City Council - Regular Meeting

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American mistake. I will call the Cookville City Council meeting for Thursday, January 15th to order. May I have a roll call, please? Councilman Baji,

here. Councilman Walker, here. Mayor Wheaten, here. Vice Mayor Eldridge, here. Councilman Gilbert, here. I present. Thank you. At this time, I would like to ask those that wish to do so to stand for the invocation given tonight by Pastor DK Hall of Central City Church, followed by the pledge of allegiance.

Thank you. Uh thank you, Mayor Weaten. If you will bow your heads with me, Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. We thank you uh for today and we thank you for this evening. We thank you for the leadership uh that you've placed over us here in Cookville. We pray tonight for your wisdom and your guidance, Father. and we lift up them and their families to you for protection and peace and love and just joy in the home, Father. And we just thank you for it. We give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus name. 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. Thank you, Pastor Hall. Item three, consider approval of agenda is presented. Are there any changes? No changes. Do I have a motion? Motion. Got a motion by Vice Mayor Elders. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Councilman Gilbert. Any discussion from the council? Vote on that.

All votes correct. Five. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. 5A. Consider approval of minutes of council meeting held on December 18th, 2025. Is there a motion? So move. Motion made by Councilman Gilbert. Is there a second? Second. Second by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Any discussion from the council? Okay, we'll vote on that.

All votes correct. Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. for the consent agenda. 6 A. Set a date 21926 for a public hearing on ordinance 026 0101 for zoning property located on North Willow Avenue tax 40GB 001.0 from RM8 multif family residential to CL local commercial. 6B consider approval of cyber security insurance policy renewal. 6 C consider awarding bids for 24 30 square poles. 6 D consider awarding bid for advanced metering infrastructure meters and components. 6E consider declaring a surplus one 2007 Mac rolloff sanitation truck and 6F consider awarding bids for advanced metering infrastructure components dual port radios. Is there a motion on the consent agenda? So move

motion made by council me seconded by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Any discussion from the council? Right. Vote on the consent agenda.

All votes correct. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to new business. 7 A. Hold a public hearing and consider on first reading ordinance 0251018 amending the zoning code section 221 CL local commercial and section 222 CG general commercial to permit subdividing units on individual lots upon review by the planning commission. Mr. Ward.

Thank you mayor and councel. Um planning division. We've received uh several requests to allow commercial units and commercial developments to be subdivided onto individual lots. Our zoning code currently allows single family attached town home developments and single family detached cluster developments to be subdivided on individually owned lots and and with shared common elements in those developments. An amendment to the zoning code was recommended by the planning commission in September of this year. At the November 6, 2025 council meeting, the council referred the proposed amendment back to the planning commission for further review. Planning staff has modified this amendment uh to try to address some concerns council had at the November meeting. Um these modifications would restrict commercial subdivisions on individual lots to newly built commercial developments designed and constructed to meet uh the zoning and building code requirements and receiving a certificate of occupancy after January 1st, 2026. So, anything moving forward after January 1st this year, applicable subdivision plat would be noted to require a commercial owners association agreement for continued maintenance of uh the individual units and common infrastructure within the within these developments. The plat would also require notes referencing parking and ADA parking requirements for proposed use proposed uses. Parking agreements for shared parking spaces within the parking would be located within parking easements and would be shown on final plats and would be required uh to be included in the COA final following final plat recording. We've also modified the signage requirements to restrict individual freestanding signs for individual uh uses. Uh a common freestanding center sign may be permitted and wall signage would be allowed for individual units as per the zoning code. The planning commission has uh approved these revised amendments at their November 24th, 2025 meeting. So these amendments would apply to the CL local commercial district and CG general

commercial districts only. It would allow commercial units and commercial cluster units as a use permitted upon review uh by the planning commission uh subject to standards. Um these proposed amendments uh would allow for individual ownership of commercial units within a commercial development and provide flexibility in ownership. So, um, these proposed amendments have been recommended by the planning commission, uh, as recommended by the planning division. I'm happy to answer any questions from council on this one. Thank you. Is there a motion? Motion made by Vice Elders. They're seconded by Councilman Gilbert, May Podi, excuse me. Uh, this is a public hearing, so I will open the floor for anyone who'd like to speak on this agenda item. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Uh, any discussion from the council?

Um, yeah, I just wanted to bring up on the parking. I've kind of tried to wrap my head around this. I think I brought this up the last time. Um, but I I I think the the struggle I'm having understanding this is if you don't require shared parking agreements, then either the units have to be built with excess parking for like the highest and best use for every single unit in the development or it's going to limit the amount of use for each space in the development. So, like shared parking in these developments, I think, and I may be wrong and I don't know who's trying to develop one. Maybe they could enlighten some of this if they're trying if they're here, but to me, shared parking is a necessity in order to maximize the space. And that's beneficial to the community because you don't end up with like huge parking lots for every single unit if you're but if you're using a shared parking agreement, which is what we see with the Eagles Landing um and in uses that are similar to this where multiple parcels might have shared use agreements for parking. Um, without those shared use agreements, I think you're kind of boxing these individual lots into a situation where they could be really limited in for their use. Um, and you you could also have like one business, say you do have a use that works, but it's parking's all taken up and it's private to that individual unit. Well, where does the say more people want to come to that, but but they can't use the rest of the parking at the the overall platted complex. Where are they going to go? They're going to park on the street. They're going to park. That's where it becomes a a larger community issue. I think without a shared parking requirement, I'm not I'm I'm kind of

It's not as similar to having a strip mall or a or a uh you know, a shopping center style arrangement. Otherwise, I think they work, but I do think some and it could be a variation. You could have both like individual parking with some adaptation for extra shared parking, but that opens up and allows the use of each individual lot differently. Whereas town homes with a residential, because this is what we've compared it to in a town home structure, you know, if it's a three-bedroom town home, you need two or three parking spots, and that's really all you need. You might have some extra guest parking available just depending on how the developer wants to do it, but the use is really specific. It's always going to be that way. Um, well, with these commercial uses, some uses need more parking than others. And that's where having extra shared parking or sharing a portion of the parking will, I think, help balance that out. Overall, I would assume any developer building one of these would put into their concept shared parking agreements. I I'm fearful that one may not and we might end up with a situation where individual lots for commercial uses don't have the parking they really need. and the parking spaces are all around them, but they don't have access to them because we didn't require it um when we designed this. Now, that's my biggest concern with it is just figuring out some way to ensure we have a hybrid at least version of a shared parking agreement into the the the development of this to lessen the parking requirements overall on the on the entire platted area is being so divided, you know, but

which in there I know we discussed this at work session on Monday. It's kind of built in already. Correct. because we have this has to meet the that provision is included in this amendment to provide for the shared parking you know if it's a shared parking model we don't have any of these yet right so it's hard to speak to it um I that's an assumption we have as well is that if you're you know depending on what the proposal is uh you know you would include a larger parking area in a shared in a shared scenario and everybody knows that on the front end going in right I you know what you're you know what you're buying into. It's all defined before you know

the boundary of the property will dictate whether or not there's a shared parking model or not though. Well, likely it would be, you know, likely, you know, it could just be the building, the structure itself, and everything could be held in common. But there are some scenarios where it could be, you know, the lot lines could run out to the street and all of the parking and access, you know, access drives and all that would be included in shared easement similar to we see uh in townhouse developments that town home developments that we have, you know, all over town. But understanding that's different, I I I do understand the demands are different. We we require parking based on use and you're going to have different demands for different uses and that's something that needs to be contemplated on you know on the front end

which is formulaic and through our planning department is imposed on the development at at through planning and design. We have a general standard that we apply to unoccupied spaces and it's one per two one space per 250 square feet right and when we have all kinds of different parking demand scenarios based on the use right I mean storage areas are counted as warehousing that's 1500 ft per parking space restaurant parking is defined by occupancy so it's one space per three seats of occupancy and you know that all works itself out through the planning and codes process when a development is proposed Because if you're used to fit the park and requirements and that's not going to be a legit space for you. Yes. Move on. Yeah.

So I can see what kind of limits what can go there. But it's also limited by codes reg zoning everything else like that. So for me it doesn't seem as limiting. Yeah. That's the same contemplation whether you're leasing or owning. Exactly. This is just opportunity for somebody to own. John that options in there. If the developer wants you to do like Eric's talking about they can do that. Correct. Well, I mean that's that's more of a you know it's on the developer buyer beware. I mean you these are the requirements. If you want it changed in the future, that's your fault that you didn't plan and put enough

to know what you're going to it won't be able to be changed in the future unless you can get everybody on board is my understanding. And I think that's the fear here is that somebody making an error in judgment on how this is developed up front, which I doubt I'm sure whoever is doing this probably not probably going to use some sort of shared model, but if someone is allowed to do it the other way, it could become problematic for that entire property.

But that's the case for any existing development. If you don't have enough space now for and you change your use to a higher intensity use and you can't meet your parking, you're stuck. It's the same situation. You know, you can provide a lot of extras. Most people want to provide less. But we do have some of our big shopping centers. They've got way more spaces they need to have, but that it's no different than one that's not cut into individual lots. If you've got a shopping center and they don't have enough parking and they want they want to increase it, they want to change it to restaurants. They're not going to have enough parking. They're not going to be able to do that.

You have the opportunity to fix your use problems as when you own a single strip mall. You you have the ability to change the leases over time. You will never have the ability to force the different ownerships to do certain things agreement for the property owners agreement. The COA COAs are pretty complex, the ones I've reviewed. And you know, I mean, it obviously once again be up to be up to the developer. Absolutely.

Yeah. Do that. That that's just like an HOA. You know, you don't want to abide by it. Our HOA comes to your house, knocks on door, and says, "Hey, you don't really have an option. You signed up for this. You have to abide." And there's ways to force that issue. And this the COA will be the same. But we don't require that level of complexity. We require a COA COA following the final PL recording. There has to be COA with the plat recording. But but how complex that COA is is is up to No, we we wouldn't I mean we just we require the document and it would be up to the developer. Somebody's going to develop this, right?

It's up to their vision for their development and how they want to market their units, you know, and how they structure that. It's that's that's the COA is a centralizing effort to put all those decision-m skills in one bucket so that we as a city know hey there is a there is a entity that can govern that can govern this. However, they decided in a in a in a freewheel market position before they developed We but we've run into parking issues in the free will market area as well. Like we we lengthened driveways in certain developments to ensure like smaller parcel land uh I think RS5 developments that the driveway meets a minimum length because you need to get three cars in the driveway before it hangs over the sidewalk.

Now what we had done you need to get that extra parking on the property to benefit the community. Now, you could tell people all day long, don't buy these town homes unless you just got one car and make developer could make it any size parking he wants and the use would still apply. But we put these standards in to keep cars off the road parking and to make sure the developers are providing enough parking to be in common with the use. And I think we've always often get away from that. You know, we build all these town homes with garages and we expect people to park in the garage so they're not parked on the street. That's where we put all our jobs. That's where they put all storage.

It doesn't always work out how we plan. But John, we also like the provision if something like Eric talks about, correct me if I'm wrong on this, is that you can have offsite parking to make up for your life. And we've had that come up in the past if you can get an adjoining property under degree within a certain distance. John, I believe it's within 400. There's also have an option for variance to if there's an issue with parking. So John deals with these. There are ways if you there's all kinds of to myself. I know that parking is always an issue, but I just think if you encourage developers to have shared parking agreements as a contingency or some hybrid version of them, not saying that every space has to be shared,

which mean it says right here though, parking agreements for shared parking spaces with in a parking easement must be shown on the final plat required by the COA. So, it's already the language is in there if I'm correct. Yeah, it's it and it's just a matter of we hope they do it. I don't know if we have the right to enforce it and planning will implement planning will the development process so it embedded in it. Planning can and kind of keep control of the shared agreements there on parking. Well, that's our intent. Okay.

With the proposed amendment is to provide that flexibility and we review this by the planning commission and that you know the planning commission they they had concerns that we addressed them throughout the process as well before it gets to you guys. But I think we have a a decent um a proposal to to move forward with and then we'll you know we'll well first one maybe we can bring it back if council I mean I think it's got the guardrails here that you're looking for. I

thank y'all for taking this back and reworking it. Uh any more comments from the council? Seeing none, we've had the public hearing. We will go ahead and vote on this. votes correct. Yes, motion carries. Thank you. Uh 7B, hold a public hearing and considering first reading ordinance 0251019 closing and abandoning a portion of Baron Court right away. Mr. Ward.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Here's a general location of this uh section of Baron Court. Here is a site map of that seg segment of Rideaway. Here's an aerial view. Uh, this request is to close and abandon approximately 0.131 acres or approximately 5,76.36 square ft of Baron Courts uh rideway. The portion to be closed and command abandoned is contiguous with the city of Cookville own property to the east and one commercial property to the west. um this revised uh request this this request has been revised from a previous request that went further south uh that was withdrawn. The city has initiated this request. Um the segment of rideaway is to be combined with the parcel owned by the city of Cookville adjacent to the east further identified as parcel 19 on tax map 53M group B. A survey um has been submitted uh for and submitted and all applicable city departments have reviewed the closure and abandonment request and provided no comments or conditions for closure. Uh the adjacent property owner uh has also provided a signed statement with no objections to the closure and abandonment and granting the city rights to acquire all of the rideaway that has been reviewed by uh Mr. Rder. This request for closure and abandonment is to allow for improvements to the existing recycling center and public works structure and for propo and for a proposed location to store street salt for winter uh road conditions. So um that's why this request is coming before you guys is the plans to do some improvements to our recycling facility and the public works uh facility. That's a site plan depicting that. Here's some aerial views if you guys are familiar with this.

So our recommendation uh this has been reviewed by the planning commission. They have recommended approval of the closure and abandonment as recommended by the planning division. I recommend approval. Happy to answer any questions from council on this. Thank you. Is there a motion? So moved. Motion made by Councilman Baji. Is there a second? Second. Second by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Uh this is also public hearing. So we'll open the floor for anyone who'd like to speak on this agenda item. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing. Uh, any comments from the council? Okay, go ahead and vote. All votes correct. Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. 7 C. Consider on second and final reading ordinance 0250813 reszoning property located at 2034 West Broad Street portion of tax map 39 parcel 205.00 from CI commercial industrial mixed use to CL local commercial. Uh Mr. Ward. Thank you mayor and council. So this item was postponed to the January 15th 2026 uh council meeting. Uh since postponement, we have received a request uh to withdraw this item for consideration at this time. So my recommendation would be to accept that request to withdraw the item. So do I have a motion? I just need a motion to withdraw the item. Correct. Yes. Thank you. Move to withdraw. Got a motion to withdraw from council body. Do I have a second?

Second. Second from Vice Mayor Eldridge. Uh any discussion from the public on withdrawing? Discussion from council. All right. We will vote on that to withdraw the motion. Withdraw the item. We're sorry.

All correct. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you.

7D. Consider authorizing the city manager to execute a professional service agreement with Gresham Smith to provide engineering services for the city of Cook. Mr. Mayor and council members, this is a three-year agreement that allows Gisham Smith to provide engineering services to city departments. Uh task orders would be approved for any of projects that we would like to use Gisham Smith for. Uh this also does not obligate the city to use Gresham Smith. It just gives us the ability to for any of the departments to use them if we so wish. Uh I will have say we have used Gresham Smith in the past for projects, especially TOT projects, and they went really well. So I would recommend your approval for this. Thank you. Is there a motion?

Motion made by Vice Mayor Eldridge, seconded by Councilman Gilbert. Any discussion from the public? Discussion from council vote.

Correct. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. 7E. Consider amendments to the city of Baxter water contract. Mr. Turner. Thank you. U mayor and members of the council, this uh contract amendment extends the current contract with the city of Axure where we sell them water. None of the other conditions are changed and it extends it for 20 years and I recommend approval. Thank you. Is there a motion? So move. Motion made by Vice Eldridge. Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilman Gilbert. Any discussion from the public? Discussion from council. Did we work? Barry and I met on this and we asked the questions Monday and

I'm good with the way this is drafted. There's no areas that we would have any foreseeable interest in annexing that they serve. They have a very small service area. Everything that surrounds us is in the utility district. So, I'm good with and I appreciate Barry all the work hard work he's done on this and the research, but this is good to go as is. Okay. Any other comments? Okay. All vote.

All votes correct. Five. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. 7F. Consider authorizing the city manager to execute change order number one for the water treatment plant generator construction project. Mr. Turner. Uh this is to purchase some copper wire that uh we had in the contract for the construction contractor and it said would be provided by others meaning the city the city has not purchased this. We just went ahead and purchased the aluminum conductor. So this change order gets it purchased by the contractor and furnished for them. So I recommend approval. this change orders for $41,598 for purchase of that wire. Thank you. Is there a motion? Move.

Motion made by Vice Mayor Elders. Is there a second? Second by Councilman Walker. Any discussion from the public? Discussion from council.

All votes correct. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. And our final item 7G, consider approving an estimate from UCNC to remove abandoned lines and poles at the water treatment plant as part of the generator project. Mr. Turner,

uh, this generator project um is installing underground line down towards the intake. And previously in October, we approved work for upper common electric to do some work to uh put the water plant and the intake on one water I mean one electric meter. Uh that estimate that they had given us did not have removing any items any of the demo work. So, they have since given me an estimate of $12,974.19 to remove. There's about 10 poles down towards the intake that we're going to get removed and the line overhead line that's part of that as well. Uh, this is part of that uh grant that we're getting the ARP money on for at the water plant. So, I recommend your approval.

Thank you. Is there a motion? So move. Motion made by councilman Baji. Is there a second? Second. Second by Vice Mayor Eldridge. Any discussion from the public? Discussion from council. Okay. Go ahead and take a vote.

All votes. Correct. Five. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes the agenda portion of the meeting. Is there anyone who would like to speak to the council on any non-aggenda items? Seeing none, any comments from the council? All right, meeting is adjourned. Yeah. Happy new year. Happy new year. All righty.