Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

all of this DeKalb Planning and Zoning Commission meetings to order on Monday, April 20th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. Roll call, please. Fellabom? Here. Schally? Cisler? Here. Wright? Here. Chair McMahon? Here. Quorum present. Thank you. At this point in the meeting, I'm going to ask for the approval of the agenda. Are there any additions or deletions or if somebody wants to make a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. We have a motion on the floor from Wright. Second? Second. A second from Fellabom. All in favor of accepting the agenda as presented, say I. I.

I. All opposed, same sign. The agenda is accepted. At this point in the meeting, I need to ask for an approval from the minutes of last meeting. So motioned. I have a motion to approve approve the minutes from the March 2nd meeting from Fellabom. Second from? Second. Second from Wright. All in favor, say I. I.

I. All opposed, same sign. The minutes from the March 2nd meeting have been next accepted. This is the public participation portion of the meeting. If there's anybody out there in the audience that wants to discuss something that is not on the agenda, this is your opportunity now to come to the podium, state your name and address, and talk to us about that. Seeing none, I'm going to close that portion of the meeting and I'm going to open it up for new business. So tonight we have a public hearing on the agenda. Open up the public hearing at 6:02 p.m. on Monday, April 2nd. The public hearing is a petition by Kyle Riley for the approval of a variance to the Unified Development Ordinance to allow a new 6-ft high privacy fence to be constructed in a portion of the front yard along North 6th Street for the property located at 529 Fisk Avenue. Is there a present presentation from the audience? If you can come to the podium, state your name, and give us your presentation, please. Hey, how are you doing? Uh Kyle Riley. Um so, you know, this is our home. Pretty pretty small, but pretty nice old bones. Uh we'd like to just make it a little bit more private. Um block out some of some of the traffic that comes through. Sometimes people walk through our property, um especially getting to the garage. Um you know, we've got two sets of of yards, like one kind of directly behind our house and the other directly behind the garage. So, you know, trying to respect what the what the intent of the the current codes are. Like right now, we're just looking to to block out or make somewhat more private um like the back back portion is what we call it um behind the garage. So,

uh I think the at least the the variance how it's written, we'd like to use that slip fence um the semi semi-private portion. Hopefully that uh it'll last a long time. It's got aluminum. We'll put some cement footers in. Um and it it seems that it'll fit, you know, 4 or 5 ft back from the from the sidewalk. It'll fit very nicely within the trees that are already there. Um that pretty much decorate the area. Uh so, it's kind of low impact, I would say, and it'll help us out a lot. Um additionally, you know, we've had some issue with the street. A little bit of flooding, a little bit of trash that that builds up in that corner. So, we'd also like a little bit of uh the ability to to block ourselves from that. Right good. All right. Thank you, Kyle. Is there a presentation from the city? Yes, uh staff report in your packets. Um we have an extra one here if you need it regarding the motion. Um as Kyle mentioned, a variance for the fence. Wants to put up a 6-ft high privacy fence uh shown here in red at the northern part of the lot. Um this image shows the location where he could put up the fence per the current UDO in the blue here, right in line with the house in back. So, the variance is this part right here. And he'd like to go um 5 ft from the sidewalk or 4 ft from the property line. There's usually a foot gap between there. And as Kyle mentioned in the summary, they want the fence for some uh due to the narrowness of the lot, they'd like to have some additional privacy if they can. So, it'd be 4 ft off the property line to give a little green space, a little walking area for pedestrians or people walking down the sidewalk. Um it does and here's the detail of the fence. It's semi-private, nice looking fence there. Uh that's a picture from

North 6th looking at the back uh adjacent home and the kind of the area where the fence will go up. Um this is taken just a week or two ago. It's looking from the front um to the north. He has a uh 4-ft high uh white picket fence uh already on the site. This is looking south from North 6th Street, the neighbor to the north. And this is during the fall, you know, summer, so you can't really see too much of the lot there. That's a white picket fence in front. And again, the fence proposed will go back here, north of the garage. So, we think there's a hardship here based on the width of the lot. There's some precedents. Um the commission's approved in the past uh last year, 1158 South 5th Street, the commission approved a variance for 6-ft high privacy fence on a lot that was 50 by 169. Same width as this one. It's 50 um foot wide north east to west uh about 7,500 sq ft. So, kind of a typical 50-ft wide lot on a corner lot, it makes it kind of tough to get up a fence per the code that it gives you enough privacy or enough usable yard. And then in summer 2024, we approved two variances similar to this in terms of uh location. Um at 928 North 14th Street, uh they approved a variance for a fence 4 ft from the property line. Uh that lot was 51 ft wide. And then also in 2024, approved a variance for a 6-ft privacy fence 4 ft from the property line. Again, that was at 960 North 12th and they had a lot with a 44 and 1/2 ft about. So, uh been consistent proving some similar variances to this one. Um so, the findings and factor in the report,

the uh let's see where there's a more You can see a more wider view of the other corner lots in the neighborhood across the street. You can see it's uh wider than this lot. Um I think average about 70-80 ft there. Um this corner lot a little bit wider, too, and this one. So, compared to other the corner lots in the neighborhood, um Mr. Riley's lot is kind of unusual, kind of a hardship uh based on the width of it. So, the area where he could put a fence is pretty um limited. So, uh there's a motion uh for approval. Uh also note that we received three uh letters from neighboring property owners, all in support. They were um Susan Wayland Holiday of 509 North 6th Street. That's right the lot directly north, the one most impacted, probably. Also from David and Laurel Loriot, L A U R I A T, 535 North 6th. That's up here. And then finally, Michael and Janet Marquart Marquart, 528 North 6th Street. Uh across the street here. Uh so, those are provided in your background material. So, there's a sample motion here. Of course, the variance is the commission has a final vote on this. It's not a recommendation. Um and there's a sample motion in the report. I do have an extra copy of the report if anybody needs the motion.

[snorts]

That's all. Thanks. Thank you, Dan. This being a public hearing, I'm going to at this point ask if there's anybody from the public wishing to speak on this item. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing portion of this meeting and open it up to the commissioners for questions, comments. Anybody have any questions? I think you've demonstrated you got a corner lot there that's smaller that demonstrates a hardship. You have a nice looking fence. There's no neighbors objecting to this. Um so, I think that seems reasonable to me. Is there Is there 4 ft off the ground? Uh 4 ft off of the sidewalk. It'd be about 5 ft from the sidewalk, 4 ft from the property line. Yeah, that's what she's showing. Is there an existing fence on the the west side there? No. No. It's just wide open? Um west, [clears throat] you got to help me uh orient myself. We've only got three red lines, I guess, or Oh, I see. Yes, our neighbor has one. Okay, they do. Yeah. Okay.

[clears throat] I think you can see it in one of the pictures. Yeah, the blue line is where they could build it. Um The neighbor that is going to affect them most will be the one right behind you that are

Yeah, they already Yeah, but definitely uh we you know, we talked to her and you know, before even the letters went out, we just asked her if it was, you know, okay. Smart. Good. Yeah. Dan suggested it. Based on some past one, it's always good to get informal neighbor input uh even before applying just to get a feeling and then of course they get letters, so I know the commission always wants to hear what the neighbors think, so which is important, so. Any other further questions, comments? If seeing none, does anybody want to make a motion on this? I'd be happy to make the motion. Based on the submitted petition, testimony presented, and findings of fact, I move the Planning and Zoning Commission approve a variance to articles 7.06.3 7.06.4 point B and 7.06.6 of the Unified Development Ordinance to allow a 6-ft high privacy fence to be constructed in the portion of the front yard along North 6th Street for the property located at 529 Fisk Avenue as shown on exhibit A of the staff report dated April 16th, 2026. We have a motion on the floor from Fellabom. Is there a second? Second. We have a second from Wright. Roll call, please. Fellabom? Yes. Sisler? Yes. Wright? Yes. Chair McMahon? Yes. Motion passes. All right. All right. Good luck to you. Thank you. Appreciate you. All right. Seeing no more new business, I'm going to move on to reports. Do we have any reports? Yeah, just briefly uh of course uh congratulations on the new chair Phil McMahon appointed at the last council meeting. The council also

approved uh new member Brian Shawley. Brian couldn't be here tonight, but will be coming to future meetings, of course, and I'm meeting with him next week briefly for a little orientation, so and the mayor is where we have two more openings after Brian and the mayor's looking hard. I believe has one in line, so hopefully those be uh brought on soon, so we can get a full uh commission. Next scheduled meeting uh first Monday in May is the 4th. Uh we have no hearings scheduled, so if we do cancel it, that uh email will come out the Thursday before. Uh the next meeting in May is the 18th. We will have some uh miscellaneous text amendments to UDO we're compiling now, so we're planning to have a hearing uh that night on the 18th. Um and at the next meeting I'd like to we'll need to appoint a new vice chair for the commission. And um we'll do that the next meeting that we meet and that's a nomination from any member including the chair and the second and then kind of a vote, so that's something commission may want to think about uh coming up, so that's all I had. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Are there any reports from the commissioners? Seeing none, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Moved. There's a motion to adjourn from Wright on the floor. Second? Second. Second from Sisler. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign.