Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright welcome, I'm gonna call this meeting to order. Ryan can you call the roll?

Roll is noted with Braun absent.

Now, approve the agenda. Can I get a motion and a second to approve the agenda? So moved. Second. Any discussion on the agenda?

Mr. Chair, I'd like to propose that we add an item. We had talked about it last month about onboarding and training discussion. I'd like that to have a discussion topic and maybe move that forward to next month for full discussion with the full Board.

Mr. Chair, staff would also like to discuss a potential subcommittee on reviewing the bylaws. So, it would be a similar discussion at the end, I think, once we're done with our items, can discuss that and bylaw discussion. So we'll put that after 7D.

Okay we'll add those to the agenda all in favor say aye. All opposed? Now move on to approval of the minutes from last meeting can I get a motion and second? So moved. Second. Solemn. Any discussion on the minutes from last meeting? Hearing none all in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed. Item four is open forum. At this time any member of the public may make a brief announcement or invitation, request time on the agenda for an item not listed. Okay. Seeing none, move on item five.

Disclosure of conflicts of interest, relationships to the applicant or ex parte communication. Seeing none move on to item six, convening 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 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. The 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. Move on to item six a, a variance request.

Dakota Dobbs has made a request for a variance on Lot 8 Of Block 4 in Esther Heights edition also known as 404 Martin Boulevard. The request is to build a six foot fence in the front yard. Per section 94 dash three ninety eight fences and walls shall not exceed 48 inches in height when located between the front lot line and the principal building. Ryan can you introduce the topic?

Thank you Mr. Chair. First item is a variance for offense at 404 Martin Boulevard. The applicant Dakota Dodds located at 404 Martin Boulevard. This is located within a residence R1B single family district.

The property is a single family home. The request is for a six foot fence with a 10 foot front yard setback to Western Avenue. As mentioned in your introduction, it's a 30 foot required front yard setback in the R1B zoning district. Staff recommendation is approval and the Board of Adjustments action would be to approve, amend or deny. For variances, we take a look at the following conditions for variances. 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 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 property is not permitted under the terms of this chapter.

The property as mentioned is 404 Martin Boulevard shown here at the corner of Martin Boulevard and Western Avenue. And the proposed site plan here shows where the fence would be located. It would have a 10 foot setback to the east along Western Avenue and then a five foot setback from the property to the north. The part that would require the variance is that part east of the home in the secondary front yard of Western Avenue. That portion would be limited to a four foot fence and they're requesting a six foot fence. As mentioned, staff recommends approval and I'll stand for any questions.

Thank you, Ryan. I'll entertain a motion and a second. So moved. Second, solemn. Thank you. And now open the to public comment if the applicants here and like to address the board.

Hey. Time to go to apply for this. I'm gonna do this with the working with tenants on the West and then doing the East to try to take advantage of that space to utilize to keep the safety of my kids in the backyard as long as we're just for and I was considered a front yard on that east side because we're touching western, but it's just so that that four foot four foot fence doesn't give the opportunity for, say, my dog, a bird dog to jump it and run and come loose, and then getting complaints or citations or violating ordinances for a dog on the loose

and whatnot. Thank you. If we have any other questions, we'll call back up.

Anyone

else here in favor of the motion? Alright, here oppose the motion? Seeing none, we'll close public testimony, open it up to board questions.

Mr. Chair, just a quick question for staff. Is the recommendation for approval with the condition of that 10 foot offset, is that to observe a utility easement or what is

the rationale? Yes, there are there's a 10 foot utility easement along Western Avenue and a five foot easement on the North side of property. So, the proposed fence, the applicant is proposing to place that fence right along the easement lines. So, that is the applicant's plan and that is the staff recommendation to approve it according to plan, which

is a 10 foot setback. Appreciate it.

On that same image is that black crossed outline an existing fence?

Yes. Yes to the west there is an existing fence on the neighboring property 2115 David Cove. There's an existing fence there. The applicant would just be tying into that on the northwest side running it towards western and then around secondary front yard.

Any other questions or comments? Alright seeing none Brian can you call the vote.

Schmeichel? Yes. Jamieson? Yes. Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich?

Yes.

Buddy?

Yes. Solem? Yes. Bacon?

Yes. Motion passes. Alright we'll now move on to item seven and convene as the planning commission. City planning commission is a nine member commission whose function it is to make recommendations to the city commission regard regarding request for land use classification changes, subdivision plats, conditional use permits, zoning ordinance amendments, and other matters. The commission makes a recommendation based on the adopted comprehensive plan for the physical development of the city of Brookings and surrounding areas.

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 give their reasons. After everyone has had been given a chance to be heard, the commission shall review the testimony and information presented, make finding a fact, and forward their recommendation to the city commission.

Now move on to item seven a, rezone. Heron Cove LLC has submitted a petition to rezone the following described real estate in the city of Brookings in Brookings County, South Dakota, a portion of Outlaw 2 in Southwest Quarter Northwest Quarter Section 23 Dash 110 Dash 50. The request is to rezone portions of the above described real estate from a residence r one a single family district to a business b three heavy district and residence r three apartment district. Brian, can you introduce the topic?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The next item is a request to rezone property known as 1120 Western Avenue. The applicant is Heron Cove LLC. The property is currently zoned, residents are one a single family and they're proposing to rezone portions of that property to business B3 heavy district and residents are three multifamily district.

The future land use map for the property shows that as business park with an overlay of open space wetland. The staff recommendation is approval. The Planning Commission's action would be to approve, amend or deny and that recommendation would be made to the City Council. The property in question, as the blue area on the map here, again located on Western Avenue, just north of the existing Heron Cove apartment development. The existing zoning in place, it's currently R1A.

There is also R1A to the North and West, R3 to the South and Ag to the East. There's also civic zoning to the Southeast for Saxara Park. I didn't put the future land use map on here, but I did put the floodplain map on here. This would show where the existing floodplain and floodway are. So the red area on the kind of western two thirds of the parcel, the red is the floodplain, and the pink area with the hatching on the eastern third, that is the floodway, which kind of aligns with the 6 Mile Creek.

This is submitted along with a preliminary plat, which we will see in our next item. So, this is what the preliminary plat would look like. This just shows where the zoning would change and where it wouldn't change. As mentioned, a portion of it would be rezoned to Business B3. That portion would be the Northwest Corner, which is proposed as a Lot 1 in the preliminary plat. Kind of the middle portion would be the R3 area, shown as Lot 2 here. And then the eastern portion, which kind of aligns with that 6 Mile Creek in floodway, that would be no change on the rezone. That ends staff's report and we stand for any questions.

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

So moved. Solemn.

Second.

Thank you. Now open to public testimony. The applicant would like to say anything.

Good evening members of the Planning Commission. My name is Jacob Mills representing Heron Cove LLC. I've got Justin Booker with me from Banner Engineering. I'll just kind of give a brief high level of this property and what we're looking to do and and happy to come back up and answer any questions, now or later. We, purchased this property a couple years ago.

It had a beat up old house, that had a damaged roof, I think back from the derecho. Hadn't been repaired, had a hole in it, had a basement full of water, had several outbuildings that were about to fall over. So we demolished all of that stuff a couple years ago just to kind of clean up the mess and then started down the process of trying to work through some of the regulatory steps that we knew about related to the floodplain in this area. I was on the planning commission when some of the rules were implemented a few years ago. Basically, sort of knowing that if you're gonna develop in the floodplain, have to do it in a way that causes no further flooding impacts for others.

And and we own the Heron Cove property to the south of this. We would be doing ourselves no favors to do anything in this area that would add flooding to anybody. We would would harm ourselves. So we've spent about the last year, fourteen months working with Confluence first on some concept plans. Picked actually the lowest density of some of the plan options that they gave us.

And then through working with Justin and Banner on some of the floodplain and the balancing of the cut and the fill, we actually reduced some of the density even further from there. Try to do everything we can to do a nice plan that adds to what we have in Heron Cove. And then the small piece of B 3 is kind of intended to be like a man it's designed as like a man cave sort of storage building with doors facing to the south. Justin's probably the best one to answer any questions related to the floodplain stuff, but we're still fairly preliminary in the process. Our our goal really is to try to get approvals so that we could move dirt.

We did a wetland mitigation on this site early on. Those are good for about five years. We have about three years left on that wetland mitigation and would prefer to get all the dirt work done in the next couple of years. And we also know that timing for this type of earthwork might be contingent on the type of summer weather we're having. Some years are dry enough to do lower lying sites, some years are not. So we need a little bit of flexibility to get that done. But there's no plan for buildings going up tomorrow or no major construction other than we'd like to kind of get through things to get the be able to move forward with the earthwork on the project.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak in favor of this motion? Anyone wish to speak in opposition? Seeing no close public testimony open to board question comments.

Hoping you can come back up. Thank you. I'm curious about density. So can you talk to me more about what the future use of this will be and what the density will be?

Yeah, Ryan maybe if you want to pull up one of the grading plans that sort of shows like the next page that would

I'm not sure we have the grading plan in here but I'll pull forward to no, we just have the preliminary plat. We don't have the additional grading I and

brought don't I know if you want to turn on the overhead if that's still a thing or Generally speaking, our plan was to sort of try to continue the model of Heron Cove. Heron Cove is a relatively low density complex that has a very residential field. It has a large pond in the middle of it and some trails around it connected to yeah, there you go. So in this plan, the existing Heron Cove is here to the south. And so these two buildings up here would be in the B3 zone.

Those would be envisioned as the like the man cave, condo, storage building sort of buildings. These larger other buildings would be I believe those are modeled as like 12 plex. So this would be potentially about 48 total new units on five acres in this area which is relatively low density and then there's some accessory garages that would service those apartment complex units. And then you know large green spaces, this is an example of an area where you know, we're a lot further away from the road than we could be with that building. But the the floodplain requirements, having to be two feet above base flood elevation, if we push that building all the way close to the road, you'd have to have like a retaining wall and it would it would be a fairly imposing structure.

And so we we sort of intentionally would like to keep that building further back from the road. Same thing with sort of this this space here. This was an area that we just thought is better to not fill in that area and just let it be more natural and create more buffer from existing things the new structures that would be there. And then our compensatory storage, we're hoping to do some sort of a nice pond amenity over there. If possible, it may be a challenging area to do construction.

That's part of where we may need some time depending on the weather and an ambitious contractor who's willing to take on the project. But we'd really like to turn that into an amenity that might even be able to become an expansion of like a six hour park or something like that if the city was interested in entertaining that down the road. But we'd like to kind of do the work first and then go from there.

There's two interesting things that you mentioned. One is a residential feel and then also giving a nod to Sex Park. And I say those two things because recently on a nice day I was on a walk with a friend who lives in not the Heron Cove property, but a property close by. And we were walking to Sex Eyre Park, and the walkability is zero, it's on Western Avenue. And it's an area that is growing and growing.

And so looking back, and there's ditches, there's no bike lanes, there's nothing that makes it safe or walkable for any of the residents. My concern is, as we're continuing to develop as we should, especially in these areas, but talking about residential and safe and that there's a walkability proximity to four different parks. There's Pioneer Park, there's Veterans Park, there's Sex Hour Park, and then of course the dog park that is close by as well. My concern is that we are doing this development without any kind of plan for walkability. So I'd like to hear if you have any kind of plan.

I know that you are well placed because of where your proximity is to Sex Hour Park, but that doesn't do much good for your other property or for the residents around.

Sure. You know, we're all for trails and walkability and happy to do our part in that, but we can only do so much as the city has a plan for trails to connect to somewhere. So if there's a desire for us to add some sort of walkability to our particular project, I'm happy to explore that. But if it connects to nothing or there's no plan for it to connect to anything, I don't always see the point to that. But I think it's a great point to discuss.

Yeah and I think you make a good point too. So my question then to the city is you know our comp plan stresses that we have connectivity for safe neighborhoods and safe citizens in our neighborhoods. And so is there something that triggers whether it's density or population or traffic, is there something that triggers this? Because I feel like that I drove back on Western today just to see what it was like to drive and there were people out walking even in this cold. And I'm concerned that we have now made significant development in that area and yet we put the cart before the horse without thinking long term about all of our citizens.

And it puts that, mean there were people pushing baby strollers up and down the road and walking their dogs. And I just feel like is there something that the city has that triggers some kind of investigation or some kind of proposal that we can work with?

Commissioner Henrichs, I just pulled up our future trails layer on our GIS. The city does have a future trail proposed. It's not planned at this time. It's just a future potential route for a trail. And it would run along Western Avenue just to the south side of the existing Heron Cove, and then it would turn east along the south side of Heron Cove through Saxehauer Park, and then crossing the river at that bridge or crossing the creek at that bridge in Saxehauer Park and then continuing further to the Northeast.

That trail would also then run south on Western Avenue through Veterans Park and kind of coming back around to Pioneer Park potentially along the railroad corridor. So that's a future trail. It's kind of a long term plan. There's nothing in our capital improvement plan now for it. And any project like that would need to be a capital project, something tied in with a future Western Avenue rebuild is where we could see a trail going through there or sidewalk, whatever it would be, multiuse path. So there are plans long term for trails in that area.

But no defined time because there's not only this project but I see that we're working on more projects on the road too which is going to increase housing and people there. So I'd be curious to know what we can do to really you know hold the city's commitment to making this happen to make sure that we are safe. We are in a position that we can start having these conversations and dialogues with developers because yes, it's important to have this development, but it's also important that our citizens can walk safely to and from parks and different amenities. So I'd be curious on what we could do.

So two things, I guess one, with it being in the future trails plan, staff would review future projects for readiness or need and then start working to get it on a future capital improvement plan. So it'd be more of a as development continues, maybe that does get prioritized higher for that trail in this area. Another thing, we also are currently finishing up a master transportation plan. I'm not sure exactly what the master transportation plan called for in this area. But if it also mentions the need for connectivity or multimodal transportation here.

That's another plan that could add it, you know, raise it up on the priority scale.

So, your first statement was that staff will review projects for readiness and need. How does this project qualify up against that?

I have not seen this trail area anywhere on a capital improvement plan currently.

So, it's kind of a hope at this time. At this time it's

a future project.

Yeah, so again, I want development to happen, but also just having that real world experience of what many citizens over there are really experiencing is makes me pause to think about are we putting development above what is important to our citizens and their walkability and safety.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? I know bleeding over into the next agenda item somewhat, which is okay. So any other questions or comments about particularly the rezone request? Alright seeing none call vote.

Jamieson? Yes. Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich? No. Letty?

Yes. Solem? Yes. Bacon? Yes. Schmeichel?

Yes. Limmer? Yes. Motion passes. Next on the agenda item 7b preliminary plat.

This will be for the same property. Heron Cove LLC has submitted a preliminary plat of the following proposed real estate situated in the city of Brookings Brookings County South Dakota to wit portion of Out Lot 2 in the Southwest Corner, Northwest Corner, Section 20 Three-one Hundred Ten-fifty to be preliminary platted as Heron Cove edition, Lots 1 Through 3. Ryan, can you introduce the topic?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This will be the preliminary plat portion of that property just discussed. This would be, again, the applicant Herring Cove LLC, preliminary plat. Existing zoning is an R1A, proposed zoning would be an R3 and a B3.

Staff recommendation of the preliminary plat is approval with the following conditions requiring a 35 foot right of way along Lots 1 And 2. Planning Commission's action would be to approve, amend or deny, and that would be a recommendation made to the City Council. Same area in question here in the blue outlined area. And as we saw on the rezone, it's a similar map. It's the preliminary plat here.

So this would lay out the proposed subdivision of this parcel into three lots. Lot 1 on that northeast or sorry northwest corner, that'd be about a 49,000 square foot just over about 1.1 acres. That would be the proposed b three zoning. Lot 2 towards the middle would be a 4.4 acre parcel for the R3 zoning. That's where their plan showed a number of potential apartment units going in.

And then Lot 3 on the Far East Side, there'd be a 4.3 acre area. That zoning would remain the R1A, and that's where the proposed compensatory storage was shown on the previous map shown by the applicant. As mentioned, staff recommendation is for an increase in the right of way for Western Avenue. Currently, it's a 33 foot right of way on the East side of Western Avenue. And the minimum for a collector would be a 70 foot total right of way, so 35 feet on either side. So, the recommendation would be to approve this preliminary plat with the additional two feet of right of way. And that would be along Lots 2 And 1 And 2 along Western Avenue. And that would end staff's recommendation, and we'll stand for any questions.

Yes, the motion should either include staff's recommendation or not. I'll entertain a motion for approval. Please indicate if you're including the staff recommendation or not.

I'll move to approve including the staff's recommendation.

Second? I'll second the vote. Thank you. Now open this to public testimony. I don't know if you have anything additional to add at this time.

Anyone else wish to speak in favor of this motion? Does anyone wish to speak in opposition? All right. Seeing none, we'll open this the closed public testimony and open to, board questions and comments. Mr. Chair.

Jacob, is your plan on the man I see the I know the parking lot area is a very rough, probably sketch in this. Is this are these planned to have doors that are like garage doors that are drivable up into? Or is it more of a parking along the street and walking in?

I think what's designed

And maybe you have something different. I was just looking at the utility plan.

And I can put this back up that we were looking at before. Yeah, what's design doesn't, would be that this would be a drive aisle and this would be paved up, there would be south facing doors. So you'd be able to drive. There'd probably be maybe three doors in a building of this size and maybe five in a building of this size. But yeah, they'd have about a we usually like to see fifty, fifty five feet between the drive aisle and the building there just to make sure there's adequate turning radius and stacking space before the driveway.

That's what I was wondering about was the turning rate if people trailers and or anything like that with the drive thru.

My question is do the conditions of staff suggested conditions change the project in any way for you?

No the two foot right away request is is fine in this case. I appreciate that question.

Any other questions or comments? Thank you. Seeing none, we'll call vote.

Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich?

I would like to say yes with an amendment.

We've already called the question.

Sorry then yes.

Letty. Yes. Bullum. Yes. Aiken? Yes. Schmeichel? Yes. Jameson?

Yes.

Limmer? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. We'll move on to, item 7C amendments to section ninety four dash three six two home occupations. Brian can you introduce the topic?

Thank you Mr. Sher. This is the final draft of the home occupation amendment changes, which the Planning Commission has reviewed a couple times. We are now going to move it on to a public hearing, hoping to get a recommendation of a recommendation from the Planning Commission that would advance to the City Council. So, these should look familiar.

I'll walk through these changes again here. Home occupations are related to occupations occupations within a home, so remote working, occupations that artists or others that do a majority of their work at home and don't have a storefront. So, these would be changes related to those types of occupations. We've added a section for general standards, which kind of reorganizes some of the overall progress very of the

we've

to comply with our signed regulations for residential districts. 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. Three, dedicated area for no impact and minor home occupations, the use may not exceed 500 square feet of the dwelling gross floor area. For major home occupations, the use may not exceed 50% of the gross floor area of a single story. For allowable storage, storage of inventory intended for sale shall exceed 10% of the permitted home occupation area.

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 any 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. And six prohibited activities. This is moved from a few other locations in our current ordinance and kind of relocated here and we specify at one time rather than in all the other categories.

The prohibited activities are use of residential property as a business in which the business activities are the primary use of the property. Exterior display, exterior storage or exterior indication of the home occupation. Internal alterations or construction of features not customary in the dwelling unit. Toxic explosive flammable combustible corrosive or radioactive materials are prohibited. Any process or activity which causes offensive odors, dust, glare, noise, smoke, heat or vibration detectable to the normal senses off the property.

And, any equipment or process which creates visible or audible interference in radio or television receivers. And F, employees, clients, customers, or activity that would be visible to adjacent neighbors between the hours of 9PM and 6AM. That one was added as a prohibited activity. So, previously, our home occupation ordinance, we had a minor home occupation and a major home occupation. And if the applicant met the requirements for a minor home occupation, it was an administrative permit that they could complete by coming into City Hall, meeting with staff.

There was a small fee, but it could be handled administratively. The major home occupation was a conditional use, which was required to go through Planning Commission and City Council. We've switched up now to three different categories. There's going to be a no impact occupation and then a minor home occupation and 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.

So, the no impact home occupation does not require a permit and shall be allowed upon a premises provided the occupation complies with the following. Such only residents of the dwelling unit may be employed or may participate in the home occupation. The occupation must 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.

So, they meet these requirements, this is essentially a use allowed by right. There would be no permit required. Really, you know, if they read the ordinance and they felt that they met this, they could do this without, you know, talking to staff. It would just be a right of the property in order to do a no impact home occupation. Then we still have the minor home occupation and have kind of modified the standards.

A minor home occupation shall be allowed upon a premises, provided the occupation complies with the following. Only residents of the dwelling unit may be employed or may participate in the home occupation. The occupation must be conducted entirely within the principal or accessory building. Client and customer visits shall be limited by appointment only and only one client may be present at a time. On-site, 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, provided it maintains residential character and complies with building codes. And mechanical equipment, is not customary or ordinarily used for a household or hobby purposes, is prohibited. And then, finally, the major home occupation. Major home occupation shall be allowed upon a premises provided occupation complies with the following: Residents of the dwelling unit and no more than one non resident 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 accessory building.

Two on-site parking spaces in addition to those required for the dwelling unit shall be provided for the 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 a single family dwelling. And a major home occupation that attracts customers, clients or other individuals to the premises for sales or services shall not be allowed in an apartment building. The permits and procedures, as mentioned, the no impact, There'd be no permit required allowed by right determined by completing a city provided checklist to confirm compliance with all applicable standards.

The minor home occupation application for a minor home occupation shall be made to the community development department on a form provided by the city. The application will be evaluated using the criteria established for a minor home occupation, which are the minimum conditions for approval. Site plans required, and we just we go through the permitting process. Major home occupation. This would let's go down here.

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 the criteria established for a major home occupation and is subject to the requirements of Article V of this chapter. So, it's still required to go through the conditional use process, which is at Article V. We did move the garage yard and lumber sales, but no changes. And we did update our table here to basically explain what I just read out loud in our ordinance changes. So, are the changes. Staff will end its report and stay in for any questions.

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

So moved. Moved.

Thank you. Now open for public comment. Anyone here wish to speak in favor of this motion? Anyone here wish to speak in opposition to this motion? Seeing none, we'll close public comment. I'm open to, board questions and comments. Think I the

the buffer between residential to and commercial? Is that what?

The B2A is our office districts. We have the B1 downtown, B2 is general, B2A

B2A is what I was thinking of. Do we have set hours set in that for when businesses can be open, closed? And the reason I'm asking is because I thought that was office hours that's supposed to be a budding residential neighborhood. This one says 9PM to 6AM.

Let me pull up our B2A here. We might force specific uses. We do not have hours of operations specified in our

B2A. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments?

Mr. Chair, I'd just make a comment. I know city staff put a lot of work into this, and we've talked about it a lot. And I think we've worked through a few drafts, and I support what we have in front of us and think it does a lot of good clean things up and clarify a lot of things.

Anything else? Ryan, can you call the vote?

Heinrich? Yes. Letty?

Yes. Solem? Yes. Aiken? Aiken? Yes. Schmeichel? Yes. Jamieson? Yes. Speer? Yes.

Limmer? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Move on to item seven d.

City of Brookings submitted amendments to chapter 51 article six sections, 51 through 61, sections 51 through 62, section excuse me, 51 dash 61, section 51 dash 62, that section 51 dash 63, section 51 dash 64, section 51 dash 65, section 51 dash 66, and section 51 dash 67 related to subdivision improvements and design standards. Ryan can you introduce the topic?

Thank you Mr. Chair. The next ordinance discussion here is related to our subdivision improvements and design standards. Staff has been taking a look at our ordinances for a while in regards to connectivity. And we were kind of looking at different ways of trying to improve connectivity, as has been discussed tonight, what are some things we can do to address connectivity and improve it.

We took a look at different options, but one option we came back to was to maybe look at our subdivision ordinance and find some ways to add some connectivity options in our subdivision ordinance. And then once we opened up the amendment process and subdivision ordinance, some other topics came to the community development department as well from looking at our acceptance process for streets and other sections of our subdivision ordinance. We made a few changes. This is also going to be a public hearing, so I will walk through all of our changes here. Know you haven't seen these yet, but I'm going to walk through all the changes first, and then we will have our public hearing and time for discussion.

So, Section 5,161, we have added as streets and circulation. A, connectivity of streets, sidewalks and trails, subdivisions shall provide a continuation and extension of arterial collector and local streets, sidewalks and trails in order to ensure connectivity between neighborhoods, multiple travel routes, resulting in the diffusion and distribution of traffic, efficient routes for public and emergency services and to provide direct and continuous vehicular and pedestrian traffic routes to neighborhood destinations. One, the arrangement of streets and sidewalks was added in here. And trails in new subdivision shall conform to the major street plan and master trails plan and provisions shall be made for the continuation of existing streets, sidewalks, trails, and adjoining areas, or their proper protection where adjoining land is not subdivided. There will be occasions where new streets and trails are proposed which were not included in the major street plan or master trails plan.

Once it occurs, the major street plan or master trails plan may be amended to include those new streets or trails. So we just added sidewalks essentially into that section. No changes in two. And then in three, again added sidewalks in undeveloped or vacant areas, streets, sidewalks and trails will be identified and classified through the transportation planning process. The location of major streets shall conform to the major street plan.

Section 5,162, we amended the title from street design to street sidewalks and trails design. We've moved some of these items around here, so we're going to skip down to five thousand one sixty three is what would be the next section of our ordinance, street plans and specifications. The developer shall submit street plans and specifications and all supporting documentation in accordance with the developer, in accordance with the City Of Brookings manual of engineering standards to the city engineer for approval. City engineer will only approve street plans and specifications for street rights of ways that have been final platted. Section 5164 was just a numerical change to that section, no changes to our street name standards.

Section 5165 will now be our street standard section. There were a few changes made here. We have different classifications for streets in the city of Brookings. Previously we had minor and major arterials, minor and major collectors, locals, frontage roads, cul de sacs, and eyebrows and alleyways. With our transportation plan that we are currently finishing up, the major and minor arterials will go away.

They are now going to be defined as local arterials and regional arterials. And then, we also removed eyebrows from the cul de sac definition. So, going down then to that cul de sacs and eyebrows section, eyebrows will no longer be allowed in our subdivision ordinance. An eyebrow would be there are some roads where you may see kind of a little bump out on a street or maybe on a corner. You'd see like an extended corner that's almost like a cul de sac attached to a street corner.

And that would be removed from our subdivision regulations. So cul de sacs will be allowed where one or more of the following criteria have been met for the reasonable development of subdivisions. One, physical site conditions warrant a cul de sac. Physical site conditions include, but are not limited to, steep slopes or hills, natural barriers such as bodies of water, rock outcrops, or cliffs. For the purposes of this chapter, man made features do constitute a physical site condition that warrants approval of a cul de sac.

Two, a through street is not physically feasible or desirable due to environmental considerations, access limitations along adjacent arterial streets or where other unusual features prevent the extension of the street to the property line or to the interconnection to the streets within or abutting the subdivisions. So, we tried to lay out what sort of allowances or exceptions there would be for a cul de sac. The maximum length of cul de sacs will be reduced from 600 feet to 400 feet measured along the centerline between the radius point of the turnaround and the right of way line of the abutting street. We removed the maximum length of cul de sacs, maybe extended where there are no practical alternatives available. Below, the property owner or agent shall place street signs on all private streets.

We removed or pay the city to place street signs for private streets, so it would now be the property owner's sole responsibility for private street signage. Below, street signs shall be of such style and material as specified in the public works engineering specifications for street signs to ensure that they are easily readable at night as well as day and are subject to approval by the city engineer. Subsection seven, down below, the city will not subsequently accept a private street or road for dedication unless and until it is brought to city standards, which provides adequate rights of way without requiring variances for setbacks. We added the following. In addition, all streets considered for acceptance must be inspected by a licensed engineer and deemed to have pavement condition index of 80 or higher unless otherwise agreed to by the Public Works Engineering Division.

Subsection H discusses mutual access easements. Nothing changed until subsection four. Mutual access easement areas shall be paved by the owner or developer and maintained in all weather passable condition. So, in all weather passable condition was added. Or we further described, I guess, passable to include all weather passable.

I believe Section J was moved. Section K, secondary access, similar to the previous change, we added all weather as a requirement for any approved secondary access. So, each residential subdivision with a projected trip generation of over 400 vehicle trips per day shall have an all weather secondary access. Alright, now we're getting into the street acceptance ordinances. So, fifty one sixty six street acceptance and transfer of ownership to the city.

One, the developer shall be responsible for constructing the street to the city approved plans and specifications. This shall include all street signs, traffic control signage, ramps, roadways and curbing and the storm water management for all street runoff. Two, before the street can be accepted and ownership of the street is transferred to the city, the developer shall be responsible for the following. A, retain a licensed professional engineer responsibilities which will permit the engineer to provide professional opinion that the construction of the streets and associated work was constructed in general accordance with the approved plans and specifications and the City of Brookings Manual of Engineering Design Standards. B, construct utilities in storm water in the street at least one construction season prior to paving the street.

C was renumbered one below subsection C, a certificate of completion signed by the developer's engineer stating that in their opinion, the streets and associated work were constructed in general accordance with the approved plans and specifications and the Brookings Manual of Engineering Design Standards. Two, warranty security in the amount of 10 new construction

of

to the

naming the City Of The Brookings as the additional new new construction insured. Three, construction lien waivers from all general contractors who worked on the subdivision. Four, all inspection reports required in the City Of Brookings Engineering Design Standards and five, as built as required in the City Of Brookings Engineering Design Standards. Subsection D, Upon receipt of the certificate of completion, warranty security, and all supporting documentation required by the City of Brookings' manual of engineering design standards, the City engineer shall determine acceptability of these standards and site conditions within thirty days of the submission of best ability ability deliver transfer of the street of ownership certificate to the the specific segments of streets listed on the certificate of completion, which satisfy these requirements provided. One, the three year warranty period shall begin upon the date of the transfer of street ownership.

Three, once the street is accepted by the city, the developer shall be held responsible for the street workmanship materials deterioration or any other deficiencies for a period of three years. During the three year period, the developer shall be responsible for repairing and or replacing all street deficiencies at no cost to the city within one hundred and eighty days of notice of deficiency by the city engineer. The city may extend the time required by this section on written request by the developer, showing that circumstances beyond the control of the developer have prevented or delayed street repair or restoration. B, the city shall have the final approval as to whether adequate repair and restoration has been completed by the developer After repairs are completed, in the event the developer fails to repair or restore the affected street in a manner acceptable to the city, the city shall have the right after allowing the developer a reasonable period to complete the repair and restoration to make such repairs and restoration. And, the developer shall pay the costs incurred by the city for such actions.

And, C, the city may also apply the warranty security required in sub sections fifty one sixty four k to the developer's obligation to pay the costs incurred by the city to repair and restore the street. The developer shall remain obligated to the city for any costs of street repair and restoration, which are not covered by the warranty security. 5167, we'll go back into the kind of land design and improvement standards. So, this is kind of going back to the connectivity portion of the amendments. Looking at blocks, we have made some amendments to the block lengths.

Block length shall not exceed 1,000 feet, have intersecting streets, and shall normally be wide enough to allow two tiers of lots of inappropriate depth. We added two exceptions. One, civic type uses may exceed the maximum block length as determined by the city engineer. Two, based upon a traffic impact study for commercial and industrial areas, the city engineer determines the transportation network functions at an acceptable level of service to support longer block lengths. Further down, when discussing maintenance agreements, there was one change made where our subdivision contains sewers, lift stations, water supply stations, park areas, road systems, drainage systems basins, and other facilities or services which are necessary to the area and which are of common use or benefit and which are not accepted for maintenance by an existing public agency, provision shall be made by written agreement for the proper and continuous maintenance and supervision of such facilities.

So, we did add drainage systems and basins to the types of facilities that would apply to that maintenance agreement. And lastly, change the numerical ordinance for reserved. So, that completes staff's introduction of the changes. And, we'll stand for any questions.

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

So moved.

Second.

Thank you. This time we'll open to public comment. Anyone wishing to speak in favor of the motion? Anyone wishing to speak in opposition?

Thank you Mr. Chair and Commission members. My name is Justin Booker with Banner Associates. I worked there as a professional engineer and have for the last twelve years. And as some of you may know, I've been in front of this commission many times.

A primary

business that I work in is residential development. So I do have quite a bit of experience here. Some of the questions that I have for this include mainly more on the acceptance side of this. So that's 50 one-sixty six. It just seems that there's quite a swing from the way things are currently written in the ordinance to where they're proposed to go.

Currently, there is a one year warranty period and we're proposing to change that to three years. That's quite a swing. And one thing I just would add is a one year warranty is the industry standard in the AEC industry. There are projects in Brookings that do have a three year warranty, but generally that is because the owner is willing to pay for that warranty period. In this case, the city is getting that warranty and they're not paying for it, they're requiring it.

Just a couple other things I want to add is I do see that this could maybe have the unintended consequence of maybe limiting future development just because developers are going to see this as burdensome. And personally, I really I don't have a lot to say on the design standards side or block length, the cul de sac thing. I think a lot of that's good discussion to have. And if the city thinks they want to limit the amount of cul de sacs and the length of them, sure. I don't really have a lot to say on that.

It's just more of the regulation side of things and the acceptance. Yes, just would like to maybe see some more discussion on that maybe behind the scenes, but we'll see I guess. I guess I would be open for any questions as well.

Anyone have any questions for him while he's up here?

I do. So can you elaborate what the burden would be for you having this?

Well, I guess the burden wouldn't really be on me, it would be on the people I work with. Generally, the longer the warranty period, the more expensive the project will cost because a contractor is going to have to cover that expense to go back and fix something. Hopefully there's nothing to fix, but construction is a long messy process and things happen. Some things are in the contractor's control and some things aren't. It's just another added cost. It's going to make things more expensive. In the instances where the city has a three year warranty period, they're willing to pay for it And that's fine.

Can you talk to us more about what the cost is? I I don't know. So is it an absorbent amount that would hinder development?

I really don't have an answer to that, but I mean my best judgment would be it's a percentage of the project that a contractor is going to add on and I don't know if it's 5%, 10%. I honestly don't know. I think what could happen is the city is going to have a longer warranty period and at some point a contractor is going to have to come back and do something and then they're going to build that into the next project and the next project and the next project and it's just going to go down the line and things are going to increase in cost to the point where developers will either not want to do a project or the cost of lots is going to increase to cover that cost.

In your experience, what have you seen that would fall under this warranty? What are you having or your clients are having to pay for or fix?

Could be cracked curb, that happens pretty frequently, cracked asphalt. Cracked curb could come from snow plow hitting it, which theoretically the city kind of looks the other way on that sometimes, but it could be from the builder. And right now the city would look back to the developer to fix that even though the developer may not have caused it. Those are probably the most common things. Other things could be a sewer trench settled or a utility trench settled. That also happens very frequently, unfortunately. Those are probably the main things.

Thank you.

Can I ask a bit of a devil's advocate question regard to that? If in the case in years two and three with a one year warranty, the city would currently cover that expense, correct?

Correct.

So,

I guess I'm trying to understand the balance between where a city should take ownership or liability culpability for repairs versus the developer.

So I think some of the things that aren't in here is the city's engineering standards. And I mean it's a separate document that the engineering department is working on and that document lays out the expectations for what they are expecting on observation from a licensed engineer. So my personal thought is they're requiring all of that. I'm not going to say it's perfect because things will still happen. They do. Things will happen. But five years ago, that there was no observation required, none. There was no certificate of completion. There was no warranty security. There was nothing.

And we're going from nothing to a one year warranty with security and some observation, enough where the engineer feels comfortable to likely even more observation, which again, self serving, that's not a bad thing. And personally, we may my company may benefit from that, all honesty. But there's an increase in liability as well. It's a lot, I guess, in my opinion. And then to boot, there's also another line where it says the developer has to construct the utilities at least one year before the street.

So essentially, it's a four year warranty, of. I mean, that's a lot of capital to expend and not get any revenue back.

Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Booker while he's up here? Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Still in public comment. Any other comments in regard to this?

I don't I don't know that I'm really in opposition to this but it felt a little better maybe than in favor. I just want to share some experience or or offer some I view these things as more trade offs than, you know, yes or no. I think anytime you're looking at stuff like this, you need to say there is a cost to changes. And typically, the case of anything related to housing, I would argue anything that you do that makes for a better product, you know, wider sidewalks, thicker roads, wider right of ways, more lighting, those are all good things. There is a cost, someone has to bear that cost.

These documents always say the developer. Well, as a developer, you're just a business person who's buying things, paying for services, and selling a product. So if your services and raw things and requirements become more expensive, your product has to become more expensive. We used to have three inch thick roads in Brookings, now the requirement is for four inch thick roads. I remember at the time, you could figure that probably added 5 to $700 of cost per residential lot that's going be built.

So I don't know what the costs are to some of these changes. But you know, you one way to think about some of this as Justin was describing is imagine yourself not as the developer but as the contractor for the developer. If I'm gonna do a million dollars of residential development, As Justin said, that essentially is being proposed as about a four year warranty. So I have to put the utilities in first a year before. It's not a horrible idea, but it does require that I've got to expend probably about half of my project budget, about $500,000 a year before, potentially about a year and a half before I have anything to sell.

So you're increasing the cost of borrowing money and and also the warranty period essentially by a year. And then and then that contractor now, if I'm hiring you as a contractor and I have to be able to ensure that you're gonna come back in three years and fix whatever the city wants you to, I have to hold something on you. It's called retainage. Typically, retainage is five or 10% of the project total. You usually only hold it for the one year period.

So now, if you've done a million dollar project for me and I'm going to say, well, I got to hold 10% retainage on you, 5% retainage, that's 50 to $100,000 that I'm gonna hold for I mean, really, if I'm if I'm hiring you, I'm gonna say I I gotta hold it for three years because I might have to do the work or make you do the work or hire someone else. So again, that's where the cost comes in that Justin is talking about is you as the contractor are gonna calculate your cost of money for that three years, for that $100,000, and you're gonna raise your price to me. I'm going to raise my price to the homeowner who ultimately has to buy the lot. Maybe that's all for good reason, but the fact that we often have these conversations and we don't even talk about that aspect, think about that aspect, I think is is missed. So I I think there's not bad discussion.

There's not reason to improve things that are being done, but there are trade offs. And I would just encourage you guys to to just think about that as you're deliberating these things or maybe ask for an estimate of what those costs might be.

You.

Any questions for me?

We're still in public comment. Any other comments in favor or opposition? All right. Seeing now, we'll close public comment. Open to board questions and comments. Mr. Chair. Yes.

Has the city done Mike or Ryan, has the city done any analysis of what the potential cost increase percentage wise per project on something like this for the streets?

We have not that I'm aware of done any sort of gas now.

Good evening, John Thompson, public works director. Charlie Richard, your city engineer is unavailable tonight, so I figured I'd just stop up in case there was any questions like that. The city To answer your question, Nick, no. City has not done any type of analysis on it. What the city has seen is just I've been here now three and a half years. And what the city has seen is several roads that are three to five years old like a roller coaster. So that's what we're trying to tighten all this up. The reason for the three year warranty versus a one year warranty is now we're trying to standardize with what BMUs are already doing. So it's a three year with BMU for their infrastructure. Now we're going to go with the three year.

If you trench the road within the right of way currently in the other ordinances on existing right of way it's a five year warranty. If you go back in and open up a road and you fill and we fill it back up, that's a five year warranty. So this is pushing us to a three year warranty so we're standardized.

So what other communities have a three year warranty in our area?

That I I don't know. I don't don't know what Sioux Falls is or anything like that. We were just standardizing with what BME is up and pushing the one year before you pave ensures that we have the settlement in the trenches. Because that's the biggest issue that we're running into is even on we go through certain subdivisions within town, every utility trench, that's where the undulations are at. And we're trying to relieve that. And we know if we go through at least one freeze thaw cycle that will show up before you do your final grading, your proof roll and pave it.

I have a question since you're up here. What I'm trying to understand is, to me it seems like the cost is the cost. It's either borne by the city or by the developer. One argument I can see is that if you have the three year warranty security, it requires the developer to be more diligent in their work to prevent the problems from happening within that three year period. Is that reasonable? Is that what you're

That is reasonable. We're also working on our engineering standards with Banner to ensure that our trench designs and our backflows are appropriate for this area. So that is reasonable. If we have our standards up, we're not going to have as much undulation or any type of trench settlement.

Mr. Chair, my opinion is that is an unfair assumption. That's assuming that Banner is not doing quality work now. And so I would say we trust that they're doing quality work now. What I hear you say is that after that one year, and it sounds like some things are mother nature, some things are not within control, that the city is seeing an uptick in some some areas that need improvement. And so I would not make that assumption that that's on the quality work of the developers.

Yeah. No. Wouldn't wanna say that that was a quality work either. It's it's I don't know that it's a quality work or if it's the inspections of it but we definitely have Trent settlement throughout Brookings.

And who does the inspections?

For the BMUs utilities, BMU will do the inspection. The city does not have resources to inspect every aspect of it. And so what BMU, what I understand BMU, Justin probably answered this better than me. They inspect primarily the bedding around the pipes to make sure there's no rock or anything around the pipes. From the top of the bedding up to the surface, it's limited inspection I believe.

Okay. So then based upon that line of thinking, BMU is doing the inspection and yet we're requiring the warranty to be held longer with the developer. So, guess I'm trying to understand like what you're saying like who who does it fall within the responsibility and are we identifying the right the right organization or the right people?

Could we actually scroll up to that location? Yeah, because I mean there's going to be failures in one of essentially three ways. It's failure in the design, failure in the workmanship, and failure in the product. So, I think making that distinction of what things are failing and addressing that specifically, because if it's not a workmanship thing and it's something about the design of the Brookings mandatory like minimums, or if it is something about the product and maybe a different supplier needs to be looked into or something where the product itself is warrantied and not up to the point of the developer. And that might be something where then the supplier is the one doing the inspections because they wanna make sure that the product is being installed 100 correctly according to their requirements.

And, maybe that's just something that we need to put in here is maybe it's a one year workmanship warranty, a three year product warranty, something like that.

If I may, the intent of this as to why we were doing this is to prudently use we have limited general funds for streets around here and we'd love to see our streets last years and years and not within two to three years become undulated roller coasters. So that's our whole intent to lock that down and get that going. I'm sympathetic to the cost for the developer if there's a cost associated with that. If we if our standards are good and what we're doing is appropriate and the workmanship is appropriate, the road should hold up very well.

Do we know what is causing the roller coaster effect? Is it the utilities being put in the ground first? Is it weather? What is causing them? Well,

it's primarily it's trench settlement is what we've seen. What I've seen so far has been primarily trench settlement. Every time you have a utility trench going to a property, that's where it's settled at. There's some divisions, subdivisions are just east of town, just west of town that you drive through right now. I believe that's been a five year been out there for five years and it's significant.

So is that not something BMU can inspect for prior to?

Yeah. Well, Justin was correct too. After five, seven years ago, I don't think there was much of anything for inspections. I mean we we are tightening up and we're continuing to tighten up to ensure that when we do accept roads they are good standard roads or they're gonna last for a while.

So while we're doing this are we doing any I don't know how the whole system works. BMU, it sounds to me like it's part of the city. It's not part of the city. I don't really care. Are we doing anything in terms of standards for BMUs inspections along with this with the engineering design standards?

We're doing our engineering design standards and BMUs also I believe looking at their engineering design standards. I don't believe it's really within their bedding area. I believe it's from that bedding area up to the surface is where we're really having our most issues.

I have a question. With these issues that we're seeing, are you seeing them predominantly in years two and three?

Yeah, we're seeing it. We don't generally see them during the first freeze law cycle. It's within two, three, four years. That's where we're getting to.

How much do you think would prevent that with the utilities going in first for a year and then the road going in? Will that alleviate? And could we move this three year to a one year if like I'm trying to think of concessions here. Could we move it to, yes, the utilities will put in the year before, but we're going to do a one year warranty on it? Like what?

The one year setting it over for setting it through a freeze thaw cycle is to allow any additional settlement within those trenches to occur before they come into final grade and then peripheral and pave it. And generally within that point in time, you have a lot of building still within the subdivision. So you could look at it that way. We're just we were really kind of standardizing where BMU's warranty is a three year. It made reasonable sense to us to go with three year after it's been paved and after it's been accepted. That way we would cover that three to four years worth of where we're seeing these settlements up.

One more question. What the city deeming as a benefit to putting in the utilities the year before?

I didn't, I'm sorry.

What's the benefit putting in the utilities the year before? Because that's new, correct? That would be new?

Well, it's the utilities would go in, but what's new is that they'd have to wait to pave the road through a freeze thaw cycle. So the benefit of that is going through that freeze thaw cycle, the expansion and contraction you hoping you'll get the settlements before they pave the road, not after that's paved. Does that make sense?

Mr. Chair. Yes. I'm kind of curious as to the inspection process as these trenches are starting to get backfilled. Do we require compaction as they get backfilled?

And maybe one of the engineers and and and in my experience with foundations, we backfill in six inch lifts and then do a compaction test once they're backfilled and and compaction to 90 or 95%. And and that's gonna eliminate a whole lot of the the settling the reason why we have to wait a whole year, wait for mother nature to rain so all that dirt just gets wet and sinks into the trench.

So yes, there is standards on compaction testing requirements and that is something that's been probably paid more attention to in the last year or so just with some of the issues that John has mentioned. Some developers will say there's not enough testing in the world. Do whatever you need to do, whatever we gotta do to make sure this isn't gonna settle. And more testing is not necessarily a bad thing other than is a cost to it, but ideally you're going to identify all those things and address it before it gets paved. John said, the point of putting the utilities in the year before is to try and limit that settlement and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

I mean, it's a good thing. To the point that Nick said with having maybe some compromise there, I guess personally I'd like to see that maybe as the next step. If it works, great, maybe that's the end of it. And if it doesn't work, go to a three year warranty. Keep escalating that.

I don't disagree. I think the city is not necessarily wrong to try and protect itself from additional expense because there is additional expense and John will verify that. He's probably not super happy with some of the expenses he's going to have to incur on some projects. One other kind of side item I'd like to clear up with the inspection thing. On private developments, BMU does not inspect the pipe or the trench.

That's the responsibility of the developer's engineer. So on a project that Banner designs, most of the time Banner would be the one inspecting that project. It's not 100%, but almost every time Banner would be the one inspecting it. Or it could be a different license engineer. But it is not BMU and it is not the city.

Do they have an engineer on staff, BMU?

They do. And on a BMU project, they may inspect their project that they design or they may consult it out to a consultant. But they do not inspect a developer's project. They don't have the staff to do that. They're doing their own projects and they will inspect. Like if you're running a service to a house or a business, they'll take care of that stuff. But on a mass site job, if you're putting in 30 lots, they're not they're not inspecting that.

Mr. Chair, one more question. Yep. And I don't know who this would go to. So say I am a new homeowner and then I identify the city with a problem, what happens from there? Does the city come out and fix it? Do you work with the developer? I just want my street fixed.

Yeah, think the answer is it depends. If it's a brand new street within the warranty period, so it could be three years depending on how this goes, but the city will go back to the developer and explain to them, hey you have an issue, you need to come fix it within one hundred and eighty days. And that's happening currently.

Yeah. And that's right. Because if you have like a homeowner, you just purchased it and you're saying wow man right in front of my mailbox I've got this big bird bird bath every time it rains. So yeah you're gonna call the city initially. Right now we are stuck probably on most of these to repair them even though it may be only a two year old road or a three year road. So we'll go back in there and cut it out and then it'll be tax dollars used for that.

Thank you. So Mr. Chair it seems to me like development is good. We want more and more development and yet we're going to have the potential for more and more damage. There are problems that the city has to solve. So I agree with Nick that we've got to figure out a way to meet in the middle somehow to figure this out. Thank you for both of you.

Mr. Chair.

Yes.

As many of you know, I also work at Banner Associates along with Justin. We've worked on projects together. I've worked with I was trying to count the number of communities that I've worked with over the years. It's been twenty plus years I've been in the engineering business. Typical, as as Justin and and Jacob said, is a one year warranty.

Many of the street reconstruction projects that I work on versus a development project. It's difficult not to put the pavement down in that first year because of storm sewer. And we've gone through projects where they haven't put the pavement down or the curb and gutter, and it's it's a real mess, you know, again, on a street construction project. Development's definitely different than that. But quite honestly, in the case of a development and street settlement, to me, that's a function of the contractor and the developer.

There are specifications that are put together, and they're not following them. They're not doing the compaction. They're, they're, you know, putting in soil that's too wet, or, or in some cases, too dry. They're not putting enough compactive effort in it. They talk about testing, you know, while they can take a test where, you know, they compacted a trench correctly, but then the, you know, the next six to ten down, they didn't.

And then, as John talks about, you know, you get the waves in the road. It comes down to having a good contractor, a responsible contractor, one that follows the specifications. Bottom line. But, and we've had a lot of successful projects that with one year warranties, and have not had any trouble. Again, comes down to having a good contractor, a good partnership between, and in my case, you know, the engineering firm, city that we're working for, and the contractor.

You know, it's all we want is a good product out there, and of course that's what the city wants here. So, I mean, the warranties are, you know, to me are kind of a little bit after fault, after thought. It really has to happen, you know, when things are happening. I'm gonna switch subjects just for a second, because I did give some comments to Ryan and Mike, you know, a couple of months ago when this all started. So I'm not gonna repeat all of those, but two that I still have a little bit of concern with is, and I the table that you guys included for length of blocks.

I still have a concern. You know, our typical gridded cities that's been in, you know, around since '18, you know, '18 whatever it was on some of these computers are 400 feet. And it allows for, you know, your sewers to be put in at 400 feet, which is which is a kind of a typical standard based on, you know, the equipment for televising it, cleaning it, but also for health and safety and getting emergency vehicles. You know, I drive down timber out in Timberline. I don't I don't know the streets out there.

I I had them in my notes, my computer got here. But, you know, that some of those streets are well over a thousand feet, and it just to me seems a long distance for, you know, an emergency vehicle to get to, you know, to my place when, you know, I'm, you know, in need of in need of assistance or, you know, there's a house fire. It just to me, I I feel like that's just seems and I understand the other communities are within that line, but there are definitely some that are less than a thousand. So, I guess I just I'll stop there. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Do you

have some comments on the thousand foot versus, I'm curious, I never even thought of that, but like, the city have comments on the thousand versus 400?

I think this is probably more my doing. We debated this. We haggled over it, making it I'm a big believer in the blocks grid system. I like the core part of Brookings where you can adjust on the fly and make a decision based upon what you're seeing in advance, you can turn and there's a road right there. I like the traditional block system, the 400 feet or whatnot.

But I think it was part of trying to make some concessions and looking at the development patterns. And can we live with 1,000 feet? We probably could as long as we have interconnected streets. Where before, we didn't have that interconnected street. And so, we have different personalities within our office that really complement us well in that we have some that are really good at playing devil's advocate.

And he's like and and staff was like, well, you know, technically, a block, you could do a thousand foot block and do another thousand foot block and another thousand foot block, and you have 3,000 feet of street with no interconnected streets. And we're like, oh, yeah. We were just thinking of it, you know, kinda like the grid system with a block. And so we're open if you guys got ideas. I mean, think we would like to see shorter block lengths, but at the same time is we're all we're also trying to be a little cognizant of is there additional cost?

And the cost benefit and making sure is we're introducing potentially more streets, but on the flip side, can we get more lots, what does it do to the pricing of lots, affordability is always a concern. So how are we we didn't want to completely impact the cost of housing, guess. We're certainly open. We looked around and we saw some kind of other communities kind of in the region that we did a comparison. I mean, you're right.

There's some that range from 400 to 600 feet up to some are quarter mile, thirteen twenty. And there's everything in between. I think the average was 1,009 feet. But we're certainly open to a discussion on it. So if you guys got ideas we're certainly open to it.

And I think on the cul de sac issue that is a priority of our city council to kind of reduce the number of cul de sacs because it does impact the connectivity within neighborhoods within subdivisions. It's also challenging at times on the maintenance side of things. And one of the concerns we always run into and I think until about seven, eight years ago we didn't have secondary access. And there was always a concern is with a single point of entry into a particular neighborhood, if that is ever blocked because of, you know, an accident, a hazard, or construction, how do we get people in and out of their neighborhoods so they can get to and from their home? And so a similar thing applies on a much smaller scale with a cul de sac.

And so I think the preference is to really improve the connectivity within subdivisions and to adjacent subdivisions and minimize the use of cul de sacs unless there's not much for an alternative.

Mr. Chair, I have a quick comment on something that I don't think has been brought up yet.

Yes.

Bring this up because we were just talking about this today along with some reinterpretation of some state guidelines for for bonding. And and so I see what is this? Number two under it says warranty security is is what I wanted to touch on. I see that we're gonna to require the developer, I think it is here to maintain that warranty security for three years. What we were talking about today is there is a limit, right, to the amount that you bond for, for a lot of these projects.

And I just wonder if there wouldn't be an unintended consequence when you're holding that for three years that some of these developers or contractors might be hitting their limit on bonded for, what they can get security for. It was something unintended that is that's happened to us out out in my job outside here. And so I just wanted to bring it up, make sure that we're talking about it.

Yes. So I'm going to play what I see as a little bit of devil's advocate to this, I guess, since we talked about that earlier. I really struggle with some things like this, especially when we're looking at to the extreme. Every year, there's a city council election. And one of the top three things that is brought up every single year is house affordability.

This to me is the exact opposite of what because every time the developer, like they brought up, the developer pays for this, but ultimately the homeowner does. So let's say a house, when this project gets done is $200,000 When that house goes to sell two years down the road, it sells for $250,000 That is included every single time that that house is bought and sold again. And every single time that raises the tax assessed value of that property, which also in turns brings in more taxes to the city to take care of some of this stuff. Now I'm not saying I don't know a lot about the street. I do appreciate what Scott brought up about.

So is there some compromise of instead of having a three year warranty because I think that is really extreme, especially compared to what we have now. Is there some things we can put in place to assure we are getting quality contractors. How do we do that versus, oh, we're just going to blanket for your warranty and it's ultimately going to raise the cost of everything in town. Even small developments where you want to try to get a lot of houses in one area, it's still going to increase the cost. So I just I feel like this is further than it needs to be, I guess, for right now.

Any other questions or comments?

Yeah. Sorry, we're flip flopping around, kind of want to talk about the like block lengths and things like that again. Now, I'm not a fan like cul de sacs, I don't defend those at all, but I think we should be able to differentiate between connectivity of cars and connectivity of sidewalks. That they can and should be two separate things. I really don't mind if there's longer blocks or disconnected areas when it comes to cars, because really what difference does it make that I have to drive an extra block to go to something, or you know, have to go an extra few blocks to take a left instead of having just a direct access into something because I'm in a car.

Tell that to the ambulance. Sorry.

Yes, but they also have lights and sirens and you need to get out of their way. I'm not talking about like going three miles. I'm talking about like, I just mean minor inconvenience for a regular person. How many times have you possibly driven around the same couple blocks a few times waiting for a parking spot to open, but that that is not acceptable for someone in a wheelchair, somebody walking. So, the major always priorities should be walking, biking, ambulances, things like that. Yes. So I just want to maybe, I don't know how we necessarily put that in there, but.

I think we've looked at, over the years we've tried a few examples where like on a cul de sac, where be along the property line, we'll get a dedicated easement or a sidewalk or trail that goes through that area. It it's it works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't because it comes down to maintenance of that and timing of the year. And I don't know how much usage there would be in a typical winter season for some of those trail networks that connect through a cul de sac or something like that. But we have seen it in some areas. The challenge is who's responsible for maintaining that.

And it's fine when it's initially constructed, but twenty years down the road does that homeowner really want to pay for a sidewalk that is 150, 200 feet deep that runs along their side property line. And then the other thing, there's a little bit of a privacy issue. And it's easy to say, put it on the city's responsibility, but now all of sudden we're out trying to do snow removal on those one segments out in the middle of nowhere. It's not cost effective. And so we've haggled with it over the years.

I think we're looking at it as trying to be multimodal transportation and looking at the connections in the city during the development process, particular in residential neighborhoods, sidewalks are required to be installed at the time that the home is constructed. I think one of the things I don't know if it we're moving to is the ramps would be installed at the time the street is constructed because that's an issue that we've had to address over the years where we spend a lot of money every year trying to take care of trip hazards and making our ramps ADA accessible. And there's many times, and it's not the developer's fault or anything because it wasn't necessarily a requirement, but somebody contractor will come in and install the ramp incorrectly at the intersection. So there's things that we're making progress on. We can probably always do better.

But I think we want approach it from all different aspects of the transportation network because you don't know who is relying upon that access and what their mobility issues are. And so we need to take everything into account. And if you've got suggestions how we can continue to improve that, we're certainly open and willing to listen and see where we can make changes.

One follow-up question to that. We're talking about subdivision and I just in my mind I'm thinking about the first conversation we had about Western and how that's potentially different than this. What' the true definition of subdivision versus apartment complex or mobile home park or whatever else that we have as far as housing?

Subdivision would just simply be the splitting of a lot into multiple lots, say the parcel of land and you subdivide it into multiple parcels and then that subdivision could be a housing development or that subdivision could result in an industrial park. The subdivision is simply division of land.

And so then a follow-up is, why are we not holding these same design standards across all of our developments?

The engineering design standards that you're just that you that.

Well, they're talking about subdivision improvement and design standards.

These would apply to all uses. So, if it's zone residential, zone industrial, zone commercial, these would apply. This doesn't apply to the use. This applies to the Zoning? So, the preliminary plat that we saw, we don't see I guess tonight we did see the zoning on there because I was trying to reference back to the rezone. But, when we see a preliminary plat, won't see a zoning district, we'll just see a set of lots and blocks and we'll see streets. And these would apply to all those streets and all those lots and all those blocks regardless of what the intended final use is. They must comply with the zoning district in terms of like lot sizes and things. But these improvements and standards would apply to any sort of street or development in Brookings.

Okay, thank you.

If I may comment Commissioner Hendrix I think you're kind of going back to the original proposal we saw earlier tonight. Sometimes we get to certain areas of the community where some of them have been previously built out that maybe don't meet city standards. And you try and go through kind of a retrofitting process where you can. And sometimes, it's maybe not feasible to do some of those retrofits because you don't want to create a negative impact on those adjacent developed properties. I'm not saying Western Avenue is one of those particular cases, but I do recall on 20th Street South when we reconstructed that road, we had challenges with the properties on the North Side that we couldn't do a traditional urban roadway network with the sidewalks, the storm sewer and everything because of the elevations of the houses.

And so we had to maintain the ditches. So when we get into those situations, sometimes we look at, in particular, to address kind of your walkability aspect, We maybe don't get the traditional sidewalk on both sides of the street and we work with the property owners and we maybe put a trail system on one side of the street or the other. I can't speak for what is proposed on Western Avenue yet but I would envision at some point in time that might be a consideration that would need to be looked at is when they go through the reconstruction process, that's when we're able to try and get some of those pathways in place more along the Western Avenue. And I should have probably mentioned it back at that particular topic, but the future trail systems, it's kind of that's kind of a general alignment. We know we want to get a trail through this area.

We still have to work with the private property owners. There's been a lot of discussions that have occurred to try and address that trail network system going kind of from Veterans Parkway through six hour all the way up through campus on the North side of campus and coming out down by, I think, McCrory Gardens and such. There's some private property owners that we have to work with to get through those areas, but those discussions have been ongoing. And hopefully, in time, we'll able to reach agreement on some of that. So we don't necessarily not everything falls into place in the timeline that we'd like it to, but staff is certainly working behind the scenes to try and secure the necessary easements or such.

I know even with this particular developer here tonight, the city and the developer have had partnerships where they've worked on trail systems to improve the access to some of the other city parks and amenities. So I think there are certainly opportunities to achieve some of that. It's kind of a little bit of a timing issue.

No, I appreciate the allowance of the conversation. And I also know that it's not on you. You just happened to be here today when I had that experience. And so it prompted the conversation of what we can do. And I just don't want it to be at a place where we're then having that conversation after something happens to someone. We never want that. We want to be proactive.

Thank you.

Since so we're lowering cul de sacs to 400 feet. Since we have one on the board, I'm going just ask a professional. What do you think is the appropriate is an appropriate block length versus 1,000? Is it the standard 400, 600 is there a standard that because I know you have to weigh the balance of fitting appropriate amount of housing into an area as well for going for density because we can't we're surrounded by water. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just that like

Yes, you are.

You know, again, it's it I don't think it ends up being one one person's opinion. I think, you know, what John and Mike and Ryan and and you know, city staff are doing are are are are the exact things that they should be, which is you know looking at other communities, but but each community is different. And and so it's it's it's a collective effort. And, yeah, I, you know, I've worked with communities that complete streets was was kind of a real big buzz term here few years back. You know, we wrote up complete street policies that that, you know, a city would have to follow or or any developer would have to follow regarding sidewalks and things of that nature.

And I'm glad Kyle brought that up as well because that that too definitely is a factor is is and you know, I over the years too, you you go to different conferences and and one of the experiences that that I did was I got in a wheelchair, and and and tried going down the streets, and it's that's a real eye opener. So, I'm not answering your question, but but I think it's it's a collective effort, and each community kinda needs to but but again, just as in in my opinion, you know, just driving those long blocks just do seem to to stretch things out.

No, and that's I'm glad you I wasn't really asking for an actual number, but like you just gave some experience like that helps with that like understand some of that stuff, so I appreciate it.

All right. Thank you. Anything else?

Are we what is the sorry, what is the process here in terms of I will tell you right now, I do not agree with a three year warranty. So what is the process here? Is this just going to This is a recommendation. Recommendation.

You have the ability to approve, deny or make amendments. If you want to amend a specific area of it you would have to just basically say is you know make it make the appropriate motion for amendment.

This recommendation goes to the city council regardless of the outcome. Whether it's positive or negative.

No but they do like to see the discussion and so that does give them you know reason to think you know about your particular recommendation and they do put weight in to the recommendation that the Planning Commission provides.

All right. Mr. Chair, I'd like

to make an amendment. Okay.

And I appreciate what Commissioner Letty had brought up to help me understand that a little bit more about the covering the street when it's put in. And I don't know how to exactly put this but I would like to remove I would make a motion to remove construct streets, utilities and storm water or storm sewer at least one construction season prior to paving of the street. I would move the three year warranty to a one year warranty and then somehow and I don't know if that would be within the City of Brookings' Manual of Engineering Design Standards, but put in place standards there that would ensure that quality contractors are being hired for this.

I need a second. Second. Yes. Now open for public comment. Anyone wish to speak on that particular amendment?

Mr. Chair.

One second. We'll close public testimony now open it up to board questions and comments. Commissioner Letty.

Sorry, didn't mean to jump again. I do think the installation of the utilities one year prior to paving is is policy that I've I've seen in in other communities and even on street reconstructions. I did I did quite a bit of work in Southwest Minnesota, City Of Worthington worked with the city engineer there, and I should have said this earlier, and I'm sorry I didn't. But, they worked with the geotech engineer, and you know I'm I'm oversimplifying the very long winded explanation that he gave me, but due to the the clays in that area particular, it it just you could compact compact it so much as you could, but there's still a restructuring that has to happen and so on all their projects. They do utilities one year and go through a freeze thaw.

I'll just leave it at

that. Thank you.

Reagan. Still

taking comments. I kind of see it as we have two major things going on here. We've got the construct utilities a year before and wait, and then we've got the three year warranty period, kind of two big swings as Justin called it within this. I can't say that I support getting rid of both of them. I I look at maybe it's a a one or the other for me and that that's kind of where I am sitting right in the middle. So I think for that reason, I would not support a motion to remove them both.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Yes.

Can support the amendment moving to one year. However, I'm not certain what our construction standards are, the document, the manual of engineering design, what are our inspection requirements when a developer puts in sewer and water and so on as far as compaction? Compaction. I've seen loaders fill the ditch, pack it down with a tire. That's not good compaction.

And, you know, so with checks and balances during construction, we wouldn't need a three year warranty. I still like that one year timeframe, put the utilities in and wait. But if we do it right with the quality contractors like we're talking about, if we do it right up front, we don't need to fix it two or three years later. I would support the amendment that we have on the table.\

Mr. Chair.\ Commissioner James.

I agree kind of with what Tanner was saying of like one or the other. The one other thing that I'd like to maybe talk about is the final thing of like only hiring quality contractors. It's probably difficult language to put in given that there's certain requirements of lowest bidder. So, that may need to be reworded how you want to propose that. Something to the tune of has to have a certain number of years of experience with a certain number of successful projects in history, whatever.

I'm sorry, this is just something I have to, I'm an architectural spec writer, I so deal with this type of language all the time.

Right. And I think the intent of what I meant by that, and that's why I was kind of saying I don't really know exactly how to word this, is we should have some standards for this. And that's that I mean that's what should be followed if our city has the standards and they're not followed and it's on the developer contractor that was hired to do it. But if the city has standards this is what was followed then it's on mother nature or whatever else it is. And yet, like the only I honestly, the only reason I brought up dropping the year prior was just because of what we had discussed earlier.

I that's a fine compromise of leaving that in for the year and then doing a one year warranty post, post completion of the street. I I guess the big thing that I think needs to happen prior to even discussing some of this is one, I would love to see that the city had some information on what the expected cost was of this change, of what this is going to change, how much this is going to cost people who buy houses and or people who buy the buildings like that's in there as well. But I think there should be some type of standards of in our area with the climate that we endure with the freeze the thaw freeze cycles and everything else. These design standards that you will meet and their checks and balances along the way to ensure that they' followed and if they' followed I don' think it' on the developer to correct that' where I was trying to get

to with that. You commissioner smeichel Yeah, I'll say that I don't plan to support the amendment or the initial original motion for those reasons. Clearly we're trying to solve a real problem but the risk of assigning disproportionate responsibility to the developer is too high with so many unanswered questions here about the checks and balances Commissioner Sollum referred to. Any other questions, comments?

So just to be clear what we're about to be voting on is with

amendment by commissioner Michael

and no one year prior

We would have to vote down the amendment if we wanted to change the language at this point. Ryan can you call the vote on the amendment?

Solem? Yes. Aiken? No. Schmeichel?

No. I know I called it but Jason? I do

Spear?

No. Heinrich?

No. Letty?

No. Limmer?

No. Motion fails.

All right. So the amendment failed will now be back to the original motion. Any further comment?

Yes. I would put that I guess I would make a motion and this to say instead of a three year warranty, a one year warranty and for the there to be some design standards that need to be followed in order to that the city of Brookings proposes.

Need a second? I'll second. Thank you. We'll open to public comment. Thank you. Closed public comment any we'll open now for board questions and comments. Mike.

So I'm thinking through the timeframe so BMU already has an existing three year warranty on the basically a pipe installation. The city warranty would start from acceptance of the street. Could the city do a two year warranty? Because it'd be from this date of the street acceptance. BMU's warranty is from the date that the pipe is installed.

Is that correct? So if the pipe has installed and has to sit a year, that would be one year of BMU's warranty. Because I can't imagine BMU is going to get a four year warranty out of the deal if they're waiting until the point of street acceptance. Or do we need to verify with BMU? I don't know. I I'm not sure, John. I was just I'm I'm thinking out loud here. Maybe it's not a good idea.

I believe BMU's warranty starts on acceptance of all infrastructure embedded and trenches filled. So they could, yeah that would be one year less than when we're so BMU's warranty would extend two years past the pavement, ours would be three years past pavement acceptance. So that may be a compromise too to make a motion for leaving it set for one year to ensure that everything settles. And then instead of a three year warranty go to a two year warranty so you're both tied out with BMUs and the cities at the same time ending up. Or I mean council could do whatever but that may be an option.

Thank you. Comments on the amendment on the table at the moment? Seeing none, Ryan you call a vote on the amendment.

Aiken? Yes. Schmeichel? Yes. Jamieson?

Yes.

Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich? Yes. Luddy?

No. Solem?

Yes. Limmer? No. Motion passes. Thank you. We now have an amended motion pass, correct?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you. We'll move on to, we'll call it, item, can we call it item seven?

We still need to vote on the main motion to approve.

Oh, sorry. Yep, thank you. The main motion now amended, any further comment on that? Seeing none.

I'm sorry,

just to

be clear, this is so we're amended down, we're doing the one year pre install and a one year warranty, right? So we're back to And design standards.

Ryan can you call the vote?

So what I have here is we removed the one year prior according to the current Your your amendment was to reduce the three to one and to add the standards? Yes. So we're keeping the one year?

The one year ahead is staying, it was staying.

Just

basically doing what we talked about.

Was my understanding is the second.

Yes.

All right ready.

Yes please call the vote.

Letty. No.

Solem. Yes. Bacon? Yes. Schmeichel? No. Jamieson?

Just to be clear this is the entirety of the document now we're voting on?

Yes the original motion amended.

No.

Speer?

No. Heinrich? Yes.

Jamieson? Or sorry Limer?

No.

Motion fails.

Alright thank you. Now we'll move on to what we are calling item seven e, the bylaw discussion. Ryan, can you introduce the topic?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We, staff has discussed probably a need to look into our bylaws. They haven't been reviewed in a few years now. I think maybe the last change we did was when we added the Board of Adjustment into the Planning Commission and changed the term limits.

So staff is proposing that the Planning Commission discuss establishing a subcommittee that could take a look at the bylaws, do a review, and make any recommended changes to our bylaws, or if they seem acceptable, recommend that they not change. So, looking for the Planning Commission to discuss maybe a subcommittee. You could look at it over the next few months and come back, you know, late summer or fall, whatever time you need. But try to get these done by the end of the year for sure.

Is there a recommended number that would make the most sense?

Anything less than quorum. I guess common subcommittees and other boards that I help, you know, would be three, maybe four. Three

would be a good number. Anyone volunteering?

And I think there might be a discussion for also maybe another subcommittee on onboarding. So just keep that in mind if you're interested in one or the other. For now we're discussing the bylaws.

I'll volunteer for the bylaws.

Commissioner Aiken, anyone else? Thank you. One more maybe? Is for bylaws. I'll volunteer myself.

Anyone else? Okay, that's good. Three, got three.

And then next, as Commissioner Heinrich mentioned, I'll let her open up discussion on your onboarding.

Yep, thank you. Would you like to talk about that?

I'd be happy to. So, we've had a couple of different conversations about how we could improve onboarding for new commission members. And so, similar to what Ryan is suggesting here with bylaws subcommittee we would love to move forward to be able to do a subcommittee that could come together with proposals and that way we could come together as group discussion to see what we would want to implement or change.

Is there any problem with us forming a subcommittee on onboarding? Are there volunteers for this? Commissioner Schmeichel? Commissioner Heinrich? Anyone else? I'll go ahead. Thank you. Alright. That sounds great. At this time, I think we've completed our agenda. I'll entertain a motion and a second for adjournment. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. We're adjourned.

I know not everybody can stick around, but for those that can, we do have the joint jurisdiction planning at eight p. M. So if you're to make it, please stay.