by all the neighbors that we spoke with and they said that that they offered that as a solution that they would said most of them, anybody that we talked to and asked said that they would be in support of Boulevard parking in lieu of us building a parking lot off-site, which was the original plan. The fourth variance as Ryan discussed requesting reduced landscaping requirements, it's a continuation of just the same comments is that we're tight here, we're trying to be conservative of our property that we have, but we're we're surrounded on four sides on this lot by driving lanes. So we've got the West Alley and the South Alley and then we've got 7th Street and 9th Avenue on the east and the north. So we're essentially a constrained site.

And as I discussed earlier, we're condensed our design to fall entirely into that church footprint. The trash receptacles on the West Side, you can see that the existing church, which has their current trash receptacles on the West Side, we're we're doing basically what they were doing, what they are doing now. We're just we're moving it slightly and making it conform with our site plan. But it'll be screened, it'll meet city of city spec as far as it'll look really good and it'll kind of be in the same spot. We're tight to that alley.

The existing building was tight to that alley. And so our building is just a continuation of the existing building there. And then the 10 foot landscape requirement on the east side, again, that's challenging because, as you know, we're trying to fit in that boulevard parking and stuff. So I think that's it. The fifth variance, as Ryan said, is being removed for tonight, and that was just kind of a a typo on our original variance request. But the church as a whole will be the exact same height as the existing portion of the church and so we tried to match that just to minimize make sure we're not blocking light from the neighbors and make sure that it's kind of a cohesive design. So, thank you. You have anything?

I really just want to echo some of the thoughts but you did a great job Kyle as always. The big thing here is that this was a very constrained site with a lot of different variables one of which is grading which we really have not talked about either. But this is really essentially kind of like an infill lot and usually those require some degree of flexibility to see things happen. The church desires a high degree of accessibility. It's one of the big reasons they're going forward with this addition to get more of a slab on grade type and the drive up canopy is a big part of that.

And this is designed to fit within an historic district disturb the houses to the south which was the big issue really that BHPC had on the original design produced a year ago. So we look forward to your review and comments.

Thank you. We may call you back up, but we'll open it up to anyone else who would like to speak in favor of these variants requests. Actually, before that, point of order, we confirm that this motion was for all the variances together. Okay. So, if anyone else would like to speak in favor of this please come up.

All right we'll open it up to anyone that would like to speak in with concerns or in opposition. Okay, that's fine. Hello,

my name is Sandra Kalise and I am a neighbor at 811 6th Street, so I came to speak in favor. More though, I would like this opportunity to help educate our community. I'm a professional architect. I have practiced for I think at least seventeen years in the built environment. So I would like to speak a little bit about supporting a less parking for this project.

So bringing the Strong Town's mission to this discussion of parking lots, the Strong Town movement of people across America, they've demonstrated the impact and flaws of suburban development patterns in our communities. Our communities collectively have parking mandates that have led to a lot of overbuilt and unnecessary parking lots. This is a neighborhood, right? So cities like Brookings must end minimum parking requirements. Building mandates stifles the creation of homes and businesses so this doesn't remove any housing other than the personage that the church has owned for a long time.

This is about land. This is a broader discussion that I'm hoping to help educate our community on. It's about land and money. The more land that's used for city mandated parking means less land for much much needed homes and wealth generating businesses. A parking lot can be expensive to build costing anywhere between 5,000 and 500 or 5,050 thousand per space.

50,000 is for underground parking which you're not seeing yet in Brookings but you will. When you force developers to include a minimum parking amount, you're adding tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to a project. Parking mandates also cost cities money. Parking mandates don't just affect the private development side, they also cost cities a lot of money by making destinations farther and further apart. You end up with more streets and roads per capita, more storm water runoff to manage and more liabilities on the city's books.

So our strong town mission and our common ground on good communities equals not always doing what's right for your community and that's not always following the spreadsheet of a zoning code in a book. So I feel very strongly that less parking is better. So, this ask for less parking, support as not only a neighbor, but a professional in the built environment. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else like to speak, from the public on this issue?

Mister chair, I do wanna know if that staff did receive a call, this afternoon with a few concerns from, a neighboring property owner regarding location of the trash and parking along the alleyway, along with potential drainage concerns or questions on that alleyway.

Thank you. Okay. So, we'll close, public testimony. We'll open this up to board discussion, questions, comments. We'll we'll note that we have the, ability to call out individual variances if we so choose.

Mr. Chair. I see in the picture I'm assuming is the I just want clarification on this. Is the for the covered awning, I can see it in the picture the way the car is facing. Is that the intended like that's in the yeah top left is that the intended path of the cars and the only reason I ask is because if they're coming in from the alleyway I could see a bottleneck there whereas if they're coming in this way they have a little bit more so that the direct okay that's thank you.

Mr. Chair? Commissioner Aiken. Question for staff, I think. I know this body doesn't have much say over on street parking, whether or not it gets approved. We've seen requests come in more and more now for on street parking. Can staff let us know has the city been receptive to that? Have those requests been granted in the past?

It's reviewed on a case by case basis. There have been a few that get approved and a few that do not get approved. I think one that has been approved recently there was the Boulevard Park in approval for the Ivy Center just west of downtown. There was one for the Campanile Lofts just north of the Bankstar Building. So, there have been a couple of cases that have been approved by staff recently, but it's reviewed on a case by case basis, looking at the volume of traffic on that street.

Is it a collector, is it a nurturer, is it a local traffic volume? There have been cases that have been denied for smaller scale ones like maybe a duplex or a condo type development. So it's case by case.

Okay. So, simply seeing it on here does not mean it's a given.

Correct. This would not be none of the boulevard parking would be approved by the Planning Commission or Board of Adjustment. That would be a staff decision internally. And again, would be based off of staff's review of the feasibility of allowing that on those streets. Okay. Thank you.

Then a follow-up question. Yes. Then for the church, what would be the impact if the city does not approve that boulevard parking?

That is a great question. At that point we might have to back up just a little bit and kinda figure out some other things. I mean, it was something that was very important to the congregation that we that we get that boulevard parking and kinda where we are right now. And as as Ryan said, we don't have formal approval yet because we needed to get through this entire process for approval. But we kinda based our design upon that and we had positive reception from the city when we started.

So we a pre meeting and we talked about hey, to, or we've got a lot of people asking us to reduce our parking footprint. And so how can we do that? And we kind of worked through some challenges and some solutions and this was a good solution. At the time the city unofficially felt like this was a good solution because it did save the homes. It reduced our parking footprint and we're we feel like we're a pretty good candidate for boulevard parking because you know we need parking on Sundays and Wednesdays and otherwise it's going to be a pretty pretty wide open space and and pretty pretty empty.

And so what's nice about that is that the congregate the church pays for it. They pay for the construction. They pay for all the maintenance. But because it's in the boulevard, it will be some city parking there open to the public. And the city the last we talked to them and again, the official agreement isn't made yet, but the last we talked to them is they'd like to restrict parking just to church hours, with signage that says, know, maybe this is parking here on Sundays and Wednesdays or or kind of whatever we agree upon.

Quick question, Kyle. Go ahead, Scott.

Well, kind of along those lines, have there been any like car counts done, like on a Sunday, like how many there?

Yeah, matter of fact, talking with the city that they asked us to show a need for boulevard parking. And so we've been documenting and taking pictures of parking counts on-site. What kind numbers?

Do you know?

I can't tell you offhand, but it's essentially what we're doing is we're so we're utilizing the same parking lot. We're rebuild we're redoing the parking lot, but we're striping it the same. It'll be identical in size. I mean we'll kinda destroy it and put it back exactly the way it was. And so the pictures that we're taking, I can get that for you. Just just not right now, but we're essentially just taking photos and doing counts of everything in the parking lot and then park down the street for those times and just kinda show you how how sprawled out it gets on occasion.

Okay. Yep.

And then I guess me following up on the concern call, can you talk about the drainage? And is there any other options for the trash?

Yes. Trash, I don't know if trash is a giant sticking point for us, and we would definitely be open to some other options. So, you know, we didn't come in here saying, hey, we gotta put trash here. Trash was there originally kind of in this area. I think it's a little bit more obtrusive now. So I would love to we've got some ideas for trash. We don't have a ton of options, but but I think we've got some really good ideas. And so my question maybe to Ryan is if we adjusted where trash goes and it was maybe in some conforming space that made sense, do we need to come back here and ask for reapproval of that?

If the garbage location were in a side or rear yard but not within one of the required landscape areas, that would be an approved location. So the landscape variance, there's kind of two parts to the landscape variance. One is garbage receptacles cannot be located in the landscape area, which in this case, you would need a full five foot landscape green space along that entire west property line. So you'd still need a variance for the landscape area, lack of a landscape area of five feet on that west. But if the garbage receptacle were moved out, you wouldn't need that component of the landscape variance.

Got you. And just so you guys know, I mean, I'm not saying it looks better or worse currently than what will make it. But currently that alleyway is just a very small strip of rock and then they do have a lot of stuff going on on that side. And so we're hoping to make some improvements in that area. And yeah, we can definitely think of some alternative options for trash enclosures and then I'm guessing if we can move it into a conforming space, we would definitely go for it. You can see there's not a ton of options on-site, yeah.

Mr. Chair, just to follow-up, I want to verify that even without boulevard parking, there is access to parking around the block. Like if we didn't do that.

It's on parking.

Correct.

Yep.

Correct. Great. Thank you. And then I do want to suggest that we do review. I think Sandra brought up a lot of good points about our city and minimum parking. We've had a lot of things over the last year that I've been here that have been around parking. And so do we have the right numbers for minimum parking and should we potentially look at changing that?

Go ahead. Okay. I guess a couple of things about, I guess, my opinion on parking. One, boulevard parking is nice. You know, diagonal can be dangerous.

One thing to keep in mind. And also parking lots are a safer spot, let's say for children coming in and out versus if you have less parking area in a parking lot, now you're parking one block, two blocks down the street, walking with your children. You know, there are advantages to having a parking lot because can be a safer spot too for your kids getting in and out. Thank

you. Commissioner Letty asked my question about the call in concerns which you addressed. Thank you. On the variance regarding landscaping, the church has some really well maintained and tasteful landscaping now. Can you talk briefly about the vision for landscaping in light of the variance request?

I can. I can tell you that we don't have anything finalized. Right now, we're trying to meet the landscaping requirements, but we have the budget to meet or exceed the current landscaping that the church has. We have I've I've heard a lot of comments that everybody likes the church's current landscaping and that is the church's interest to to meet or exceed what they have. We did do everything we can to design the site in a way to preserve trees. Also, we're planting a couple of new trees here along the East Side. But I've heard that concern that I've heard that our landscaping looks great and what's, I want to make sure the new landscaping looks great and that will absolutely match or better what we've done.

You. Any other questions or comments from the board at this time?

I just want to say that I think it looks really great. I think it's going to fit in with the area really well. And I am also a proponent of reduced parking mandates. So, I'm on board for that as well. Ryan,

correct me if I'm wrong. I guess we had a little and I meant to say it before, but I do think we have recently, in the last few years, reduced those requirements. Yes?

We did look at our minimum parking regulations a few years ago. Not all of the uses were reduced at that time. We focused mostly on multifamily, residential, and commercial. I can't remember if we would have changed parking for a church. I don't think that was a part of the discussion at that time. But we have and we'll continue to look into parking for sure.

Anything else? Alright, call the vote. Before we do that just keep in mind you're voting on approval of all the variances. Ryan can you call the vote?

Schmeichel? Yes. Jamieson?

Yes. Heinrich?

Yes. Braun? Yes.

Letty? Yes. Solem? Yes.

Aiken? Yes. Motion passes.

Thank you we will, now convene as the planning commission. The city planning commission is a nine member commission whose function it is to make recommendations of city commission regarding requests for land use classification changes, subdivision plats, conditional use permits, zoning ordinance amendments, and other matters. This commission makes their recommendation based on the adopted comprehensive plan for the physical development of the city of Brookings and the surrounding area. As a matter of policy, all motions are made in the positive. After a motion is moved and seconded it is open for debate.

Those supporting the motion shall in turn give their reasons. Those opposing the motion shall then offer their reasons. After everyone has been given a chance to be heard the commission shall review the testimony information presented making finding the fact and forward their recommendation to the city commission. And just a programming note we do have a hard stop at 07:00 for a county meeting. First item on the agenda Planning Commission agenda is six a.

Legacy Storage Condos LLC has submitted a preliminary plat on the following real estate situated in the city of Brookings in Brookings County, South Dakota to wit. A portion of lot one of Clark's second edition to be preliminary platted as lots one dash two in blocks in block two and lots one dash three in block III of Legacy Edition. Ryan, can you introduce the topic, please?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first Planning Commission item is a preliminary plat for the proposed lots one through three in Block III and lots one and two in Block II of Legacy Edition. This is located in the Industrial I-one Light District. That zoning district was approved by the Planning Commission, and it will go to a second reading with the City Council next Tuesday.

So assuming that passes, this would be an I-one light industrial district. Staff recommendation for the permitting platter's approval. Previously, staff had a recommendation on here to require that the 34th Avenue right of way be increased to 40 feet. Since then, staff has spoken with the developer, and their intention is to have that 40 foot right of way. That was shown on their perimeter plot but not caught by staff.

So the recommendation is to approve as presented. The Planning Commission's action would be to approve, amend, or deny, and that recommendation would be a that action would be a recommendation made to city council. The project area is outlined roughly in the yellow area. This is the former Clark addition that we have recently seen in annexation, future land use map amendment and rezone four. This would actually be a second phase of the legacy addition.

We recently approved a legacy addition Block one in the green area to the south. Eventually, this would all be joined together as a much larger legacy addition. But for now, we're looking at this Phase two, which is a bit separated from Block 1 shown in green. The proposed preliminary plat would be, as I mentioned, lots one and two in Block 2, which would be on the south side of the proposed Mission Street, and Lots one through 3 in Block 3, which would be to the north of the proposed Mission Street. The Mission Street proposed right of way would be a 60 foot right of way with connections to 34th Avenue.

And it is shown on here sort of as a dead end at the end of lots two and Block 2 and lots three and Block 3. The intention would be that Mission Street would continue further into this development in future phases. And that would end staff's reports and we stand for any questions.

Thank you Ryan I'll entertain a motion for approval and second. So moved.

Second.

Thank you open this for public testimony if the applicants present would like to address the commission.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Justin Booker with Banner Associates. We are the civil engineer for the developer. Ryan kind of addressed pretty much everything that I can think of other than we do have a utility plan and a grading plan that was attached to this, has not shown on the screen.

We've also been working with the city on a drainage plan and there's also some floodplain and some different pieces of the property and we're kind of working through some of that. And that's partly why some of that's not shown at this time and is kind of in the future phase. So we just there's kind of impetus to get these lots moving a little bit quicker and that's kind of why this has shown the way it is at this time. I do think we'll come back shortly, you know, the next few months with the rest of it. There's just some other things that need to be worked out first.

Thank you. We'll call you up if we have any other questions. Is there anyone else, like to speak in favor of this? Seeing none, does anyone oppose, would like to speak in opposition? All right, seeing none, we'll open it, we'll close public testimony, open it up to the commission. Any comments questions. Seeing none we'll call vote ranking call vote.

Heinrich Yes. Braun? Yes.

Leddy? Yes. Solem? Yes.

Aiken? Yes. Schmeichel? Yes. Jameson? Yes. Speer?

Yes.

Limmer? Yes. Motion passes.

Thank you. Move on to item 6B preliminary plat. PMBK Limited LLC has submitted a preliminary plat on the following real estate situated in the city of Brookings, in Brookings County, South Dakota to Witt, outlet Outlot C D E F G H I, and J of the Northwest Corner of the Southeast Corner, and Section 11, Township 109, Range 50, to be preliminary platted as Block 1 Of South Haven Addition. Ryan, can you introduce the topic?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next item is a preliminary plat of Block 1 Of South Haven Addition. The applicant does PMVK Limited LLC. This is located in the joint jurisdiction B3 Heavy District.

The staff recommendation of the preliminary plat is to approve with the following conditions. The proposed Kalani Place must be a private roadway, and the right of way for Main Avenue must be increased to 40 feet to meet the required arterial right of way. Planning Commission's action will be to approve, amend, or deny, and that action will be a recommendation made to city council. The preliminary plat area is shown in the yellow shaded area. It's currently a number of out lots that the applicant is proposing to combine into one block, Block 1 of South Haven addition.

The staff recommendations involve the Kalani Place right of way and Main Avenue South. So there is a portion of Kalani Place that's currently private in the adjacent subdivision to the east. This would be the Vos Kneipp addition. That right of way is only a 30 the road is only a 30 foot wide road. It does not meet the standards for a city right of way.

So the previous road was required to be a private drive, and staff would require Clonic Place again to be a private drive in the extended area. That could change if properties to the north are ever platted and right of way is added on those sides of the property, If it can eventually meet the requirements of the width right of way, it could become public at that time. But staff is recommending at this time that Clawney Place would remain private. And then Main Avenue South, I believe the existing right of way is 33 feet. Staff would recommend widening that to 40 feet to meet the minimum requirements for the arterial. Beyond that, staff had no other comments and would stand for any questions.

Thank you, Ryan. At this time, I'll entertain a motion for approval and second. Please note whether you're including the staff recommended conditions.

I'll move to improve including the, recommendations by staff.

Second.

All right thank you at this time open for public testimony if the applicant is present could address the commission.

My name is Jason Peterson. I'm a civil design, Inc. Civil engineer working on this project. The two conditions are known to the applicant regarding the right of way on the North Side Kalani Place. Currently as noted it's 30 feet and that's a continuation or what we're proposing as continuation of that 30 foot right away to Main Avenue South.

So the applicant is accepting of that being a private roadway. Also, the other condition would be the additional right away on Main Avenue South that was already known to us. It just didn't show up on the drawing at this time. The proposed layout that we've been looking at already includes the appropriate setback for that and we plan to update that drawing to include the additional right of way. With that, I guess open it up to any questions that you Yeah,

thank you. Well, I don't think there is anyone else perhaps but we'll call you up if we have further questions. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else would like to speak in favor or opposition of this item? Seeing none we'll close public testimony open to commission questions and comments. Seeing none we'll call vote.

Braun? Yes. Letty?

Yes. Solem? Yes.

Aiken? Yes. Schmeichel? Yes. Jameson? Yes. Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich? Yes. Limmer? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. We will move on to item six c. City of Brookings has submitted amendments to chapter 94 article six division five section 94 dash four seventy three of the zoning ordinance pertaining to the number of allowed projecting signs on a building face. Ryan can you introduce the topic.

Thank you Mr. Chair. This next item is an ordinance amendment proposal which I'm trying to pull up here now. Staff recently reviewed a proposed sign permit, which did have a previous variance on it to allow an additional projecting sign on a downtown building. Currently, our sign ordinance limits projecting signs to one per building face.

And it came to staff's attention that it doesn't necessarily work in our downtown district where we have, in certain cases, buildings that are larger than the typical downtown building of 25 feet in width. And so staff's proposal is to amend the ordinance to allow one for every 25 feet in the downtown district only rather than one per building as a hard line. Looks like the marked version won't come up, but I'm going to open up the clean version here. And that's not it. That's the home occupation.

So I'll take another direction here. All right. So, Table four in our sign ordinance describes the requirements for certain types of signs. So, if you go to our projecting sign, which our downtown, an example of a projecting sign would be like the Pizza King sign as a projecting sign. It comes away from the facade.

It projects out into above the sidewalk. Currently, our ordinance allows one per building face, and it must be it's limited to 48 square feet in size, must have at least a 10 foot vertical clearance and at least a two foot horizontal clearance. The proposal would be to change this subscript here to allow one for every 25 feet in the Business B. 1 District. And staff would end our report there and stay for any questions.

Thank you at this time we' entertain a motion for approval and a second.

Motion to approve. Second.

Thank you open public testimony anyone wish to speak in favor or opposition to this item closed public testimony and open to the commission comments questions.

Mr. Chair of a question for Ryan Let's just say we have Blue Sky State and everybody wants a new sign. What would that max us out in downtown?

So I'm pulling up some maps here to kind of take a look at how this would impact downtown. For example, the area that this came into play was a particular building downtown next to the two buildings that did burn down previously. This building here likely at some point was two separate building phases. It was combined into one building phase. Now they would be, by ordinance, required to have allowed only one sign.

You can see one here and one here, so I did receive a variance for that previously. This proposal would allow that by right. So that's the case where that's a 50 foot wide downtown building as opposed to our typical 25 foot wide building. Not every downtown building has a projecting sign. Looks like these two on the block did have projecting signs.

As you go further north, I think there's less projecting signs. I guess we would count that one here at the Rudes furniture as I was projecting. There's not many examples where the buildings are wider than the 25 feet, so most of them would still be capped at one. But in certain cases where there's like a double building, it could allow so for example, 420 Main Avenue there, it looks like they have a wider than standard lot. There's a few cases where it may come up.

We don't foresee this being like a major increase in projecting signs just allowing them to occur by a right where those buildings are combined into one building from the 25 foot originally.

Just to clarify so a 49 foot wide building would be allowed one and a 50 foot building would be allowed two is that correct? Or a 26 foot building would be allowed two. It's it would have to be over 50 or over for a second sign. Is that is that correct?

Do we have the S Drive here? I don't know if we do. Unfortunately, I couldn't pull up that ordinance as written, I wanna check and see if it was for each 25, is it for each 25 feet? Or would So the

the way it reads, Ryan, is the Business B 1 Central District one sign shall be permitted for each 25 feet of building fronting a public street.

So I think they would have if you were 49, I think you would still get two. You'd have to be beyond if you went beyond 50, could have three. There's no cases of that. I don't believe downtown on Main Avenue. But if it was 49 feet, they could still have two. If have 25 feet, you get one. If you go beyond 25 feet, between twenty five and fifty, could have a second.

Does that also mean on corner lots?

Would apply to corner lots. So the side streets, that same formula would apply.

So along the side of it, they could have four projecting signs?

Potentially. So, for example, the corner here, I think this is the vault. You know, they would have a 165 feet. Well, nope, there's ends. 125 feet roughly. So I say I'm going apply there.

Is there maybe another way to word it too that, let's say, one of these buildings that has apartments up top. If there's like an office that decides to open up there and have like a little law firm or whatever on the 2nd Floor and they want their own little sign, is there something that could account for multilevel businesses or one door per business or one sign per business or one sign per primary entrance or something like that to make it a little bit more, or have some type of way that you can come in here and say, hey, here's why we need a variance and have that easily sort of allowable? We do have that in other locations in the ordinance. For example,

lots with buildings that function as malls or shopping centers and contain five, more than five businesses shall be allowed 50 square feet of additional signage for each additional business exceeding five businesses. We have something like that, which I think applies to our would you envision something like that maybe as an addition?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, because like I said, it doesn't necessarily even have to be written in per se, but something that can be, have an exception for needs or whatever. Don't have to come up with every possible solution right now. I'm just trying to think through some various things of what I've seen in other cities where more of the downtown is filled in with businesses eventually.

I'd be curious to know how many second stories in downtown actually would have businesses in our downtown. Specifically, I'm not sure with the ADA requirements. I think it's mostly residential units.

Yeah, I can't think of any. Yeah, that's what I mean by things that I've seen in other cities. Sure.

You mentioned on the Grunwald Building, there had been a second sign that needed a variance. How frequent have we had to allow variances for this? For this specific

section of ordinance, I think that's the only one that we've ever needed to give for a second projecting sign. That's the only one I can think of. But again, there are other buildings downtown that have a bit wider of a building face.

If I may, think one of the other things too is we've seen where some of these buildings downtown have kind of become multi tenant. And so when they do exceed that 25 feet of frontage, Historically, they've been 25 foot lots in the downtown. When you combine a couple and you have these larger buildings, it seemed to make sense to treat them like as if they were individual lots. We also have wall signage, which they're allowed a certain percentage. I think in the downtown, it's 20% of the wall area that they can use in signage, which is flat against.

We don't see probably as much of the projecting from staff's perspective. We'd really like to see the building owners present a signage plan. What we typically hear is figure it out with the city. And so the tenants get caught in it. So we were just trying to be a little bit more accommodating and maybe open up the projected signs in the downtown district because it is a little bit more unique for our community than a lot of the other business districts.

How would the projected signs interact with the overall signage square footage requirement?

Overall, you know, in the downtown district, it's really just you're allowed the the 25% of your facade and signage, and you're allowed in addition to that 25% the projecting signs up to 48 square feet per sign. So it wouldn't impact the overall it would increase the signage rates.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Alright, seeing none, we'll call the vote. Luddy? Yes. Solem? Yes.

Aiken?

Yes.

Schmeichel?

Yes.

Jameson? Yes. Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich? Yes. Braun? Yes. Lemmer?

Yes. Motion passes. We do have a joint jurisdiction meeting at 07:00. This would be a great place to pause here. Do we want to move next door immediately after to continue, Mike? Would that be or do we move this to, do we move the other items to the March meeting?

I think that's a discussion commission. We can certainly move these two items to to the March meeting. We may kind of clean up more of the home occupation and present it more as an ordinance format and maybe open it to a public hearing. And then we could certainly amend it if you're okay with that. Or if you would like to, after the joint meeting, move next door and reconvene, we could have the discussion on this.

I want to be cognizant of your time. And also I needed to remind you of February 17. There will be a city council study session with a training opportunity on conflict of interest. And so the Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, and the City Council are all invited to that training session. And notice will be published, a potential quorum at that study session as well to cover it.

It's up to the Planning Commission if you wanna stick around longer tonight or if you it's not super time sensitive but it is something that we want to get eventually to ordinance format. And if you wanna do it tonight and have a discussion or if you want us to bring it back in ordinance format in March we can do that.

The other item is the annual report which again is not time sensitive. We can certainly do the annual report in March.

I'm in favor of moving it to next month. Sounds great.

And just a follow-up on the annual report, Should we come prepared to discuss that as well? Is that being presented to us?

It's partially both. So the annual report will include kind of some statistics from the previous year on the number of rezones and variances that we reviewed. But it comes with some discussion on challenges, opportunities, priorities for the following year, the Planning Commission. Come prepared to discuss that.

Great. Thanks, Ryan.

Alright I'll entertain a motion

to to make a motion

to move those to the March meeting?

We don't need to make a motion for that.

Okay.

Thank you though. I'll entertain a motion and a second to adjourn. So moved. Second. Second. Alright we're adjourned.