Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright, we're gonna get started. Welcome to the City of Brookings Planning Zoning Commission meeting. Brian, can you call the roll?

Roll is noted. We do have Levy, Jamieson and Schmeichel absent.

Thank you. Entertain a motion for approval of the agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Any discussion on the agenda? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? I'll entertain a motion for approval of the minutes.

So moved. Second.

You. Any comments on the corrections to the minutes? Seeing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye. All

opposed? Okay move on to item four the open forum. This time any member of the public may make a brief announcement or invitation request time the agenda for an item not listed. Items to be added to the agenda will be scheduled at the end of the meeting. Any requested action items may be scheduled for a future date.

Seeing none will convene now as the board of adjustment. 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 a 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. The board under specific powers granted it by the stage authorize variances from 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.

Next item on the agenda is 5a variance request notice hereby given that clint anderson has made a request for two variances on Lot 6 including the West 40 all of Lot 7 and Lot 8 Of Railroads addition also known as 108118 Front Street The first request is for a reduced rear yard setback the second is for a reduced front yard setback per section 94 dash one three seven the minimum rear setback is 20 feet and the minimum front yard setback is 40 feet ryan can you introduce the topic.

Thank you mr. Chair First item on the agenda is a set of variances for 80108 And 1118 Front Street. The applicant is Clint Anderson. This is located in Industrial I 2 Heavy District. There are two requests here, one for a reduced front yard setback.

The request would be for a 7.8 foot front yard setback when 40 is required. And the second request is for a reduced rear yard setback of 9.6 feet when 20 feet is required. Staff recommendation for the variances approval, the Board of Adjustments action is to approve, amend or deny. For variances we refer to section 6six 15 hearing and deciding petitions for variances and conditions. 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 essentially the same as that possessed by other 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 shown in the blue outlined parcel here, 108 And 118 Front Street. 118 Front Street did receive a variance for the rear setback.

They received a variance for a 10 foot rear yard setback on the south side facing the railroad. 108 is also owned by they're owned and common, and the applicant would like to demolish 108 Front Street and expand 118 Front Street with a similar footprint utilizing that reduced setback on the south. Because it would be an expansion, they would need to renew that variance for the expanded portion of the building. And they are also seeking a variance on the west portion of the building for a front yard setback to the west. This is the proposed site plan showing where that building expansion would take place, again utilizing the existing setback in the south and extending that building to the west within 7.8 feet of the West property line.

That does end staff support and we stand for any questions.

Thank you Ryan. At this time I will entertain a motion and a second for approval.

Mr. Chair I move to approve both pieces of property.

Second.

Thank you. The applicant is present like to give some more context on this that would be appreciated.

I'm Clint Anderson. What would you what information would you like to know?

Yeah. Just anything you'd like to add at this time?

Basically what we're going to try to do is just we'd like to just expand the building to the West Side as our proposed building plan. I don't have anything else to share basically besides what was proposed.

Okay yeah appreciate that. We'll call you back up if we have any questions. At this time if anyone else from the public is wanting to speak in favor please do so.

My name is Sean Storhauk and I've rented the property immediately west of this property since 2013. We had our maintenance shop in that building for a long time. We have moved now directly south of where Clint is. We built a shop which you can just barely see on that picture directly across the railroad tracks from him. When we built there, we had some similar issues when you're up against these up against the railroad tracks, streets are running one way and and you get these wonky lot lines and we had to do little variance on our building in order to make it work with our little crooked lot line on the front.

So not exclusive to Clint's property here but in the years we've been here and watched Clint never had any issues with him parking all, you know, snore removal, all that has been completely fine. So just as a neighbor, I wanted to say that I don't see any problems with what he's proposing. I don't think it's gonna affect us or or anybody else that I see working around us. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak in favor this item? Anyone here wish to speak in opposition? Seeing none we will close the public testimony and open it up to board questions and comments.

I have a question for Ryan. So this is a significant difference in the setbacks. So what, if any, risk are there to going to such a difference?

Well, essentially, there has already been a variance granted for reduced setback on the rear towards the railroad. This should be an extension of that variance request. The really new portion of it would be the reduced setback to the west. That might be the most impactful or new portion of the variance request. And it is a pretty significant reduction from 40 feet to 7.8 feet for a front yard setback.

This is a corner lot, so there is the right of way for Front Street to the north and the right of way to 1st Street to the west. I guess the difference here is the 1st Avenue right of way, it's an unimproved public right of way. There would likely never be any intention for that right of way to be improved. So we would likely never have a street extension or sidewalks running down that way. If you look at this picture, you kind of already have kind of a larger yard area or boulevard extending beyond the property line to kind of naturally buffer what seven foot setback that would be compared to the actual kind of serviceable road there.

So not real impactful in this case, being that it's an unimproved right of way to the west and an existing variance to the south. That's more or less an extension of an already approved variance.

Any other questions or comments? Mr. Chair, I

have a question for the applicant, if I could. So, the west or the front yard setback, can you give us some insight into why the 7.6 feet setback is critical rather than something greater than that?

So you're referring to the 7.8 feet on the backside of the building right there? Yeah. It just comes up as a nice round square number as far as the distance that we'd like to come out to. Ultimately, I would have liked to have come out a 140 feet, but considering that the lot line is pretty crooked, this is where we kind of set up with an established perimeter and then it kind of equals where the car wash current building is as far as the west side dimension is. So then that would give it a nice square look. That's kind of where we came up with that dimension.

Okay. Thank you. Yep.

I have a quick question while you're up here. Could you talk about the wheelchair accessibility piece a little bit?

So the one our sales manager, Chris, that works for us, he's a quadriplegic, so he's in a wheelchair. So in order to keep the the aesthetic appearance and to keep everything handicapped accessible for him, this was the best plan that we had was be able to connect the two joining buildings and keep the flow working properly for him. So that's why we kinda came up with this idea and this design.

You mean between the two buildings? Between the two buildings. Correct. Yeah.

Great.

Thank you. Yep. Appreciate that. Hearing none, close comment. Ryan can you call the

vote? Solem? Yes. Aiken? Yes. Spear?

Yes.

Heinrich?

Yes. Braun? Yes. Limmer?

Yes. Motion passes.

Will now convene as the planning commission. City planning commission is a nine member commission whose function it is to make recommendations city commission regarding request for land use classification changes subdivision plats conditional use permits zoning ordinance amendments and other matters the commission makes a recommendation based upon the adopted comprehensive plan for the physical development of the city of Brookings and surrounding area As a matter of policy all motions are made in the positive after a motion is moved and seconded 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 and information presented make findings of fact and forward their recommendation to the city commission. Next item on the agenda is six a rezone notices hereby given that bluegill inc has submitted a petition to rezone the following described real estate in the city of Brookings and Brookings County South Dakota A portion of Blue Gill third edition excluding platted areas a portion of the Southeast Quarter Northeast Quarter excluding West 44 and excluding the North 30 And East 300 feet excluding platted areas in Section 1 Township 109 Range 50 and a portion of Bluegill second edition excluding platted areas the request is a rezone the above described real estate from agricultural district and residents are one d single family district to a residence are one d single family district and residents are three apartment district.

Can you introduce the topic.

Thank you mister chair next item is a rezone for portions of Bluegill second and third editions along with some unplanted territory. The applicant is PMVK Limited LLC. The current zoning district is R1D and Ag, and the proposed zoning would be R1D and R3. The staff recommendation is approval. The Planning Commission's action would be to amend, approve, or deny, and the action is a recommendation made to the city council.

The rezone area is outlined in the red outline in this picture. It's located on the southern end of Ace Avenue and Lucerne Avenue, and it is going to coincide with a revised preliminary plat for this additional area, which is the next item. The current zoning shown here, as mentioned, a portion of this is rezoned from R1D to R3, and a portion is rezoned from ag to R1D and R3. So the darker blue areas within the zoning map are the R1D areas and the lighter blue areas towards the south. Those are the ag zoned areas.

This is our future land use map, which shows the area within a medium density residential future land use category and the open wetland future land use category. Just a note on the open wetland future land use category, this is already land that has been platted and zoned. This was it's non conforming with the future land use map, but there are no concerns in this case. There are no floodplain issues, wetland issues, and it is already zoned and platted. The proposed zoning map is shown here.

So essentially the parcels East of Ace Avenue would be rezoned to R3. And property the parcels west and south of Ace Avenue along Lucerne Avenue and Grey Goose Street would remain R1D. The parcels along and south of Grey Goose Street, those would be parcels that are currently ag would be going from ag to R1D. And then a handful of the properties North Of Grey Goose Street are actually currently R1D and would remain R1D. And with that staff would end its presentation and stand for any questions.

Thank you Ryan. At this time entertain a motion and second for approval. So moved Aiken.

Second.

Thank you. At this time, we'll open to public testimony. If the applicants present would like to address us, that'd be great.

Weight price with Bluegill Inc. It should be Bluegill Inc. As applicant so not PMVK limited.

Yes. I think I didn't quite update that PowerPoint from the previous. I caught it about halfway through that first slide.

If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them or Justin will.

Yeah. I mean we can open to additional public testimony at this point. But yeah, if you had any additional context or thoughts on the project would be a good time.

Not at this time.

Okay we'll call you back up if we have questions. Anyone else wish to speak in favor of this motion? Anyone here to speak in opposition? Seeing none we'92ll close public testimony and open it up to the board for questions and comments.

Mr. Chair, have a question of the applicant. I know we've in the past I think have have discussed this 23rd Street. Is there a plan to finish 23rd Street cleared at 20 22nd Avenue as part of your project?

Yeah because we're kind of tied in with our strange site with PMVK Limited that's who owns the mobile home park. So we got to remove I think six or seven trailers yet but yeah that's our plan.

Anything else? Mr. Chair, I'd just make a comment. I think think the addition of the R3 and on the east side and keeping that contiguous with the R3 to the north makes a lot of sense to me. So, that's all. Agreed. Thank you.

Alright thank you. Close comment, Brian can you call the vote?

Speer?

Yes. Heinrich? Yes. Brohn? Yes.

Akin? Yes. Limmer? Yes. Motion passes.

Next item is 6b preliminary plat notice here by given bluegill inc. Submitted preliminary plat of the following proposed real estate situated in the city of Brookings in Brookings County South Dakota to wit a portion of blue gill third edition excluding platted areas a portion of the Southeast Quarter North East Quarter excluding West 44 feet and excluding North 30 feet East 3,300 feet and excluding platted areas in Section 1 Township 109 Range 50 and a portion of Blue Gill second edition excluding platted areas to be plotted as Bluegill second edition, Block 2 Lots 1 Through 6, Bluegill third edition, Block 1 Lots 5 A Through 8 B, Block 3 lots 1 Through five, Block 4 Lots 1 Through two, and Block 5 Lots 1 And 2. Ryan, can you introduce the topic?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next item is a preliminary plat for the same portions of Bluegill second and third editions. As mentioned, the applicant is actually Bluegill Inc. The zoning districts for this proposed preliminary plat area would be R1D and R3 as previously reviewed.

Staff recommendation for the preliminary plat is approval. Planning Commission's action will be to approve, amend, or deny, and that action is a recommendation made to the City Council. So, we're discussing the same area here outlined in red. And, this is the proposed preliminary plat then for the development. So Block 3 Of Bluegill, third edition would be along the East side of Ace Avenue.

There are plans for five lots that would be zoned R3 along the East side of Ace Avenue. There are two lots in Block 5 North Of 23rd Street. Those two lots would also be zoned R3. There are some new lots along the southern extension of Lucerne Avenue. Lots 1 through 6 would be in Block 2 of Bluegill's second edition.

Those six lots would be R1D zoned. And then additionally, there are two lots South Of Grey Goose Street, Lot 1 and 2 in Block 5, and that's Block 4. Lot 1, the large lot on the corner of Grey Goose Street in Lucerne Avenue, that would be proposed for a drainage lot. Then on Block 2, Lot 2 would be an R3 lot. One change from the previous preliminary plat in this area is the lots 5A through 8B, which is kind of in the center here between Acer Avenue, Listerna Avenue and Gregory Street.

They have shifted those lots slightly further to the south. That does allow them to add a few more lots into that area. And those would all be zoned R1D. So Gregory Street would shift slightly to the south. And then, this does show that proposed corridor for the 23rd Street alignment out to 22nd Avenue as was asked during the rezone portion. And that's the end of staff's report. We stand for any questions.

Thank you Ryan. At this time I entertain a motion and second for approval.

So moved Solo.

Second.

All right we'll open for public testimony. We'll make you guys back you don'92t need to come back up we'92ll call you up if we have additional questions. Anyone else here wishing to speak in favor? Anyone wishing to speak in opposition? Hearing none we'll close public testimony open the board questions and comments.

Mr. Chair I have a question for the applicants I know staff had said that Lot 1 would be maybe a drainage lot. Lot 6 seems to have a strange shape to it. Is that also a drainage lot or can you shed some light on how that got changed?

It is not. So the thought behind that is to have kind of a flagpole lot. It's going to have a probably a large driveway and a pretty good sized house set on it as it's backed up to the Ball Diamonds and there's a pretty large drainage area west of there that is both existing and will be expanded upon. There is kind of some other oddities there. There's a utility easement with sewer running through it.

And we're also proposing the outfall for the lot 1 drainage facility to go through there as well. It's just it's hard to fit that many lots around the cul de sac and you're you're bounded by the school's property to the east of there and it's what fit.

And did I see somewhere in the briefing that there would be maybe connection requested to the nature trail today?

There was one requested by the parks department and I think the applicant is fairly supportive of that.

Okay thank you.

Any additional questions or comments. I see none we will close comment.

Vote? Heinrich?

Yes. Braun? Yes.

Solem? Yes. Hakon? Yes. Spear?

Yes.

Limmer? Yes. Motion passes.

Alright next two item second the two last items on the agenda tonight are discussion items. First item is these are carryovers from previous meetings. The first item is a discussion on amendments to section 94 dash three six two regarding home occupations some proposed changes to introduce a new no con no impact category remove occupational based list, and establish an intensity based framework for classification. Ryan, can you introduce that?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In January of this, December or January recently we did introduce proposed changes to the home occupation ordinance. I'm just going to pull up our definitions here quick before we get started. All right.

So, we took a look at some of the comments that we heard at the previous meeting with the Planning Commission regarding the home occupation changes, and we have some revisions to that we'd like to run by Planning Commission tonight. Before we get started, I just wanted to describe what the home occupation is. A home occupation is an occupational profession which is carried on in a dwelling unit by a member of the immediate family residing upon the premises in accordance with Section 90 four-three 62. And so that 90 four-three 62 is what we're mostly looking to amend. I just wanted to clarify, last time we had some discussion on businesses versus occupations.

This would be for occupations, not necessarily home businesses. And so with that in mind, I'll go through the latest revisions. I'll kind of read through these line by line and try to note the changes that were made. And if you have any questions at any time, just stop us and ask any questions. So, Section 94.362, home occupations.

The first section kind of describes the process for the reason for and the process for getting home occupation. None of that has changed from the current ordinance in place. Where the changes start is we did add a section here called general standards. This is actually, I think, located towards the end of our previous rendition of these changes. The general standards are as such, one, signage is allowed per section 94,473.

That refers you to our zoning, signing ordinance. And so, we would follow the signage ordinance in these cases, just like any other residential property would be allowed according to our signage. And that would also include illumination, which was, I think, a discussion point last time. Two, sales are permitted in all categories provided they comply with inventory limits. In person sales of goods or services are permitted in the major and minor categories provided the home occupation complies with the client, customer, traffic and inventory limitations.

So before we had, I think, some specific mentions regarding Internet based businesses, and that was kind of causing some discussion and confusion. In this case, we just eliminated Internet based and we're just sticking with sales. So those could be Internet sales, those could be limited in person sales. And we do divide out the, again, the types of home occupations by no impact, minor home occupation and major home occupation, and we get it further into the, you know, what's allowed in each of those categories as we move forward. Three, dedicated area for no impact and minor home occupations, the use may not exceed 500 square feet of the dwelling's gross floor area.

For major home occupations, the use may not exceed 50% of the gross floor area of a single storey. Four, allowable storage. Storage of inventory intended for sale shall not exceed 10 of the permitted home occupation area. So, this is just, you know, the storing and warehousing of goods, essentially. And it would be limited to 10% of that either 500 square feet or 50% of the gross floor area, which are the allowable areas, 10% of that could be storage of inventory.

Now that was another discussion point at our last meeting. Five, compliance with state and federal laws. All home occupations shall comply with applicable state and federal regulations, including but not limited to licensing, taxation, health and safety standards and industry specific requirements. The issuance of a permit under this section does not exempt the applicant from obtaining other permits or approvals required by law. Sixth, then we have the prohibited activities.

And, this would apply to all of the home occupation types, the no impact, minor and major. And, these were kind of consolidated into one section. Previously, they were kind of scattered amongst the home occupation ordinance. A, use of residential property as a business in which the business activities are the primary use of the property is prohibited. Exterior display, exterior storage or exterior indication of home occupation.

Internal alterations or construction of features not customary in a dwelling unit. Toxic explosive flammable combustible corrosive radioactive or other restricted materials are prohibited. Any process or activity which causes offensive odors, dust glare, noise, smoke, heat or vibration. And employees, clients, customers, or activity that would be visible to adjacent neighbors between the hours of nine p. M. And six a. M. Would be prohibited activities. So, I'll pause there to take a breath and ask if there's any questions.

Question. Just it's a little bit vague and maybe intentionally so. The internal alterations or construction of features not customary in a dwelling unit, that's just open to interpretation by enforcement? Is that or how would that be decided, I guess? And then if two part question,

I guess.

And then if I was having a home occupation and I disagreed with that, what would be the recourse? Is that something where Board of Adjustment is involved?

So I guess the how would we identify or regulate that item at the billing permit phase. If we get a billing permit with a plan for like a major interior renovation and it included something that's kind of way out of line of what you typically see in a residence, like I don't know, want to put in like I don't know, a bowling alley or something. I mean, I guess some houses might have a bowling alley, but it's something like crazy that obviously is going to be more than just a minor home occupation or a normal impact. But a lot of like the cases we do get are like hair salons where somebody's putting in a one seat little hair salon with a sink. And those would be minor alterations that we wouldn't have a concern about.

It's just if it's going beyond what you typically would see for an interior renovation of a residential property. And we can hopefully identify that at a billing permit stage when we see what they're planning to do. Whether it could be reviewed by the Board of Adjustments,

I'm

not sure that would be necessarily a case with the Board of Adjustment or not. We would probably try to just stop that initially. Yeah. I mean,

I think I see what you guys are trying to say in it. I'm just, it just seems vague. I could put myself in the shoes somebody trying to maybe start a home occupation and just seems like it's left up until a lot of interpretation.

As long as we're fine with that,

I'm fine with that. I just wanted to bring it up.

And that is the language that we currently have in place. This is just moved from other areas. We already have that in our ordinance and it already is kind of vague enough for interpretation but certainly noted.

I think where we start to look at it is if they're introducing materials or mechanical type equipment that is more along the lines of industrial strength type equipment, we're going to start asking more questions. And would that typically be utilized in a residential setting? And so I think that's where you start to look at that as well as what's typical or normal in a residential setting for electrical loads update or if they want to add a transformer, a smaller transformer. It's like, maybe this really doesn't belong in a residential setting, and you should really look for a commercial industrial type property. So it's probably more so on the equipment, whether it be mechanical equipments that would be added to the house that you wouldn't typically see in a residential setting.

So maybe think about like a home brewer. If you're doing small scale home brewing and maybe you sell it to some of your friends, it's like a hobby versus the large scale, larger vats that you would see like in a small scale microbrewery? Any other questions on that first section? All right. So, moving on, once we get past the general standards, then we go into the category specific standards.

We go into the no impact, minor impact, and the major home occupation. So, category standards, all home occupations must comply with the general standards in section B in addition to the specific requirements for their category. One, no impact home occupation. A no impact home occupation does not require a permit and shall be allowed upon a premise provided the occupation complies with the following. Only the residents of the dwelling unit may be employed or participate in the home occupation.

The occupation must be conducted entirely within the principal building. Such home occupation does not include on-site sales of merchandise or on-site training. Such home occupation does not cause on street parking and no external alterations are permitted. Any questions on the no impact?

Brian, I'm trying to wrap my head around the one we had about the gunsmithing where there it kind of seems like it would fall into each of these categories and yet I'm having a hard time thinking that that would fall in this category. So can you walk me through or maybe

like a gunsmithing, if say they're doing it in an attached garage or in their basement where they had space for it and they're just, you know, maybe providing a service where they're servicing, you know, cleaning, repairing, that sort of thing, there's no sales. And, they had all of their permits required according to the general standards, any state federal laws that could then fit within the no impact if there's no on-site sales, they meet all the provisions of our standard our general standards, they meet all the state and federal requirements, Yes that could fit within a no impact.

You go back up a little bit there that gunsmithing case they would not be permitted to be storing large amounts of ammunition under this.

For no impact. It would be

a prohibited activity under six six d.

Potentially. But that's been questioned in the past. We've talked about that. The difference between somebody storing their own ammunition, their own personal ammunition in their home would also potentially meet that. And we did talk about the explosive combustible materials, I think, in our first gunsmithing application that we got here.

So that could potentially fall within that. They are allowed to store up to 500 square feet of the dwellings, ghost floor area can be part of the occupation. And as long as there were no sales done as a part of it. But yes, the toxic explosive flammable, that can be debated as a prohibited activity. Although, that would be for all of you know, all of our home occupations and we, and that language is currently in place.

And we did approve two gunsmithing home occupations within the last couple years, even though those are prohibited activities within home occupation. I think the argument was that those are not any different than the types of, you know, materials you would have for just a hobby, as a gun hobbyist.

I also seem to remember that they didn't intend to have very much in terms of ammunition in those cases.

Correct. Sound right? Yeah, usually it's just servicing the weapon itself, not, I mean if they did have lots of ammunition, and I think that concern might be coming up that maybe they're selling and you can't have any on-site sales. So, no impact, you can't have any sales. Any other questions on those no impact standards?

Not a question but just a comment that I think it cleans up what we were having big discussion about before with remote and teleworking. Because I went home and thought about it. Like gosh, that puts probably hundreds if not thousands of people that would be unknowingly doing something against what we were trying to put together. So I think this cleans it up really nicely.

We had quite a bit of discussion internally about that because we don't want to penalize. We don't want to send those people through this process. And we thought the internet based. But then we got to thinking is how many people are artists And they don't actually do any sales in their homes, but they maybe paint or create something. Also, there's a lot of voice over work that is done where they do like audio books and they read in their home.

It's like, how are they impacting the neighborhood by reading a book and recording it? So it's like that's why we kind of went away from the internet based because we kept coming up with examples that there is really no impact. Nobody even knows what's going on in that house. And it's such a there's no impact on the neighborhood. So we wanted to clean it up because we're not trying to create more red tape for individuals to have to go through.

So moving on to the

let's see. No impact. Moving on

to the minor home occupation. A minor home occupation shall be allowed on a premises provided the occupation complies with the following. Only residents of the dwelling unit may be employed participate in the home occupation. The occupation must be conducted entirely within the principal or accessory building. Client and customer visits shall be by appointment only and only one client may be present at a time.

One on-site parking space in addition to those required for the dwelling unit shall be provided for the home occupation. No external alterations are permitted except for a separate entrance. No external alterations are permitted except for a special entrance provider that maintains residential character and complies with building codes. I think we crossed off one too many words on there. And six, mechanical equipment which is not customarily or ordinarily used for household hobby purposes is prohibited.

Just a comment on this one too, this cleans it up way better. A lot it's a lot more clear. But allows some flexibility. Which is good.

Just to clarify, minor home occupation, no impact the resident doesn't need to do anything. A minor home occupation they need administrative approval?

We have a minor home occupation permit, which staff reviewed to make sure that it meets the requirements. The major home occupation is a conditional use, The no impact would be allowed by right. Any other questions on the minor home occupation section? So the major home occupation shall be allowed upon a premises provided the occupation complies with the following. Residents of the dwelling unit and no more than one nonresident employee may report to and participate in the home occupation at the site at any given time.

The occupation is conducted entirely within the principal or accessory building. Two on-site parking spaces in addition to those required for the dwelling unit shall be provided for home occupation. Storage within a garage shall not displace parking spaces required. The home occupation may have two clients customers at any one time. No more than one home occupation shall be permitted within any single family dwelling.

Major home occupations that attract customers, clients, or other individuals to the premises for sales or services shall not be allowed in an apartment building. Any questions on the major home occupation section? So, the rest there's minimal changes and a lot of subtractions beyond this. Permits permit procedures, no impact, no permit required allowed by right determined by completing a city approved checklist to confirm compliance with all applicable standards. They would need to still determine that they meet the requirements.

We would have a checklist available, but there's no permit required. It would probably end up being, you know if they met the standards, they would probably just do it, and they would not need any sort of staff review or permit. But we would have a checklist available for them to see if they can comply with those standards. Minor home occupation. Application for a minor home occupation shall be made to the community development department on a form provided by the city.

Then we review the site plan and their proposal to meet all those requirements for the minor home occupation. Major home occupation. Application for a major home occupation shall be made to the community development department on a form provided by the city. The application will be evaluated using criteria established for a major home occupation and is subject to the requirements of Article five of this chapter, which is the conditional use permits. And we still have the garage sale, yard sale, and lumber sales within the home occupation.

That was left unchanged, just moved. And then we do have a chart here, which is new and would help kind of explain in a chart format all of the changes we just mentioned. And that's the end of our report. So, we do have this up for public hearing and action tonight. We brought this as discussion in previously, but we do want to do action on this tonight if you're okay with it.

We would still want to get a motion.

I don't think we're taking action on this tonight because we didn't get the notice in the paper.

Oh, we didn't get the notice in the paper.

Yeah, this is one of the items that the notice got missed. That's fine. We wanted to bring it to you for discussion in case you had questions or needed more clarification. And we're going to schedule it for a public hearing next month. And so hopefully we get your questions answered tonight so there maybe won't be as many proposed changes at the next meeting I guess.

Yes, good catch. No public.

We had a snafu with publication and so this and two other items got missed and so they had to push them back to April for action.

I think the changes look really good.

Ryan, I do have a quick question. Once all the changes are made, how will the updates be disseminated to the residents? Will there be any special, I mean I'm assuming it's gonna be put on the webpage?

It is approved by ordinance, so this will go to the city council as an ordinance amendment. So, we will have another, there'll be two more notices made public. One for the planning commission meeting in April. Then, we'll have a notice prepared for the May City Council meeting. Once the changes are approved by council then the ordinance is published for public dissemination for twenty days.

And where is that?

Is that up the website?

Would be located on our website.

Yeah so we will, we publish a notice of the changes so the, in ordinance format that'll be published in the paper. We send all ordinances are sent to municode. That's our online kind of code compiler. Usually takes a little bit of time for them to get it uploaded into the muni code but that's where Ryan went to on the website and you can see all of our ordinances. With home occupations a lot of times it's a call in to the office.

People stop in and question and we run through everything with them. We don't get too many that actually will submit online. They like to just ask some questions and fill out the checklist.

There is the potential that it might affect some people who will not see any of these notices and already are having some sort of a home business? Will anything be sent to those who have already been approved for a home business?

If they're already approved for home occupation nothing is going to change them. I mean if they went through the process of a major or minor, they either got a conditional use. And some of them probably not all of them, but some of them may actually move from a major down to a minor. Anything that's been previously approved, they would be able to continue that as is. We're hoping to make this less cumbersome for a majority of the people that are working out of their homes and we just didn't want that's the whole goal behind this is reduce the amount of regulatory process they have to go through from a permitting perspective for something that has no impact.

So it won't impact the existing ones. They can continue. Most of them would probably move down a category from major to at least minor. The biggest difference is if they had to do it in the future, they wouldn't have to go through that conditional use process. They would be just permitted through like a ZERP, a zoning and use registration permit, just so it's on file. So if anybody ever questioned or complained about them running a business out of their home, we could pull up the permits. They went through the process, they meet the criteria, they're allowed to do it.

Okay, sounds good.

You were talking about how the information has to go through another, I'm gonna call it portal, before it gets onto our website. And I remember when we were going through the change of civic district and then the park situation all of that wasn't updated in time before the public meetings so it caused some confusion. So do we have enough time to update everything?

Muni code I think is based, I mean they do this for hundreds of communities across the country. We send them what, before it gets actually into the code, they'll just attach it. And so Ryan, are you able to go back to municode at all? So maybe you can show them an example.

I just remembered that specific thing, that code had not updated. So if you went to look for the information, didn't even, I think it didn't even talk about civic districts.

If you go to the upper left on the black bar and it says home there, if you click on that, see what's changed. There is a list of all of the ordinances that have been modified. So if you were to click on one, just pick anyone, Ryan, just click on one of those. So that's supplemental. Try them, like if you click on the modified or the blue link and then kind of scroll through that that should it kind of highlights the areas that were changed.

And generally there's an ordinance that's actually associated with it that you can click on to. So it might be whatever our ordinance number would be for that particular one. But there isn't really a portal that keeps track of like from the city's website that says here are all the ordinances that have changed in the last three months.

Yeah maybe I'm not saying it right. So the way that I understood that anything that changes, that gets approval for change, then that gets submitted into what you're describing as Unique The code, yep. And then they update the website with all of the new information which we see here, the modified information. And what happened before is that that did not get updated in time for when that information was coming out for public hearing and then that that caused confusion. We had a packed house because they were confused.

So what I'm just asking is do we have enough time to make sure that all the information gets out to the public to ensure that they have all the information to make you know, their own decisions.

Immunocode isn't updated until after the ordinance is approved. So what'll happen is, so we have the, so this is the ordinance here that was changing the sign ordinance. No, this is the civic district. Right here. So this is the ordinance for the civic district.

So with the changes that we make, we draft an ordinance. And it'll look like this ordinance here will be ordinance 26 something, that will be presented to the city council for two meetings. If they approve that, the ordinance is then published in the paper and on the city's website, and if it meets its twenty day referendum period, it's then finalized and approved, then the municode is updated.

Okay. But

it'll take municode a couple of months to get everything updated. So it won't, it's not like muni code will have it updated within a week of us getting through the referendum period. But what they'll typically do is they will put like an amendment there. There's a little highlight and it's the actual scanned copy of the ordinance that somebody can go on and click on to see. As far as for coming to like the next Planning Commission meeting, we'll present the marked up version so people kind of what you've seen tonight so they can see what all the changes are.

But then we'll provide a clean version so that they can read a clean version in its entirety. And if it's approved or recommended for approval, then we just forward everything out of the Planning Commission. We forward it to the City Council. So it'll be on the websites. The agenda packets, we try and get the agenda packets posted online a week prior to the meeting. With the city council, they generally try and get them published online by Thursdays. So, it's about five days prior to the public hearing.

That's great. Thanks for the education, too. Thanks.

All right, next item is item 6D, the 2025 annual report. Ryan can you introduce that please.

Yes the last item is review and discussion of our 2025 annual report for the board of adjustment and planning commission. This is a document that's prepared every year and is used for the board of adjustment and planning commission's presentation to the city council at the council retreat. This is a template that is used for every volunteer board, and every volunteer board is required to submit their annual report in this format to the city council. So I'll just kind of go through what I have in a draft form here, and feel free to discuss and add any changes that you'd like. So, Planning Commission's primary function is to promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the community.

Its duties include proposing a comprehensive plan for the physical development of the municipality. The Planning Commission makes recommendations to the governing body regarding various land use issues. The Board of Adjustment is a quasi judicial board that renders decisions on variance requests, appeals, and special exception uses in the joint jurisdiction area. The board hears and decides variance requests to modify the strict application of the setback area, height, parking or density zoning ordinance requirements. That's written into our ordinance, that's description of the planning commission's functions.

Then getting into kind of our actual review of the previous year. Key projects from the previous year, civic zoning implementation is now 100 complete. The commercial corridor administrative slate plan reviews is also now 100% implemented. And we have another placeholder in here, Planning Commission training, onboarding, topic specific training. We have that listed as 50%.

That's kind of always an ongoing thing, always looking for more topics to train on as needed. I know last year, we did have some training on TIFF, and we did the tour around the community to try to do some more on-site education and training. So we did a couple of training sessions last year. We'll continue to do that if there's anything specific that's desired. I know later this month, there will be a conflict of interest training on March 17, but we kind of just keep that in there as a placeholder for wanting to continue with training opportunities on an annual basis.

Looking through our successes of the previous year, and I really just kind of listed all the development reviews that the Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission reviewed. So there were actually 56 new residential lots platted. And Planning Commission doesn't review the plats anymore, but I still keep the final platted lots on here, just kind of as a review of how our development has gone for the previous year. There were 58 residential lots preliminary platted, which Planning Commission does review. Four preliminary plats, seven rezoning requests, four ordinance amendments, six conditional use permits, four commercial corridor design reviews, those came in before that administrative review was enacted.

One tax increment financing districts. There were no initial development plans. However, there were three final development plans reviewed, four annexations, four comprehensive plan amendments, one joint jurisdiction zoning meeting and the Board of Adjustment reviewed 24 variance requests. I did leave the challenges and looking ahead mostly blank. One thing that I a couple of things I did add to looking ahead is looking to possibly start doing quarterly development updates as we discussed on that tour of the community last summer or fall.

That's something we'll try to start adding into our agendas. Just kind of a review of where we're at quarterly for our developments. And continue reviewing and updated ordinance as needed. So, we've started that here already this year with a few ordinance proposals. With that though, I'll end my report on that and open it for discussions or any comments or additions. What do we want to look ahead to and what are some of the challenges that maybe we can address through more training or other options?

Question I've got is, on these key projects, how would they determine what those are?

Typically those are aren't those are like the council strategic priorities typically those come from?

I think a lot of times it comes from the looking ahead section.

Looking ahead section?

And so in 2025, this is 2025 annual report, looking ahead in the '26 and '27, what are some items that as a planning commission you would like to address? And so it's on the 2025 annual report next year. That might be something that is part of the key projects on the 2026, and it may or may not be completed. There may be some movement on it, or we maybe didn't get much movement on it. Or there may be something that comes up mid year that takes priority for the Planning Commission and they have to kind of switch gears and focus on something different.

If there's something that you would like to look at, we can certainly put it on here. And then staff, they'll try and provide the support information. Or if there's something that you want to direct staff to work on, you could certainly do that that way.

Mr. Chair? One thing that I think came up last meeting, maybe the meeting for Commissioner Heinrichs, I think you brought it up, was maybe expanding our evaluation of parking requirements. We looked at that for businesses, but maybe we wanted to expand that further. I can't remember where it fell short. It was with the church project, but I thought that was a good point. I would.

And then you also brought up, because we were talking about the, how the buildings on per square feet, I may be getting all of this wrong, because we approved something that was outside of it And so we may want to look at that as well.

Yes, how we maybe how we look at accessory structures and lots over two acres. Yeah, yeah, I forgot about that.

One of the things that we also talked about, which I think that kudos to everyone for moving forward with doing some of those on-site trainings and some different things to expand our knowledge. I wonder what is possible when we can collaborate with other commissions or even the city council. So are there opportunities even if it's once a year or quarterly or based upon the project to have you know not only the working of the network of the people but then also the understanding of the work as well.

I think that's a great suggestion. Yeah.

Just one comment and then we can continue discussing. But there will be, I think, a pretty good training opportunity this summer for commissioners potentially. It's the Western Planner Conference in Sioux Falls. So the Western Planner Association, it's an organization for urban planning and land use for like a 12 state region or something. It's a large portion of the Western United States.

So the conference kind of goes from state to state annually and this year it happens to be in Sioux Falls. So they'll have a lot of good sessions there. So if there are planning commission members that are interested in going down, being at so close, it would be a great opportunity to go down and get some training from planning professionals.

That date is August 26 through the twenty eighth. Yeah. August 26 through the twenty eighth. So I know it's kind of back to school time for some people. But we're let us know if you're interested. We'll get you registered. We'll cover costs of registration.

Once an agenda comes out, I'll try to get that out to everybody right away so you can see what kind of sessions there would be available.

Maybe it's implied in the quarterly development updates but the tour that we did earlier this year or last year late last year was really effective I think. Love to see that happen again.

I got one more quick comment and I think this goes back to the 2024 looking ahead items. I can kind of check most of those off in my mind. What is the developer liaison appointment, though?

I think there was it's kind of been a back and forth for a while, I think, on the Planning Commission. Where is the development community's role in that? Should there be a developer on the Planning Commission to provide the development community's insight? Or is it a conflict of interest? And I think when we did lose Commissioner Drew, I think that was kind of our last developer community representative.

And so now we don't have somebody from as a true developer or deep into development. So is that something that we want to consider? Again, think it's been kind of back and forth for long time.

I did float that idea by the council. They weren't real supportive of having developer even as a liaison. We can certainly float it again. They really were trying to get away from developers having any input on there just because of the conflict of interest that it presents and to try and make sure that our boards are transparent. And I think that they were receiving some feedback that they felt like developers were getting preferential treatment at the Planning Commission because it's hard for a board member as a peer to turn down or to question what one of their fellow board members is proposing.

So they just I don't think they really wanted to enter back into that realm. Even though I think there's really good discussion that was brought up is the value of having a liaison to the board because they're the ones that have to deal with a lot of our regulations on a daily basis. But the council wasn't real intrigued by the thought of bringing a developer back on even as a liaison.

I wonder if we could do that as part of like the quarterly development. Like is there an opportunity that a handful, one or two or three developers could come in and even help us to understand start to finish, what does that look like? I don't know, maybe we could get a better understanding. And I don't know where that idea came from as far as the liaison, but it feels like it's a need for education or more knowledge.

So is that maybe a training opportunity? We could see if we could get a developer that'd come in and just say hey, can you run the planning commission through what you go through to get your project from start to construction?

Yeah, I think that's Is

that something that would maybe be of interest if we could find somebody that

I think it would be interesting.

I find a lot of value in that personally. One panel of developers, let them air out what, you know, some improvements that they could see happening or or just walk us through the process. Yeah.

Yeah. They spend significant time and resources to even get to the point of talking with staff about a project before they even get to the public presentation aspects of it. Yeah, could see if we could find some maybe get a couple of developers to come in and talk to a planning commission, maybe do it in a little bit more or less formal setting, make it a little bit more informal so you can have Q and A with them. Okay.

I know that a few years the DRT has been on as a challenge. And so I think that's still an opportunity. And maybe that's where some of these ideas for training or transparency and knowledge is really important. Because it still seems, I don't know, mystical what happens in DRT. And then we get the information that says staff approval.

And so I just wonder how might we figure out how to get relevant information to help us make informed decisions. And that could be the chair is the one that is accessible to DRT or that the chair and the vice chair have you know some sort of summary that comes out of that. I just feel like that that is a part two that is the unknown. And feels like that we're just at the kind of the mercy of whatever happened or didn't happen behind there, we're not sure. And it's a big part, I know of the process, the entire of the process.

And for me, it feels like that we're left in a place of unknowing. And so just having a little bit more of that collaboration and transparency would be super helpful. It just seems like a problem or a challenge that's been here for a while that we haven't solved.

Has everybody here seen the DRT presentation to city or to the planning commission, I think Jacob Meshky, the former deputy city manager would do like a introduction and description of what DRT is, what do they do.

I think we can probably get that on the agenda. I think we know somebody who has who's in running the DRT meetings now.

Mike is our current DRT coordinator. Mike Struch is our current currently our

We do it

in person.

We've actually discussed this. One of the big hiccups for us right now is we've got to be careful with ex parte communication with Planning Commission members. One of the things we're leaning towards is we could invite members to attend a DRT but it wouldn't be an actual development proposal because we don't want to get into that ex parte communication where you're seeing information that the public isn't privy to and that could potentially influence your decision here because you know a lot of the background information, staff discussions that occurred with it. But I'm not sure how interesting it would be for you to sit there and observe a DRT meeting where we're talking policy or like an ordinance change like tonight, I think the value would really be in seeing how we I think there's 13 or 14 different staff that are providing feedback on a proposal that comes before us. Like the gentleman that came tonight with the preliminary plan rezoning went through DRT.

And so just to give you a rundown is we kind of got a checklist. We start with usually we make Ryan go first from kind of a high level zoning. You know, is it comply with the comp plan, the zoning, you know, is it specific things? Then we'll move into generally, we move into drainage. So the city engineers are commenting.

Then we get into the utilities. So we have the water, the wastewater, the electric, telecommunications, fiber. Then we get into fire. It sounds like now we're going to be adding a police officer to it because they look at things from a different perspective from public safety, access, sight lines, visibility. So they're going to start helping with some of the review, get into solid waste collections, straight right of ways.

Trying to go through the checklist in my head. So we run through all of these. Not everything applies to every project. But I think we could figure out some way to massage this. We're just really cognizant about not putting you in a difficult position where you have to now recuse yourself from the discussion at the Planning Commission because you participated.

And maybe it's something that the conflict of interest training we could maybe pitch to city attorney is, what if they were to sit in a different room and just observe but do not have the ability to comment? But we do them virtually and in person, and we do a hybrid model. And maybe if you just sit and observe it from a room, you're not able to actually comment on anything. But you can just watch kind of how we interact and go through a project, the level of detail that we go through.

I know I would be open to all kinds of ideas.

We can check with Vince just to see if it's any concerns. And then the only other thing is we might only invite in a couple at a time. We don't want to run into quorum issues, but then we also don't want to overwhelm our applicants too much. It's kind of overwhelming already if all 14 of us show up. Everybody's got a specific area that they, you know, are requesting to provide feedback on so that we, you know, the whole goal is to try and make sure you have a very well planned, coordinated project and that, you know, departments are actually talking amongst themselves so that we don't have a conflict between the storm water and the water and wastewater utilities or electric or things like that.

Try and coordinate and prevent costly redesigns or fixes.

So that preliminary plat item that was on the agenda tonight, they mentioned that the Parks Department requested a trail connection down to that Dakota Nature Park trail through that cul de sac, end the cul de sac. That's an example of how, with the DRT, all the turbines got together and that Parks Department was able to review this plan and know that there was an opportunity for that trail, just a way to get all the departments reviewing things and helping provide better planning for these developments. But, yep, and it's always been just more internal staff collaboration, but I understand your point of, yeah, the Planning Commission getting to take a look at that too.

I've got all kinds of things. The onboarding has also been on for a while And I wonder if we could look at onboarding in a different way. While I appreciate you know the all encompassing everybody come in and you know meet the city manager and those types of things. Is there something specific we could do for like thirty days you have a mentor or a buddy or something that can help you kinda learn the ropes?

I think we're open to anything. I think it's a requirement. You have to do the introductory onboarding with the city manager, city clerk, and stuff. But when it comes to once you get through that, I think we're certainly open to what you feel would work best as new members come on to the Planning Commission and kind of whether it's the mentor or just sitting down and showing them how to find all the ordinances and the maps and things online, which brings me up to another point is we did update our maps on our online portal. So they're now more interactive.

Before, they were just static where you could go and open one. Now you can go there and you can pick and choose which layers you want to see, kind of look at the layers up in the upper right corner. I think Ryan's working his way there. So it's much more interactive, and in my opinion, probably more user friendly. And you don't have to like, oh, I can just see the zoning map, but I can't turn the zoning layer off and put on the future land use or overlay them or see where the floodplain is and things like that.

This is the map. And along the upper right, there's layers, legends, base maps, stuff. But if you go to layers and click on that, then there's boundaries, parks, streets. You can go in and toggle, you can turn on and off those eyes so that you can it's much more interactive, simpler, more user friendly. And then one of the things with that map too is we have our annexations on there.

And we're trying to as we annex, we're actually attaching the resolution so that you can see the year that it's annexed and the documentation just to make it easier to track that over time. Some of the stuff back in the core, it's hard to find the documentation on that. So we kind are But you can click on the PDFs. Likewise, when we do rezonings, we're attaching the rezoning ordinance to that too so that the ordinance is there. It shows the dates, the documentation so that if the public's interested they can find that.

And that's all through GIS?

Yeah.

Wow, as a map geek this is really awesome.

Oh my gosh this is way better than when I was pulling maps before. Oh my gosh, way better. Yeah and like this is the kind of stuff that I think that during that onboarding process is relevant and really important for especially us to know how to navigate. And then also to be, you know, part of the community when they're asking as well. We can kind of field those questions and help us and not just point them to you or Ryan.

I would say as far as onboarding goes, yeah I think there could be more especially before a meeting because I think I had the first meeting where there was a whole big discussion and I didn't have the onboarding with the city manager until after, so it was a little late and it was pretty lackluster as far as like information. So I was appreciative to Jacob and Billy for kind of reaching out after the fact. So, I think there could be a lot more.

Yeah, I don't think they really allot much time for the individual boards and commissions to interact with new members during that onboarding. I think it's more we have to set it up after that. That's just here you're going over the code of ethics and things like that that they're

I just I didn't even know we sat up here. Like, you had to find me in the audience. So I didn't had no idea what was going on. So just an FYI.

Yep, no, we appreciate that feedback. So it's good. We can always improve.

And just for clarity, I also think that's something that we could own, Hartley, in collaboration with all of you as a commission. Because I know that other boards do different things for their onboarding and support of their members. So it's something that we can also do. I'm looking to the chair He's not listening to me.

He's listening.

He is not. I was just talking about you. So what happens with this annual review now?

Well, unless there's anything else to add to it, I'll add in the items that we discussed to that and then send it off to the city clerk. Then it gets added on to the pile of the annual reports from the volunteer boards. And as I mentioned, the chair has the role of presenting this to the city council at the council retreat, which I don't think has been scheduled yet. It's typically thought in the spring, but it was in the fall last year. So I'm not sure when it'll be this year.

But you'll get plenty of notice for one that is scheduled for. And then you'll completed version of this kind of to guide you through the presentation. Mike is also there at the council retreat.

I'm not sure when it's going to be this year. They like to they used to do it in the spring, and then it was like, wow. Elections are in April. They take office in May. So do you do it before? Do you do it after? And then they're kinda like, well, the fall works because you give them a few months to kinda get into the groove of things. Well, now I think our elections are moving to November. So I'm not sure what they're going to do. We'll keep you informed.

And then the training on the seventeenth, it'll be in this room. Historic Preservation, Planning Commission, and City Council have all been invited. It will be televised, available, live streamed on our web, and it'll be recorded. So it'll be available if you can't make it. I'm not going to be here this night, but I will probably watch it from yonder and then just be available for any questions that follow-up. And really feel free to interact with Vince. He's good. He's presented this with the South Dakota Municipal Lawyers Association. So he just did this last fall, I believe. So real familiar with it.

Well I think at this point we'll entertain a motion second to adjourn.

So moved.

Seconded.

We are adjourned. Thank you.