Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome everybody to the Monday, July 20th Planning and Zoning Board Meeting. Roll call, please.

Fellebaum? Murray? Here. Scholle?

Here.

Sisler? Right?

Here.

Chair McMahon?

Here.

Quorum present.

Thank you very much. At this point in the meeting, I'm going to ask for an approval of the minutes for tonight's meeting. So moved. We have a motion to approve the minutes as submitted by Scholle. Second? Second.

Second.

Second by Murray. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. Agenda two. Oh, I'm sorry. You did that one. So I did the minutes, now I gotta do the agenda. Okay, let's go back and let's do the agenda now. Let's go to item B and approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. So moved. We have a motion on the floor to approve the agenda from right, second? Second from Charlie all in favor say aye all opposed same sign Okay, the minutes have been approved and the agenda has been approved. I apologize for that This is the public participation portion of the meeting if anybody's here wishing to speak of something that is not on the agenda tonight This is your opportunity to come up to the podium Seeing none, I'm gonna close this item D, public participation portion of the meeting and open it up to new business. Under new business tonight, we have one item on the agenda. Item number one is a public hearing. It's a petition by Adrian Cordova for a special use permit to allow an additional dwelling unit above the ground floor On a lot, having an area less than 1,500 square feet per dwelling for the property located at 332-336 East Lincoln Highway. Is there a presentation to be made? Adrian, if you can come to the podium and give us your presentation.

Hi, everyone. So I just bought this building in Lincoln Highway last month. And I just planning to revive the building. When I bought it, it was looking like an abandoned building. So right now, I got two tenants that is a real estate agency and an apartment in one of the buildings. apartments on top. So the reason that I would like to convert this room in the other side of the building is because I want to give a better use to the building. What this means is in order to get access to this room, we had to use one of the offices, the small offices downstairs. So it's even rent one of the small offices with that space on top of this office or, I mean, there is no other entrance to that space on the building. So I believe if we can get access to this space in the building and convert in one studio or small apartment, we can do better use for the building. And that is part of the building, part of the reason that I'm here. All right. Thank you, Regent.

Is there a city presentation?

Yes, a staff report in your packet, as Mr. Cordova mentioned. Once they had an apartment unit on the second floor. On the top over here, there's an existing apartment here. He bought it for Munson. Insurance agency signs, of course, is off now. There's a real estate office that's on the left side, right? Correct. Currently now. So the new apartment would be above here. There's access to the existing through the door, but you want to connect it so you get access same way up to the second floor instead of through the office up to the apartment, which would be- Yes, and have a private entrance for both apartments. So that's the space that will be turned into an apartment. that Mr. Cordova provided. He also provided some rendering showing the general floor plan that's planned for those. So the current office space will be a one-bedroom, 468 square feet about. The existing one, 650 square feet, is a current apartment. And he feels that an apartment unit on the second be more Easier to rent out than an office space. So in the central business district, which is zoning here, the reason for the special use, dwelling units, of course, are a lot above the ground floor where commercial use is there. But you need 1,500 square feet of lot area for each dwelling unit. So for two units, you need 3,000 square feet. The lot is just over 2,100 square feet. So he's a little bit under. But with a special use permit, you can get approval for that second unit. And the applicant indicates in their summary what he's planning, one bedroom or studio apartment, shared entrance connected to the existing dwelling unit is the proposal, which would be nice and a little bit more convenient. For that, there's adequate public parking. You know, when we look at reasons of special use, I think it's related more to if you have a larger commercial building where you have a bunch of apartments above, it might be, you know, we have to monitor that. The Plaza DeKalb, Cornerstone DeKalb, they're planned developments that were approved five, six, seven years ago and had, they actually have their own parking, really, for those tenants. But with tenants downtown or residents can get a parking permit through our police department. They're free and they can park in the public parking lots. There's designated spaces. For those, the closest lot is the Gertler lot to the south, right across the tracks. There's 17 spaces here where who knows who's going to rent it, but they might not even have a car, but. If they do choose that, they can park back there. I've been back there a few times, and maybe half the spaces are full, so there's plenty of room there. And there's other parking downtown that's available for resident parking. It's not one-inch vote, not a spot reserved for you. They can go into any space that is designated for resident parking. So looking at the findings of fact for special use, I think they meet everything. The comp plan from 2022 calls for more apartments in the upper floors downtown. That adds to foot traffic, more people down. It's shown in the staff report. The floor plans, we're not approving floor plans or anything or any details inside. It's just the special use for the extra dwelling unit without the adequate lot area. Happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you, Dan. This being a public hearing, I'm going to open it up to the public. Is there anybody from the public that wants to address this issue? Seeing none, I'm going to close the public portion participation of this portion of the meeting, and I'm going to open it up to the Commission for questions or comments on there. If I'm understanding this right, the only reason why we're here tonight is because the lot size. We're not talking about the size of the apartment. We're not talking about, okay, so it's just the lot size. Jared, did you have something? Just so I understand, this new apartment, when you put it in there, is there going to be two egresses on the new apartment? It looked like there was a staircase in your apartment.

It's a staircase to one of the offices, small offices.

So if somebody rents that apartment, are they renting that small office downstairs too?

Well, the plan is if we can connect open a door for the two apartments just to have private access to the apartments. And obviously, I would like to get that one just for emergency escape. Yes, but it's going to be door and put it safe for tenants.

Correct that one that would be that would be. Correct which is not now not yes right now is just one of our right has to go through the office store correct okay, so you're going to open that up as a comment. Do you know what is the city to require him to have a second egress off the back.

Yeah, some type of additional egress. We walked it through with the building department, so is there some access in the rear at this time?

For the offices, yes.

But not for the apartments? Will there be?

Yes, if we can, you know, connect somehow. Yes.

Without the connector to get the second access. But that's required.

I thought by law you have to have two X. Yeah.

He'll have to meet the building code. Yeah. Okay. It's required.

So when you went down with that apartment. To go out there is Back door for like escape and that's the one that I I want to keep it as a emergency Just for emergency escape for that apartment Any other questions from the count commissioners If there are none does anybody want to make a motion on this I

You got it?

I'll make the motion. Based on the submitted petition testimony presented and findings of fact, I move that the Planning and Zoning Commission forward this finding of fact and recommend to the City Council approval of a special use permit to allow an additional dwelling unit above the ground or a floor on a lot having an area less than 1,500 square feet. PER DWELLING UNIT FOR THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT 332-336 EAST LINCOLN HIGHWAY.

WE HAVE A MOTION ON THE FLOOR FROM WRIGHT. IS THERE A SECOND?

I'LL SECOND.

A SECOND FROM MURRAY. ROLL CALL PLEASE.

MURRAY. YES. CHARLIE.

YES.

WRIGHT.

YES.

CHAIR MCMANN.

YES.

MOTION PASSES.

Thank you very much. All right. Good luck, Mr. Cordova. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. The next item on our agenda is reports.

Yeah, upcoming meetings, August 3rd. Nothing scheduled yet, no hearings, so it'll probably be canceled. We'll email you Thursday before, if it is. Second meeting, August the 17th. If we do meet, it'll be at the police department, the city council and the finance advisory committee. It's budget season, so they have some meetings where they meet on the Monday's where we usually meet here. So we move our, we do this every year, so we move a few meetings in the late summer, fall over to the police department second level training room. We'll remind you if we do have that meeting in the agenda packet that we send out. There's a commission members list we updated, handed out. So if you got any changes, take a look through that. We'll email it out to you. I believe we do that tomorrow. If there's any changes, let us know. And just mentioning, we still have one opening on the commission for a new member. So if you have anybody in mind you talk to, you can forward them on to the mayor of Barnes, and he'll take a look at those. That's all.

Thank you, Dan. All right. Anything from the commissioners? And if there is none, does somebody want to make a motion to adjourn? So moved. A motion to adjourn from Wright. Second?

Second.

Second from Scholle. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. All right. Good night, everybody.