Planning Board - Regular Meeting

You're good to start.

May 5th, 2026. Call this meeting to order. Planning board. Uh at this time, please silence your phones if you could. Uh brief statement on rules of participation for the public. I don't really see anybody here, but uh after the board has discussed between us, we'll give each one of you three minutes to uh talk about your issues with what's on the docket. That being said, um Ted could do the invocation and uh Ted can lead us in the pledge. Lord, we are meeting today to conduct matters of business. Guide our hearts and minds in the spirit of fairness, right thought, and speech. Import your supreme wisdom upon our activities so that our affairs may reach a su successful conclusion. Thank you for being our source of guidance today in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, J. Roll call. Board member Langston here. Board member Cardahan here. Board member Ki here. Board member Bohhat here. Board member Hennings here. Vice Chair Overway here. Chairman Doo here. Oh, the floor is yours. Well, I'm sorry.

Um, has everyone had a chance to look at all the minutes from last meeting? Yes. You see any problems, concerns? I make a motion we approve the April 7th, 2026 minutes. Second. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motions. Motion to uh to uh the minutes. Do the minutes. It's good. Bill, [laughter] you're all right. So, the floor is yours.

All right. Thanks for coming out as always. Good evening. So, we just got one item tonight. Pretty simple. This is one of those I almost hate that we have to gather like this. requirements. Very simple development order. Uh Mr. Chris Walker applied for the development order. Um Chris currently owns Chris Walker Electric, which is this place here right next door at 5615 Wallace between his place and the HG Harders. The plan is to build a building that will eventually become type of a garage. I'll let Chris [clears throat] explain a little further in a minute, but um from what I understand, there's not a renter yet. It's going to be what we call a shell building where you build it and they will come. I know from time to time we have people coming in, especially from Tindle area, looking for places like this. And all I'm able to do is send them to a realtor, check the MLS. It's not really my job to connect a renter with a a place, but this would be a good one. in my opinion, well located. Um, like I said, pretty simple. They've already got the property kind of semi ready for it cleared. There used to be a mobile home there. So, if you drove by over the years, you probably remember this mobile home that was there. Obviously, it is gone. Chris purchased the property, got it cleaned up. That's what it looked like earlier this year. Not sure the date, but it was uh these aerials were earlier this year by by the property office.

Oh, and uh Kurt Olsen, who was a professional engineer, was the one who helped Chris with the drafting and all. There's a 25 year flood risk assessment. This is not an area subject to flooding at all. So my concerns for flooding or creating some kind of a an adverse effect for the neighbors are very minimal. If it was in a different area or whatever, maybe not here. Tons of imperous surface. I'm sorry. Tons of pvious surface. I had that backwards. Um, all this will be a gravel entry parking lot. There's a fence requirement. There's a mobile home park in the back. Um [clears throat] the retention area is pushed over to the side. The ditch in the front will be uh piped in with a cover to improve the aesthetics out there. Just a nice big building with an office area designated handicap parking. If you have any questions for Chris or I, we'll do our best to answer for you. Any concerns?

I have one, sir. There's power pole there. That's going to be moved. Who's going to move it? And what impact will that have on the neighbors? I am the neighbor. So, are you talking about power poles? This one right here? Yep. [clears throat] I was by there earlier today. So, this power pole is going to be owned or maintained by Florida Power Life. Yeah, that's what I thought.

And they'll move it and it'll be their job to make sure it doesn't affect any of the neighbors. How long will it take to move it? And who's going to notify the neighbors? I can come in on this one. I own an electric company. Um, where my building is, if you're facing the property. Yeah. My current building is on the right hand side. Yep. Okay. There's a pole between the two buildings. Yes, there is.

It's going to feed mine. You're talking the one out front, but as far as the neighbors, there's a drop coming from across the street. The the primary is running on the south side of Wallace Road. It's not running on the north side. So, with that being said, there's a there's a pole on the other side of the road that jumps over, feeds mine. Then there's a pole, like you're saying, probably in the middle of where I'm going to do my building. There's a drop that comes to it only that fed the double wide that was there because there was another pole in the property when I had it disconnected. The power company told me just take the pole down while I'm clearing. But the power company's going to take that pole out that's going to be in my driveway and they're going to move it over. I'm going to build the service on the west. The service is built on the west side of my building. I'm going to build on the east side of the new building. So, there's gonna be one power pole that feeds both buildings and the existing pole is there.

Chris, that's going to be this power pole right here. Correct. Um, yes. And the one he's questioning is the power pole right there.

That's exactly right. It's going to leave because that's going to be we are paying to get the the ditch filled in and do all that and the power company we as soon as I get the do. I'll have the engineer there and they and the power company has already told me there's going to be no problem pulling it but cuz what I'm going to shoot for years ago my grandfather has owned the property I'm on since 1967. There was um there was we had three phase there and all that. There's still three phase on the south side of Wallace. So for future whatever is going to be in this place I'm going to build a three-phase electric service on it but I'll obviously take care of all the

All right. So that power pole is going to come out and it's going to the the the power that's going to it is going to be transferred to the other pole which will serve both buildings. There will be one pole between the buildings that's going to service both buildings. That's what I wanted to know. For for I own 200 foot, then I own another 100 foot. So for 300 foot, there's going to be one power pole between my two buildings. Oh.

And and as far as the future of the building, what he said, a potential mechanic shop. I have a I have one child. My daughter, she's a paramedic. My son-in-law is a sheriff's deputy. He's a SRD at Jinx. But with that being said, I have two nephews. One nephew is studying. He's been working with me for 12 years. He's taking his electrical test. He's going to take over the electric business. His brother is a very, very good diesel mechanic. He has a mobile diesel repair business. There's a possibility to go in the future. Uh, yes, Uncle Chris, I want to do it. I bought the land. I bought the property. I've spent $180,000 so far and um getting ready for this. He told me about three weeks ago, he said, "You know, Chris, it's pretty easy just having one employee and having a mobile business. I don't know if I want to do this or not." Man, I really appreciate that. I really do. But, you know, you just It's It's like an old man told me one time. He says, "I don't want to own all the property. I just want to own what's touching mine." So, and that's the way it is. If you own the property, you can dictate who your neighbors are. So, you got any more good questions? So, this isn't going to be a garage per se or is it or you're not sure yet or what?

I'm not sure yet. I don't know if it's going to be a I it's going to be a 40 steel building if I'm not mistaken. The building is a gray trimmed in burgundy with a galvaloon roof. Um there's three bay doors in the back. There's a the office right now is going to be a 14 by 40 with a handicap restroom. And do I want it to be a garage for my nephew? I do. But am I going to push my nephew into something that he don't want to do that he's not going to be? Let me be reality. Am I going to put him in something where he can't pay Uncle Chris's rent? I'm not going to force him. But I would. There's there's that one time right after the storm. Um I was building my personal house. I was living upstairs of my office. A gentleman pulled up. He was a contractor on Tindle. He said, "I just got all these contracts. I'm going to be here 15 years." He offered me $6,000 a month for my electric office and told me he'd pay me five years up front. And I had to tell him no. And and I cried because I could have I'd have I'd have built somewhere down the road. But in the perfect world, I hope I can get a very quiet tendle contractor to come in there that need storage is what I hope for. But we'll see what happens. But as it stands right now, the property. I want to build and I really need to do something with it. So,

all right. Now, the other side of where your current building is, there's a lot of t people parking there. Do you own that?

I own the square. I own 195 by 200, I believe. And that is the parking cuz, you know, I worked for Jerry Pas for a long time and he taught me if they can't park by the building, they can't steal from you. So that is the parking for my electricians, my employees. And then with that being said, Donna Cruz and I are in negotiations and have been for a while. I paid to have the corner cleared because I got tired of the possums and snakes and stuff coming back and forth. So her grandson, which is a builder here in Callaway now, um he wanted to learn how to how to uh drive a tractor. So I brought my two excavators over there and him and I worked for a couple weeks clearing it. And then that property was real low and I had [clears throat] 60 or 70 loads of dirt brought in and I had it graded and I call that mine and Donna's Beach over there. I don't let anybody park over there. I don't let nobody do nothing. And in the future I think uh I think I'll probably build two houses there. Trying to get myself set up. I want to drive down Wallace Road once a month, pick up a rent check from everybody, load my grandbaby up and go on vacation. That's what I want to do.

Sounds like a plan. It ain't going to work out that way, but it sounds like a good idea. Any other concerns or questions? Well, my biggest concern was and you say possibly your I don't know nephew or nephew. Nson that's what he calls it. Miss is gonna have a mechanic shop of some type and across the street where the goat farm was or whatever you want to call it. Harder's layown yard. Yeah. There's all kinds of stuff everywhere.

Is that going to be a junkyard? That will not happen. And I can I can let you know that right now. I'm 51 years old. I plan on living till I'm 100. I can guarantee you for 49 more years that will not be a junkyard. That that was my biggest concern that um we have another junkyard over there on Wallace Drive because the corner lot and the one across the street from you is very bad off right now. I mean, I drove by there today. I drove by there yesterday. I drove by there Sunday. Um and those lots over there were just Well, if you How long have you lived in Cal? Uh I I moved in just before the hurricane.

Okay. I uh like I said, I was raised the house that blew down in the storm um is the house I was raised in. And if anybody that's been here long enough remembers Holton Harters, he loved children. He was he was And if you take that little piece of property that was between the sombrero, the sombrero Mexican food place and um and his lay down yard and the whole thing on his layown yard. Let's let's do two kill two birds with one stone. I want somewhere for kids to go and feed goats because when I was a child, which I was raised on Wallace Road, there was goats, donkeys, peacocks, there was everything in there.

Well, you'd go there. Well, that little strip of property, you could go there for a dollar. And um Holton's granddaughter, her name was Carla. She um he had a critter farm. It had pine straw trails through there, if you can remember. He kept roofers ram there. Um he had raccoons you could pet. There was goats. There was um there was it was a little petting zoo and that's just something he paid for and it was $1 to get in because he loved kids and that's what that was all about and that's what the well the goats kept the yard mode for him and I think they eat the rust off the steel. If you look out there ain't a bunch of rusty stuff out there at all but he uh that that's what that was all about. I've been friends with the harders. My grandfather has been friends with the hardest forever. But that's what that all started as until the the people talking about their and and Jacob is the one that's over it now. He's fourth or fifth generation. But he um he said I just can't take it no more. He said the people bashing us and all that. Our animals are starving. They just don't see at 6:00 every morning that they go over there with with hay and corn and feed the goats. They think them goats solely survived off what the community threw over the fence, which is false.

Well, I'm not worried about what the community threw over the fence. I'm worried about what's there now. I mean, it it it looks pretty horrific. That's what that was my biggest concern about this is that if you had a garage there, you're going to have vehicles there which are in need of repair or whatever. And getting parts can be hard nowadays for some vehicles. And um I was wondering about them being stored there and what you were going to all do with them. That's that's and and like I said, I can't guarantee a garage, but I can tell you that I don't I don't I'm not I mean [clears throat] I I try to keep my place as presentable as I can. Sometimes the grass gets high, but we work a lot. No, we all I mean the grass there.

How do you cut that grass grass Thursday and Tuesday on Saturday? But um and I'm pretty sure um the code enforcement lady in Callaway, she's pretty firm. I'm pretty sure if there's ever an issue, she's going to let me know very very quick. So, but all I can tell you now that I'm not planning on making a junkyard out of it, I don't I don't put up with that. And if if it comes to where there is stored vehicles, um I will make arrangements. I'll go 20 feet back and put a privacy fence up or something just so you don't have to look at it. And but the problem is when you put a privacy fence up then there's the curiosity. What's back there? And then that's when they start jumping the privacy fence.

Okay. Yep. Yep. Bill, what's the zoning there right now? It's highway commercial. That's what I was showing earlier. Cross street is highway commercial, too. Yeah. Well, yes. Is harder. I thought he was industrial over there. We don't have any industrial highway commercial is the most intense commercial designation we have. So you can put anything in there, right? And it is not in the overlay. No. Put anything right there, right? Mostly not you know can't build boats that have fiberglass smell or you know steam stacks or smoke stacks or anything like that.

A garage. Yeah. U diesel mechanic shop. That's where it belongs. Yep. Mhm.

Well, you've satisfied my concern. Am I any other concerns, questions? Can I get a motion? Motion to approve um variance for 6515 Wallace Road. Not a variance development order. Development order. I'm sorry. Development order for 6515 road 60 5615. I'll get it right yet. Second. Roll call. J. Board member Ki. Yes. Board member Bohack. Yes. Board member Hennings. Yes. Board member Langston.

Yes. Board member Carneahan. Yes. Vice Chair Overweight. Yes. Chairman Dooall. Yes. Motion Motion passes. Uh any other business, Bill? That's it for tonight. Um it looks like we're going to have a more on the agenda for the next meeting. More leaning what? More [laughter] more than one agenda. Thank you. I mean 19. Can I get a motion to a motion to adjourn? Second.