City Council - Regular Meeting

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As long as the day starts that way and ends that way, I'm good.

Hello, I'm very well. How are you? Hi, Mike. Hi, John. Hi, sir.

I'm upright.

John, how are you? I'm doing good, man. How are you doing? Good to see you. Good to see you.

Good to be seen. As my brother says, better to be seen than viewed.

That's true. That's true.

Oh, I see. Yeah, it's strong.

Yeah, that makes sense. The broadcast is now starting. All attendees continue to listen. It's morning reminders. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's figuring it out. She's figuring it out. Is there a PowerPoint? um Oh, no, no. Yeah, I might go on. I'm following all of your guidelines. That's where it goes. I'm hoping so is Diamond Club. Researching catalysts, essentially. So you have a computer software Thank you. It's been a while ago when that concrete plan came up.

I thought I got up and talked and it was on the agenda. I know you're not supposed to, but once in a while Roger makes an exception. But if it's going to be a discussion where the audience can participate at the end, that would be great. I think that stream site thing is pretty neat. There he is. There he is.

I was in the wrong email. I was in my wife's.

Well, that'll make a difference.

Yes, it will. You get all kinds of weird stuff. Hey, Roger, is any of this tonight public hearing? I can't.

I was trying to.

So I can't talk about the stream side thing? I'm not going to say anything. I like it.

You are welcome to address the Commission.

Okay.

Technically, it's not about anything.

There's no action related to this. Yes, just a discussion.

There you go. See, I told you that's the guy you need to talk to.

I mean, can I talk at the end instead when you're having the discussion? No, it's not open for public discussion.

Okay, well.

It's goofy how it works. You know, I wish you'd run for state house. Right? It's a different statute. Yeah. What are you doing? Is it just bugs? What the heck? I'm sorry.

It bothers me enough just standing up here.

How's Linda doing? No crazy.

I've had better days, but I've got an eye issue with my left eye, but I'm not really happy with it. I'm going to have to learn to deal with it. I've got a macular pucker. What the heck is that? It's pulling on the back of my eye. So on my left eye, if I look at Roger's face about that day, it's a real fuzzy area. If I look at straight lines, they do this. I had a bunch of floaters a couple weeks ago while I was driving, which was extremely annoying. Flashes in the corner of the eye once in a while. I finally got an appointment today with a retina specialist for the 21st of September. It took seven days longer than it should have because my eye doctor... I love the eye doctor. Luckily, she's leaving to go to a different place. I had an appointment for September 1st. I had to go check out some doctors. I sent the wrong record.

Good heavens, I'm going to have a terrible time.

Man, that's... And I didn't know what to tell her.

I didn't tell her what my situation was. I said, so this is... Bare bones? No. Didn't get any worse. ... ... ... ...

Text verification. Text verification.

I'm back, I said, just to let you know. I went over yesterday and I picked up my... Hi, Chad. We can start now, Chad. Same name. Yeah. July 17th, 1977.

No, just putting in new floors. That's been a treat.

So I was 19 years younger, and I lived in Lawrence, which I never got.

Moral of the story is I've been living in the same house for 34 years.

When you call the number, all of a sudden, I don't know.

There's two of them in the truck. Yeah, sitting there.

I could get out of my house, I would. She talked to him, and I talked to him. I think it was. There he is. Okay.

My clock says 6 o'clock. I'd like to call this meeting to order. Roll call.

Martin. Here. Templin. Here. Lane. Here. Huggins. Here. Milburn. Here. Schultz. Here. Medoc. He's right there. All are present today.

Thank you. Item 3A, approve the Planning Commission agenda. I have suggested change. I'd like to suggest moving 7D to up before B and C. The streamway corridor setbacks and trail system, I think that discussion is kind of a different discussion than the text amendment. Add that first.

I'm good with it. I'm good with it.

Good.

So make a motion to move item D up to between A and B.

Second.

Move to second it. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, same sign.

Aye.

A little delayed, that's all right.

I'm going to assume that was in favor of it.

No worries. Item 3B, approve the minutes the Planning Commission meeting held on June 23, 2026. Any changes, corrections, or additions to make to the minutes?

Make a motion we approve the minutes as presented.

Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye. Opposed, same sign. Minutes have been approved. Item 3C, disclosure of conflicts of interest. Anything on the agenda tonight that's a conflict of interest that needs to be disclosed?

No.

Seeing none. Item 3D, disclosure of outside communications regarding commission business. Anybody have anything to report?

No.

Okay. That moves us to item four, the call to the public. Members of the public who wish to address the planning commission regarding items not on the agenda may do so at this time. Any presentation is for information purposes only no action will be taken. There's a four minute time limit. They would like to address the planning commission. Please give your name and address when you approach the podium.

My name is Sarah Vandy Creek and my address is 8 1 7 5 Ravenswood lane. Um, I just want to thank those of you that have taken the time to help me understand. the processes and the things that happen within the Planning Commission and just being open to kind of help me answer my questions when I have them. I have been trying to get the word out because I know that one thing we talked about is the need for more people in the public to be involved in this part of the process so it's not so confusing or startling to them when things happen. And I would just ask that if the Commission has ideas or suggestions or any avenues that they think would be best to try to help spread the word and what kind of word we want to get out on how the processes work within the city. So I can help maybe disseminate that information to someone else. I would love to hear from you. I would enjoy feedback on that. And if you have any questions for me, I'm always happy to answer. So thank you very much. Thanks, Sarah.

Hello, I'm Mike Caldwell. I live at 8412 Corliss. And just wanted to take a couple minutes to talk about the stream side setback and trails report that's online. And, you know, I think this is probably the best piece of work I've seen the city put out I'm not in the thick of it like you guys are, but I do try to keep up with what's going on and keep track of things. This document seems to cover everything we need to protect our streams and to establish a trail system that makes sense. I like the science in the Lenexa part of it, where they map and grade all the streams, whether they have names or not. And they did all that in 2001, if I have it right. And it's been working for years, both legally and practically. And all you got to do is spend a little time walking in the parks in Lenexa, you can see how they're laid out, how they're trying to protect all the streams, how they've kept the development away from it. I wish we had this about five years ago. I think we really need to make this a priority and push it and get it done. We need to map our streams, we need to grade them, we need to update our master trail plan. so that it incorporates what we find out in the mapping study. Because right now, our master trail plan just seems to follow roads. And I think having the trails go along the streams and do it prior to the development makes a lot more sense than trying to do it afterwards. And I think Well, I'd like for you to, I know it's going to take time. I don't know if we can get it done by the end of the year. That may be aggressive. I think that ought to be a goal. But as we evaluate future developments, I think we ought to keep this study in the back of our heads. Some examples to kind of put a little more reality to it is look at the digital realty out at Ad Astra. That thing's going to be on a hill right above Kill Creek. Where that water's going to go, there's going to be a big concrete pad, there's going to be a lot of rooftops. Water's got to go somewhere. And another example is out at Flint. The Bill data center, there's a creek in that report mapped right where that data center is. What happened to it? I suspect it got covered over and long story short, I wouldn't want to be downstream from that. It would have been interesting to see how these things would have turned out if we would have had something like this in place, like the Cedar Creek development that's going on. I don't know what kind of setback they've been allowed or what's going on, but I think it's going to look different than what it would have been if we would have had this in place and we would have got a trail.

Thanks, Mike.

So I'll wrap it up. But all in all, I think it's an awesome piece of work done. I don't know who did it, but they all get a raise. Thank you.

Anyone else like to address the Planning Commission?

I actually just wanted to provide some evidence in context for something that is being discussed tonight, so I don't know if that's allowed or not.

So first, give us your name and address for the record.

Hi, my name is Jennifer Delgado. This is my emotional support toddler. I live at 33844 West 88th Street, DeSoto.

So if it's an action item, we really shouldn't be taking public comment on it. We have a couple of discussion items here tonight. So discussion items, feel free.

I'm too ignorant to know the difference. I'm an astronomer by trade, so I just wanted to provide some evidence that's tied to light pollution. I don't know. I can come back another time.

It's probably not the right time for that.

Could you tell me when?

If you'll see what we do with that proposal today, you'll get to see something on that. Whatever would ultimately be adopted will be subject to a public hearing. You're certainly welcome to participate. At this point, it's merely a discussion item.

So it's not an action item, it's a discussion item.

It's not an action item, it's a discussion item.

So I could talk about it.

Yeah, I just don't know what you're talking about when you're saying presenting evidence, because we're probably not in a position to take evidence. But if you have a comment, we'd be happy to hear it.

OK, so what I mean in terms of evidence is actually a map. This is NASA data. So I've got two maps really. This one's from 2012. This is showing light pollution in our area. And I'm sorry, I'm too poor for a color printer. That dot that you're seeing there is Lawrence, the big dot. And then the really big blob over there is Kansas City. This is light pollution. The whiter, the pinker, the worse. That was 2012. This is what it looks like in 2025. Again, this is based off of NASA data. That dot that you see appear there, that's from the Panasonic Data Center. I don't know if I can say specifics. Light pollution generally is caused by bluer light sources that go up. They hit the atmosphere. Blue light scatters more than red, then gets scattered all around. Blue light can be very dangerous for your health and wildlife. That's why they tell you things like don't have your cell phone near your face while you're trying to go to bed. It messes up things like your circadian rhythm. Lawrence has adopted a measure like this, and I'd be happy to come back at a later time to talk about specifics. The American Medical Association specifically says 4,000 Degree Kelvin lamps are bad for your health, for the things I'm mentioning that are tied to blue light. They have more blue light, the hotter the bulb, more blue light, more scattering, more negative health effects. Whereas lower temperature bulbs, closer to 3,000, those are generally not only better for you, better for the sky, better for the environment, but also more pleasant. People tend to like those kind of bulbs. Those look like more of the old school incandescent bulbs, like what we used to have before the Make us get rid of all of them and get the LEDs. Thank you for your time. Thank you for listening. I'd be happy to talk about it more if possible.

Please follow along. Please participate. Thank you. We do appreciate that. Anyone else like to address the planning commission? All right. With that, I'll close the mic. There's nobody online that wants to address.

Nobody's hand is up.

Okay. With that, we'll close the call to the public. That moves us then to item seven. And the first thing on our agenda in the new business is to consider the final plat for carriage houses 16. Brad, our favorite topic.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just when we thought we were finished with the carriage houses, it comes back. So this is the 16th plat for the carriage houses, and it's a very, very, very minor change. They have just changed the sequencing order of the buildings. Instead of one through six, it's been flipped to go six through one. And because the plat had been recorded, we have to go back all the way through the process again. So nothing has changed except the order of the buildings. I'm not exactly sure why they wanted to do that, but it's their choice. They've paid the fees and submitted the application, so... we have to process and move through it. So I will stand for any questions you may have, but that is the very simple and basic reason why we have another Carriage Houses plat. Any questions for Brad?

Well, I have one question.

Does the city have a classification for plats, like it might be called a minor plat that would be administered

Not administrative. We do have a minor plat. There's five units or less, but we don't have any kind of administrative.

Well, all plats have to come with a plan commission. So it can't be filed with the county without a plan commission to prepare a signature on it. So by default, there will always be this test. We do have plats that can... create less than five acres or parcels don't need a preliminary plan. There's a lot of utility plans and study planning that's not required. So they're more administrative in nature. But they still come here. Thank you.

Other questions for Brad?

No.

Thank you, Brad. As before the Planning Commission, any discussion?

Motion.

I make a motion we approve the plat as presented and move the plat forward to City Council for acceptance of right-of-ways and easements.

Second.

Second. Moved and seconded, seconded. Roll call.

Schultz. Yes. Medoc.

Yes.

Miller. Yes. Huggins. Yes. Lane. Yes. Templin. Yes. Martin. Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. That takes us to the old 7D, which we've now moved to 7B, which is the presentation on the streamway corridor setbacks and trips.

All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do want to point out that Dominic, what's that?

I was going to introduce him real fast.

Oh, I was, well, you want to introduce him? Yeah.

Okay.

Well, that's what I was going to do.

Okay, boys, don't fight over me.

Yeah, no, I apologize. I just wanted to give... I know, I know. If you let me finish, I got it. Jeez. Good evening, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, Brandon Mills, Assistant City Administrator. Over the summer, I've had the privilege of supervising our city management intern, Dominic, who is a senior at Wichita State University studying political science with an interest in urban development, city planning, public administration, and city management. Dominic has had the privilege, or I think mostly privilege, of sitting in the same suite as Mike and myself and getting a front row seat on several city projects over the course of the summer. He's worked closely with Mike, myself, Patrick, and Brad, providing research and assistance throughout the summer. One of Dominic's major projects grew out of a park board meeting. Mr. Caldwell had come in and he had discussed, as the city develops, he'd like to see us develop a streamway setback policy. So naturally, we decided this would be a great project for the city in turn. And so Dominic has completed an extensive research paper on this topic. THAT'S IN YOUR PACKET AND HE WILL COME UP TO YOU TODAY AND GIVE YOU KIND OF A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF HIS FINDINGS. THE REQUEST TONIGHT IS JUST TO ROLL THIS INTO THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN THAT'S GOING TO START HERE IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS AND THEN AFTER THAT WE'LL ROLL THROUGH SOME OF THE OTHER OPTIONS during his presentation. So with that, I will turn it over to Dominic. I apologize, Brad, I didn't mean to steal your thunder there. So I'll turn it over to Dominic.

So Mike, I guess that's the answer to your question to the guy that wrote it, since this is him.

He's probably not making enough money.

Clearly not.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, commission members. My name is Dominic Saiki. I'm the city management intern. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to present this to you tonight. I'm presenting a preliminary policy proposal concerning stream setbacks and developer trail dedication. This policy is designed to protect our watershed health and infrastructure while proactively expanding our municipal trail network through the development process. If fully implemented over time, this framework could yield over 40 linear miles of city owned trail corridors at minimal public capital cost. Next slide. So I'd like to introduce the concept of stream setbacks. So at its core, a stream setback is an undisturbed natural corridor maintained between the edge of a stream and permanent manmade structures. Rather than applying a single rigid setback line across every property, my proposal utilizes a dynamic three zone system similar to the one used in Kansas City, Missouri and Lenexa that scales horizontally based on the stream size and environmental sensitivity. So the three zone system, the architecture, we have the stream and then the innermost zone is called the inner zone. It's a strict conservation area directly along the bank, so you can't really do anything on it. No mowing, nothing. It is to preserve native vegetation and deep root systems to physically bind the stream bank, preventing severe channel erosion. And then we have the middle zone. This absorbs a large portion of the 100-year floodplain and adjacent steep slopes. This area acts as a primary flood retention buffer and natural filter for urban stormwater runoff, while also safely accommodating low impact multi-use trails. And then we have the outer zone, which is a flexible buffer extending outward towards buildable land. It permits passive recreation and simple structures, for example, a gazebo, providing a gradual transition from public conservation to private development. This framework achieves two critical municipal planning goals simultaneously. So for one, we have the natural infrastructure protection. It keeps high impact development out of ecologically vulnerable flood zones, filtering urban runoff like tire particulates, fertilizers, and salt before they reach our watershed, while also preventing bank collapse. And secondly, there's a proactive civic connectivity element. So it preserves contiguous corridors, allowing DeSoto to weave a master-planned trail network directly into our natural geography during the plotting process at zero land acquisition cost for the city. Next slide, please. So how do we deal with this now? So the current framework that DeSoto uses is primarily through Chapter 16, Article 5, This is a floodplain management. While Article 5 does successfully prevent structures from being built directly within flood hazards, it does not preserve the surrounding natural corridor. So adopting a dedicated setback ordinance would allow us to evolve our approach, shifting our streamways from simply being managed hazards into actively protected assets. Next slide, please. So why now?

Before you get there, maybe can I ask you a question about that? Yeah, go ahead. So how do these other cities protect that area? I mean, I understand we have setbacks that say, and we've got our floodplain regulations that say you can't build in that area, but are you saying that we would adopt an ordinance that says you can't take down a tree in that area? Is that kind of what that would be? Correct. Yes. And so those are the kinds of ordinances that, say, for example, Annexa has. Right. That is correct. Anything that's in that streamway, you can't build. You cannot touch it. Okay. Thank you.

Mm-hmm. So why now? DeSoto is entering an unprecedented period of growth, and as the rural land is annexed and platted, our window to secure these corridors is strictly time-sensitive. Securing dedicated easements during the platting process avoids the extreme costs and logistical problems of retrofitting rights of way later or being forced to follow road alignments for future trails.

Let me stop you there. You're also advocating, in addition to you can't take down any trees in there, that they would actually...

Correct.

Along the streamlines?

Correct. Okay. Within the middle, the middle zone. Got it. Next slide, please. All right, so I've evaluated three regional models that I believe were gold standards, and then I built a framework tailored to DeSoto. So Kansas City, Missouri uses the established foundational three-zone structure that balances the strict bank preservation with the flexible outer zone uses, and it is the most simple ordinance of the three. Lenexa uses a scientific data-driven typology system categorizing streams based on bank health and volume. And this allows them to scale setback widths required to, excuse me, allows them to scale setback widths requiring narrow buffers on degraded streams to reduce unnecessary friction. And lastly, we have Platt County, Missouri, which requires mandatory trail dedication and construction when a development intersects a master-planned trail.

Next slide.

So this proposed policy offers three core community benefits. So the first is environmental protection. So leaving native vegetation undisturbed allows a deep root system to stabilize the bank. This prevents severe erosion and naturally traps some of the urban runoff before they reach the local watershed. On your screen is an example. The top photo depicts a stream that has suffered severe erosion and the bottom photo is an example of a healthy stream with intact banks because the deep root system held it in place.

Next slide please.

The second benefit is trail connectivity. So maintaining these contiguous undeveloped stream corridors enables the city to secure easements for low impact trails. This can link isolated neighborhoods on the fringes of DeSoto with each other and then eventually to the broader trail network and existing sidewalks which will make for a highly dependable interconnected pedestrian network. Crucially, on the more rural or less dense edges of the community, the trail materials do not need to be paved concrete or asphalt. Instead, we can use low impact materials like mulch or crushed gravel until the city observes clear demand and has the capacity to upgrade the corridor. And lastly, a third is economic value. So regional and national economic data indicate that residential and commercial properties adjacent to natural stream corridors and permanent trails consistently experience higher valuations, faster lot absorptions, where the trails can act as a premium marketing tool for neighborhoods. Next slide, please. So mitigating the direct drawbacks to ensure this policy is equitable and legally sound, it should have three crucial components. So one is developer incentives. So this is what Kansas City and Lenexa do with the loss of land because of the setback. They incentivize developers with density bonuses, yard setback reductions, or parking relief. Two would be parkland credit. So DeSoto currently requires that 4% of gross area and any new subdivision be dedicated to parkland. This trail dedication and construction would directly offset that, preventing double taxing the developers. And lastly would be variances and protection. So a case by case variance process would ensure relief for genuine site specific hardship. Crucially, I want to make a big note of this, all existing homes and approved flats would be 100% grandfathered in. This would only apply to new. So I'm not advocating for us to ask developers to solve DeSoto's regional trail gaps entirely out of pocket. What I'm saying is that if your new neighborhood brings in residents who will rely on our infrastructure and an official master trail corridor crosses your property, you must build that segment to accommodate your project specific footprint and in exchange we'll credit you with the existing parkland requirement to keep it fair. If a developer can technically demonstrate that a required dedication is completely unfair, given the size of their project, or if the setback makes the land entirely unusable, a clear case-by-case mechanism must be in place to grant relief. However, this variance process should be used as a true safety valve, not a standard loophole. As Platt County explicitly states in its code, granting waivers too easily would dismantle the continuity of the intended trail network, so exceptions should be reserved for rare occasions. So on your screen right now, we have the very, very, very preliminary conceptual map of the urban growth area, which indicates a theoretical maximum yield of between 42 and 52 linear miles of connected corridors. So this would be incremental long-term strategy. The infrastructure would only be built out as the private development naturally or organically occurs. The light blue on the map would be what are called Ephemeral streams, so those are stream beds that only have water in them during or after a rainstorm or otherwise dry. And then the dark blue are what are called perennial streams, which typically have water in them all the time. And then in gray are corridors that are either owned and operated by Johnson County Parks and Recreation District or soon to be. Next slide, please. So to move this concept to formal policy, I'd like to make a few recommendations. So I'd like to integrate this with the comprehensive plan, which would require you guys to authorize staff to incorporate streamway setbacks and master planned trail corridors in the upcoming comprehensive plan update. Also would like to recommend expanding the 2018 Parks and Recreation Trails Master Plan to include these potential corridors. Number three would be to engage consultants to conduct a stream asset inventory to scientifically classify and inventory our stream channels. And lastly, direct staff and the city attorney to draft ordinance incorporating these recommendations. And that is all I have for you tonight. I will stand for any questions.

Consider the floodways for the streams that are in floodplains.

Floodplains, yeah, generally. Most of them would be in floodplains. Consider the floodway. Floodway? So that I... I don't know the answer to that. I will... Can I get back to you on that?

Okay. It would.

And in the 25-foot stream sides, basically we would... Assess the streams? Correct. Value them? Is there any lower limit on the drainage area that would create the stream?

Right. So that is the intention between the stream asset inventory. So once that's completed, they will assess the bank health. And if it is degraded, then ideally we'd have a provision where the setback could be reduced. And then our 25-foot setbacks would be preserved for our more healthy corridors.

Let's say you get a 20-acre watershed.

So generally the way Lenexa does it is that they have to connect to other streams, so third-order streams, which would be like your named streams. So it would have to drain into the river. It would have to connect to drain into the river. So if it's just like within a property or between a few properties, but it doesn't drain directly into the river, it probably would not count.

Do we define what we mean by river in this document?

The Kansas River.

If it's not directly tributary to the Kansas River, then our document would qualify for a stream?

Correct.

On the 25-foot setbacks, are utilities a lot? Sanitary sewer needs to go along the creek. Is sanitary sewer...

So not within the 25-foot zone. That is a strict no-build. Nothing can go in there to keep the roots stable. So if we were to plan to install any underground utilities, they would have to go in the middle conveyance zone.

And in the evaluation we're planning on having done, do we account for areas with steep banks I'll just make something up. Let's say you've got a significant creek, like Navy Kill Creek, that has a floodplain that comes halfway up the bank. But because it's a rocky bluff, the bank extends significantly higher. Would this allow for the stream setback

So I that is not something I address in the paper I don't know the answer to that I would I can get back to you on that I will refer to the Lenexa and Kansas City, Missouri ordinances.

That's a very good question They don't take it into account But that doesn't mean it doesn't make sense. Right. And did you review the APWA stream setback requirements with this or just this?

No, I didn't. The APWA, can you, what is that?

American Public Works Association.

Oh, okay. No, I did not review that.

They've got a section dedicated to stream setbacks. which actually most of the cities in Johnson County use.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate it. Good work. Thank you.

Other questions for Dominic?

Yes. First of all, good job, Dominic. You did a great job. Thank you. Good presentation. So I guess the question that I have is on this process, maybe it's something you can't answer, maybe Mike or some other staff, is this going to come back for a public hearing?

Well, as I understand it, the recommendation is that we take this into account as part of the overall comprehensive plan. So I'm sure we'll be talking about all kinds of things. And the question is, should we include this kind of discussion in the comprehensive plan? I think that's the only thing we're being asked to consider.

Because my concern would be the people that are not here, the landowners, that are going to be affected by this. Yeah.

It's going to definitely have an impact, certainly to the extent we're requiring easements and saying you can't cut down a tree in the stream. That's going to cause some stir, I would think.

Yeah, I don't know if it's an actual easement, but I think it's going to be an ordinance drafted that says you can't build within this area. And I'm in support of something like this, but I think the important people that are not in the crowd today are those landowners that are going to lose land. the value of this land. I mean, it's going to be just like an intimate domain without them knowing about it.

Well, certainly we wouldn't get to that point.

Is there enough?

I think he said that there's a big way of evaluation that needs to be done in order for us to really assess it. Would that be the appropriate time to kind of bring that for landlords?

Because that's what I was kind of guessing, right?

Yeah, I mean, I think the appropriate way to handle this would be if this is something that we find of interest, we should definitely want to include it in the comprehensive plan discussion and consider what appropriate ordinances are going to come out of that. And, of course, that will require public hearings, and we'll go through that process. certainly to the extent that we avoid the problem by grandfathering an existing building that doesn't really take care of your problem that you've identified where there's people that own property out there that's going to be essentially taken to the extent that it's going to affect their ability to deal with their property in the future. So there will have to be a public process with it. I don't think what we're being asked to consider tonight is whether we think that's right or not. It's just whether this is worth a discussion.

Yeah, and I think it is. But I think what Commissioner Huggins was talking about on those upper streams where they're really not defined, when you go out there and look at it, it's not like Hill Creek. So those are the ones that are really going to be, those landowners will be impacted because then they'll, surprisingly, they won't be able to develop their land as they saw yesterday because of this ordinance.

Yeah.

Well, I'll add to that. To me, a lot of these identified corridors are within our planning area, but they're not within our city boundaries. So some of those may never develop with the kind of intense development that you'd be able to do in Lenexa, where you'd be able to have more intense development for more streamway. These may never be sewered. So there's things to talk about.

I'd be interested to see how Lenexa and Kansas City and Black County, how they've handled. I'm sure that's not the first time that situation has been brought up. And if this was in effect now, what would this do to the grotto development where the drainage stream goes right down the middle of it?

Yep. So would that include approved plenary plots as well?

Well, I think what we're having is a very common discussion when we're talking about imposing new restrictions on private property rights. It's kind of inherent in the Constitution that the exception is we get to decide what zoning controls there are. I think what we have here, Dominic's done a great job at a policy framework document that gets us thinking about the many facets of this particular discussion about this particular thing that we might want to incorporate. The comprehensive plan is a perfect place to start with that because you can start the community discussion. It itself has... Community involvement, engagement, it itself has a public hearing process. Never mind the zoning. I mean, we put it on the comp plan without putting it in zoning. It's just policy. Then there's the next step of the further discussion with individual landowners. I mean, it's this. The next two things on our agenda are very much the same. These things should be done with care and with feedback and done collaboratively is what we see. So this is an extremely good policy document to get us thinking about the first step, in my view. And that's all we're saying is, hey, let's take a look at it.

The only caveat I would make is that unlike the next two that we're going to talk about, this isn't actually a proposal for a text amendment. This was a policy document to say that we wanted to have this discussion. Yeah. So I think this is the right way to present that.

Yeah.

Because I'm certainly not ready to talk about a text amendment. I love the idea, but... Yeah, I do. I think it's great. I use the county's trails all the time. I wish we had more of them. I wish they were more connected. Totally a thing. Totally get that. But I also recognize we're different than the next. This is kind of how it works. Okay, so do we have a consensus that this is a policy that we would like to see brought into the comprehensive plan discussion?

Absolutely. Yes. Yes.

I see no opposition to that. So let's consider that approved.

Thank you, Commissioner. Great job, Dominic. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Well done.

Nicely done, Dominic.

Okay. That moves us to 7B, the Dark Skies text amendment, potential text amendment. Again, this is a discussion item, so we're not ready for a public hearing on this or taking testimony or evidence as was suggested earlier. We're not quite there yet, but this is a discussion of how we'd like to proceed with a proposed testimony.

Yeah. So just some brief comments. Commission. So these, the documents you're looking at, those were part of a larger set of proposals that Councilman Bradley, who's here in the audience, had brought to the Council's attention, to staff's attention, as things he believed would be a good thing to consider and look at. The City Council really didn't you know, do a deep dive on any of this, essentially recognizing that the items, particularly lighting and the tree regulations are, you know, you guys are the subject matter experts on things of that nature. So the council was supportive of sending this to you for your consideration. Earlier today, again, Dominic did some great work. He and I worked on trying to identify out of the proposed regulations by Mr. Bradley, Do they duplicate things we already have? Are there inconsistencies with what's proposed? And maybe most importantly, what are new items or new regulations that you might be interested in pursuing? So that's the PDF I distributed earlier today. put red notes across the PDF just calling some of that out. And obviously we can continue to fine tune that, but the intent there was to try to isolate things that you might have interest in and incorporating into our regulations. Ultimately, the question is what changes to these two sets of regulations does the Planning Commission comfortable recommending to the City Council? So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. And I did, Mr. Bradley is here if you have any questions of him as to these. So thank you.

So probably this is a question for Dominic. Are existing regulations that you compared these to, is that from Article 6, that's basically this off-street parking and loading regulations is kind of the only light portions of our existing code?

I'm sorry, could you clarify where exactly you came?

So we were provided with an existing city lighting requirements, Article 6, off-street parking and loading regulations.

Oh yes, that is correct. Yes, the city code, yes, addressing street lights is in that section. Okay, and that's the only section we have on that, right?

Correct.

Okay. Chairman, if I can just throw out, we also, as part of the site plan process, we require a lighting plan to be submitted as part of that process.

Do we have a separate set of standards we apply to that other than this? This is the only place we actually have lighting standards.

Correct.

Okay. I know we've seen the photometric plans and those kinds of things on site plan I I'm ignorant enough to say the staff think this complies with it because I don't know so that's me Okay, so this matter is a discussion item for the Planning Commission probably got this when I got this which was late last week and You know, to me, there are a number of things in here that are worthy of understanding better, certainly when you compare it to what we have now. To me, I feel like this probably deserves some attention. For example, I don't know what the USBGC is in the IES model light ordinance language or the IES luminaire classification system that's all referred to in here. I don't know anything about it. It may be absolutely appropriate, but I don't know what it is. So to me, I think we need to have a better understanding of what that is, how that will affect essentially the usability of the other properties and developments we have. And I'm assuming these are probably more stringent, which is maybe appropriate, but I don't understand it. So that's me. Maybe you guys have a better understanding of it.

I don't. I concur, totally.

So, I mean, I guess I'm just going to play ignorant on this. I mean, is the reason that this is even coming up is because all the light pollution from Panasonic, it's in the sky? Is that what it is?

I think that was part of the impetus for it, and obviously there was construction lighting. If you look today compared to what it was six months ago, it's a lot different than it was. And I think the photometric studies we were provided for with what Panasonic did with the time we approved those were in compliance with our regulations and best I can gather probably is in compliance today. I don't think they were in compliance during construction at all. So that's part of this issue, but it probably seems appropriate to talk about it.

So generally when we submit for site plans, we have to have the photometric plan that has to have zero foot candles at the property line. So we have that showing zero at the property line, but is it the lights going up? Is that what the concern is?

I have a few questions, too, if you guys don't mind. So this text amendment goes in to talk about auto-dimming lights, and I would like to understand that a little bit better to your point, Roger. It talks about the cap and removal of the tree canopy, and then it talks about I'm thinking about triple damages and then we're allowing, we're sort of incentivizing people to do so. I have a lot of questions as well as to what are we doing today and what are we going to try to ask these companies to do and specifically around this auto dimming proposal that we're putting in here.

Good questions. I mean, I think these are things that we probably ought to look at a little more carefully. You know, they've also got the amortization and phase-out period that within five years, things that aren't in compliance or need to be removed. And so we got a little different angle on this. It's not like grandfathering what's there, but new construction importance with this. We're actually requiring people to do it. Apparently, it also applies to the residential because the phase-out here says it's exempt from the five-year mandate but may maintain it until the fixture is replaced or repaired. I mean, I don't know. We want to get in the business of checking everybody's door lights, but maybe that's where we go. I don't know. So I would suggest that I think the right way to attack both of these will be for either staff to go through this process and kind of be able to inform us as to what these things mean, or if we have planning commissioners that would like to participate in some kind of a committee, to work with staff to understand where it is and actually come to us with an ordinance that we can explain to anybody who stops us on the street and says, well, what did you change? I'd like to be able to say that. I have the same understanding that you do, that our photometric study generally requires a zero-foot candle at the property line. I get that. As far as the color of the light and how intense it is, You know, we kind of have some language on there about that, but not a lot. And so ours probably is in need of some attention. I would agree with that. But I don't know that this is it. And it incorporates a lot of things that I don't understand. So I would want to find more out about it. And I think city staff and certainly if there are commissioners that are interested, maybe we can do something with that. And you guys can.

So where did this document come from? Is it from another city that has this?

Yeah, a question for Zach?

Well, yeah, I'm anybody.

I got no problem if you want to ask a question to Zach. Go ahead.

Good evening, Commissioner. The answer is to where it came from. lighting ordinance from the Dark Skies Alliance and the, there's a North American portion of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, ISNA.

Is that who the name I'm looking for?

Yes, I-E-S-N-A.

I-E-S?

I-E-S-N-A, North America. Okay. The other one, the U.S. BGC is the U.S. Green Building Council. They do the LEED certification stuff. Yeah. Those guys. And really, we're talking about them at the same time because this is the initial discussion. But they're really two separate ordinances, the dark skies and then the urban forestry. The urban forestry ordinance was modeled on the National Arbor Foundation's model ordinance. And just to be clear, these are just the starting points for discussion. No one's expecting you to... take any action on these right now. As you said, there's a lot of stuff that still needs to be clarified. Sure. Some other things that need to happen that haven't happened as of yet. In my opinion, we need to consult with the State Forester, perhaps the K-State Extension Service, someone like that as to the appropriateness of the different vegetation and all the things that go along with that. because I'm not a forester or an arborist, and I don't know if anyone else in here is, but there's a lot of stuff that goes with that. How do you identify whether it's a female mulberry tree? I don't know. But that came from the state of Kansas' recommendations. So maybe they know more about how we should phrase it. This really, for me, was just a starting point to bring attention to it and to say that there are some things we need to probably work on. And this isn't intended to replace as a whole any of our current ordinances. It's intended to amend and add to. We're not trying to reduce anything because we do have pretty comprehensive vegetation and urban forestry type ordinances as it is.

35 pages might count.

Yes. And so this would be to amend those and sort of make them a little more comprehensive and update them. I'm not sure when the last time they were updated was, but that's my intent. And that's where it came from. I hope that answers your questions.

Yeah, so the dark light skies is over here. Our code is over here somehow.

Yes. Okay. Our code is pretty limited on the Dark Skies stuff, and all of those are, like I said, taken from the National Model Ordinance Language.

From the IESNA.

The IDA, International Dark Skies Alliance, and Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.

Okay. All of those guys sound smarter than me. They're all smarter than me, that's for sure. That's fine. Okay.

Any other questions for me, I'm happy to answer.

Thanks, Zach.

Thank you.

So how do you want to proceed? First of all, the question is, is it worth talking about?

Yes.

Yes. I think so.

Absolutely.

Okay. So if we want to talk about it, then the city council has done us the gracious favor of kicking this down to us. Try to figure it out. So I think that we should pick up the mantle and do what we can. Right. So I don't necessarily feel like the right thing to do is to say, well, Brad, go ahead and go at it. But I do think that it might be helpful to have a couple other voices in the room when trying to figure this out. I don't know if anybody's interested in participating in that.

Would this be something that we could have a joint meeting with some of the council members and some of us?

To me, it doesn't seem like a bad idea to have those voices in the room. But Patrick may have a different view of that. I don't know.

Yeah, we generally... I mean, there have been meetings more on big, you know, visionary... topics and subjects, but really talking about a specific proposal like this, it probably would be better to keep them separate because you're an advisory board to the city council and the purpose is that you guys act independent of the council and you're focused on, you know, planning, does this, you know, the city council has more

inquiries or things they want you know staffing to to implement these things that type of thing so my suggestion would be probably keep it separate to that end part of one of the ordinances is a sort of a reimbursement mechanism for retrofitting stuff and that seems to be more aligned with a different type of ordinance than with the zoning and planning commission's value of what you guys do.

I get it. This policy is going to be absolutely entwined with it, which is why, to me, it doesn't seem like it's a bad thing to get voices from the council to have this discussion as well. That said, maybe we take the first stab at it from the planning perspective of these are the things that we can come up with, and maybe we kick it back to council and say, what do you guys think, and see what they say about it before they come back with a text amendment.

They kick the can a little bit. I'm okay with that.

I mean, I...

I think what we have now definitely needs some work because my personal opinion is when Panasonic started all of this, we kind of got into a panic mode because we've got the stuff coming in, we need the housing, we need this, we need that, and it's like, let's hurry up and do all this stuff. And now with Panasonic's going, we can take a breath a little bit and say, okay, now let's dig into this a little bit deeper, see what we can do because we're encroaching a little bit on rural areas that really don't have a say in the matter. So if we can not interfere with their style of life as much as possible, get a little bit of lighting and standards taken care of, some of the tree situations so that maybe we don't have to go through the deal like we just did with Panasonic having to come back and say, we took all the dirt away, now we can't grow anything.

Wait, wait, we still haven't gotten that back to us, right?

No, they haven't. Okay, just checking. So I think we definitely have some work to do.

Absolutely. More of a question, maybe you guys know, but I did briefly talk to Cameron, our building inspector, about these things, particularly on the lighting. And I think from a memory card, he indicated that our regulations already require all the lighting to be down. It does. We do not have any up lighting. It does.

So...

yeah it's it's unlike the landscaping ordinance it is literally two pages and the two pages require that all lights be at a 90 degree angle and point and we have some different rules for if it's like a industrial facility that having them on the buildings things like that but it's very very I mean it's it's just bare bones and there's no question that we probably should strengthen this. I think that makes perfect sense. I don't know switching to an entirely different kind of system is the right answer, because that's just a lot of complexity that goes with that and has unintended consequences in terms of what that means for people that are actually trying to build. So I just, I'm hesitant to just say, oh yeah, sure, let's go with that. We kind of need to find out about it.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think if we start scrapping ours and going with something new, I mean, I'm not an expert by any means... And if we go with something like this, we're going to have text amendment after text amendment. You know, people come in here and say, well, why did you do this? Then another text amendment again.

But it's good to explore what other options are out there to see if we are missing something.

And maybe this is the right answer.

Well, I think there's certainly a lot of work to do on this. I don't see this happening in three years. six months getting anything out, because that's... This is complex.

I think it deserves some time and attention.

And maybe as the staff looks at it and as the committee looks at it, or whoever's going to give input on it, maybe they come up with a better way to address it, at least without having to throw out the big-width bathwater and go with a new... There's a lot of stuff in this I like. Yeah, I agree.

When I saw these... I was really planning on coming in and asking this big table. Is that a motion? And the staff bring us back a more comprehensive analysis. The items that are in this report, you know, here's the... actual show us what the ordinance are in effect and how those would have to be changed. I guess after hearing this discussion, I certainly backed off that. But do we want to tax the staff with that, you know, doing all that work if we're not that interested?

I think we're interested. I am getting it, exploring it further.

Well, I'm certainly interested in strengthening our light ordinance. I think it's very weak. And I think that the gal that's made the public comment, she's got a good point. I'm sure that if you did look at satellite imagery, it's changed a lot. Now, from 2012 to 2026, we've doubled in population, and there's probably lots of reasons for why that. It's not necessarily because everybody's got lights pointing up. It's just because we all have more people.

But if you put in a brighter light, you don't need as many to get the same effect. I am confident that having an upper limit on the Kelvin... We don't know about these. Brightness of those lights is probably a really good idea, which I assume we don't have...

We do it all in foot candle. I did understand that part.

We definitely want something that is lower.

I agree with some of the observations that the committee has said.

The whole point of it is that it's not complicated.

So being sensitive to your comments of not really wanting to throw it back to staff and say, go figure it out. Do you feel like that's something that we collectively could do or should do? Or maybe we leave it in the staff's hands and have them go talk to a consultant or somebody. I don't know. None of us, I think, profess to have that kind of knowledge.

And I'm not volunteering. But I thought the idea of some of the commissioners who could get involved with staff at those present days, that's kind of what I was thinking about. maybe a commissioner or two and staff, sit down with some experts and ask them to present what they would like, I mean, what they would do in their...

I would be interested in participating in it just so I could learn something about this.

What'd you say, Charlie?

I didn't hear what he said. We should ask a few commissioners

That Charlie, did you just raise your hand?

We thought you said yes, you were volunteering.

Well, I don't know that these, I don't know that these two proposed ordinances are necessarily the same. in terms of what might be of interest to commissioners. And maybe it's two separate groups that look at all that. I don't know. By that same token, I'm not asking anybody to volunteer more time than you need to volunteer. So I totally get that, but I do think it would be helpful to get some input from the commission with staff to go through these things. Yeah.

Just wonder, would anybody be interested, you know, the, The PDF that we distributed today, Dominic identified, and we could do more detail, but there were sections that these are new. And I wonder, do you want us to come back with a different format, essentially giving a narrative of these are new regulations. Is this something you want to pursue? Maybe make it a smaller puzzle.

Maybe take a stab at sections at a time.

I think that's great, but by that same token, what I don't want to do is come back without a recommendation. I want to have a recommendation presented to Planning Commission if we think this is what's going to work. The committee, the whole discussion thing, I just don't think we're going to get anywhere with it. I think it needs to be somebody who's looking at it, who's talked to whatever experts we need to talk about, and they can come back and say, you know what, we've looked at it. We think this is the right way we need to go. That, I think, makes more sense for us to deal with as a group as opposed to just, well, gee, I don't know.

Yeah, I agree.

I have a suggestion. Is Dominic handy there? Dominic. Yes. Yes, yes.

Dominic, here's my suggestion.

Why don't you and I... get together on lighting, and we'll take six or eight cities' worth of lighting ordinances and slam it into like Claude or ChatGPT and have it spit out what's the difference between ours and theirs. And then you and I can a la carte anything that we think is worth adding into ours. I'm open to it.

He says he's open to it. Great.

I have to tell a professor.

How long is he here? Yeah, I was just about to say that. Dominic's last day is the 10th?

14th. 14th, excuse me. So he got a little bit longer. So I'm sure we could move that as quickly. And he might be open to maybe doing something virtually maybe. Yeah, so we could certainly look at that.

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm concerned if we give him any more work, he'll start getting health insurance. So I just want to make sure of that.

That would be helpful. That's great.

I think that's great. What I do not want to do, though, is to come back here and be presented with something that has 15 different options, none of which have a recommendation, and us try to wrestle with that.

Well, in a definition.

If we can get to something that staff recommends that we look at this. That's really what I want to do. And if staff needs assistance from us to do that, great. If staff wants to do it on their own, great. But as Mark suggested, when I open it up, I'm like, give me a recommendation of what you want to do. Yeah. So.

So do we need to table it then until it's come back?

Well, it's a discussion item, so we really don't have any action to take other than if we want to formalize some kind of steps to take before we bring it back.

I think we've got a good start with them taking the look at the lighting and recommendations there. And staff's going to go over it and present their suggestions.

And with respect to landscaping, I, you know, I would love to streamline this and make it a little bit easier to deal with. And it's, it's kind of adapted over the years and we've had several tax amendments over the years for things that just, that doesn't work. So, you know, I, I think it's probably right to talk about it. Um,

There's a few things that I like in here, though, that are good, so.

Yeah, no, I agree. I'm not saying that what we have is wrong. Right. And I think that there probably are some good suggestions, but do you think it's probably worth looking at that? Definitely. So that we know that Panasonic's going to come back in a lot of areas. They put the stuff in they said they were going to, so we know that's going to come back. So I want to make a suggestion. We leave this in staff's capable hands to let us know. And if they're looking for volunteers to give input, great. We'll rally the troops and do that if we need to, as opposed to actually creating some sort of a subcommittee tonight.

Sounds good. Johnny volunteered to help, too.

Except for Charlie, who's going to absolutely do what he just did. Okay. Any further discussion on those two proposed text events?

No.

Then that, I believe, completes our agenda. Anybody have anything else they want to talk about?

No.

Motions?

Motion to adjourn.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Second. We're adjourned. Thank you.