Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the November 6th meeting of the city of De Moine Planning and Zoning Commission. I will start by reading our rules and procedures. The plan and zoning commission is generally an advisory body to city council. The city council will hold a public hearing and make the final decision on all matters before the commission other than site plans and subdivision plats unless denials or conditional approvals thereof are appealed. Applicant will be given 10 minutes to present the request. Proponents and then opponents from the public are then allowed to speak in that order with each speaker allowed a maximum of 5 minutes. The applicant is then allowed 5 minutes for rebuttal. The hearing will then be closed and the commission will discuss and vote on the issue. All comments are to be gerine to the item under consideration and speakers are to maintain a courteous manner. Items listed on the consent portion of the agenda will not be individually discussed and will be considered for approval in accordance with the recommendation in the staff report unless an individual present or a member of the commission requests that the item be removed from the consent agenda and considered separately under the public hearing agenda. Um, first could I get a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting?

Thank you, Katie. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Anyone abstaining? Passing. Thank you. Um then first off, item number four tonight will be continued to a later date. The applicant um wasn't able to attend. So if you're here for item four, please know that that item will not be discussed this evening.

Okay. Could we get a vote to continue item number four? Sorry, a motion to continue item.

I'll move. Thank you, Emily. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Thank you. Motion passes. I'll now read through the consent agenda. Item number one is a request from TBSS Real Estate represented by Todd Mendenhal for review and approval of a preliminary platell plat 2 on 9.44 44 acres of property in the vicinity of 5554 Northeast 14th Street in unincorporated Pulk County within the two-mile distance for extr territorial review of subdivision plots by the city of De Moine to create one new buildable lot. Is anyone in the audience here tonight that would like this item removed from the consent agenda and discussed? Anyone on the commission? Item number one will stay on consent. Item number two is a request from Steve Potab for review and approval of a preliminary platell heights on 1.41 acres of property in the vicinity of 5784 Northeast 11th Court in unincorporated Pulk County within the 2-m distance for extr territorial review of subdivision plots by the city of De Moine to create one new buildable lot. Is anyone in the audience tonight um who would like this item removed from the consent agenda and discussed on the public hearing agenda? Anyone on the commission? Okay. Number two will stay on consent. Item number three is a request from HRC Woodmont LLC represented by Caleb Smith for the following regarding property located in the vicinity of 4425 East Douglas Avenue. A determination as to whether the requested resoning is in conformance with plan DSM. B amend plan DSM to revise the future land use

classification of the property from low density residential and low density lowmedium density residential to low density residential. and C, reszone the property from N2B neighborhood district and NX2 neighborhood mix district to N2B neighborhood district to allow the development of one house one household residential units. Would anyone in the audience tonight like this item um removed from the consent agenda to the public hearing agenda and discussed? Anyone on the commission? Okay. Item number three will stay on consent. Um, could we have a motion to move the consent agenda?

So move. Thank you. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Okay. Motion passes. Okay. Um, item number four will be continued to November 20th. We do need a motion just to clarify that. I would take a amendment to the earlier motion to just set that date so we can avoid having to renotify um on that item. Okay. Would anyone like to amend the prior motion to include the date? I'll move. Okay.

Thank you, Will. All in favor, please raise your right hand. Thank you. Um, and that leaves us with item number five. This is a request from Jeff Nicholson and Tanya Nicholson for the following regarding multiple parcels located at the vicinity of 917 East 27th Court. Determination as to whether the requested resoning is in conformance with plan DSM. Amend plan DSM to revise the future land use classification of the property from community mixeduse to industrial and reszone the property from MX3 mixeduse district and limited MX3 mixed use district to I1 industrial district to allow the property to allow use of the property for large equipment rental business and Srioshi is going to present for staff this evening. Thank you, Madam Chair. Sriraoshi Chakraarti, planning staff. The reasonzoning before you is for a subject property that is located in the vicinity of 917 East 27th Court. The request from the applicant is to reszone the subject property from the existing zoning district of MX3 and limited MX3 mixeduse district to I1 industrial district to allow use of the property for a large equipment rental business. This is the subject property. This is located along the East Avenue corridor um along the intersection with East 27th Court. As you can see in the map, it includes five parcels, some of which are vacant and uh some of which are occupied by an existing billboard, if you can follow my uh cursor. And then um a

single family residential unit and and a detached accessory um structure in that same parcel. The um subject property is associated with an existing business that is across the street uh across East uh 27th Court. And uh here is the business. It's currently zoned um MX3 and uh again limited MX3. The um um the proposed reasonzoning is to allow the applicant to expand the existing business to allow outdoor storage of uh large equipment and um mach machinery that's only allowed in the I1 um industrial district and therefore it is uh triggering the need to reszone to the I1 district. If the proposed outdoor storage was associated with uh smaller equipment as is the case across the street where the property is zone MX3, then that would be allowed in the current zoning district. But because the equipment is considered large under a code, it requires the um amendment to the I1. This is a concept sketch that the applicant has proposed. the um applicant is proposing to use the the northern parcels. Um if you can see here, there's some um striping that's proposed, a driveway with some areas for uh display of the machinery, the large machinery as indicated in the request. This is the narrative that's um that was provided with the application by the applicant. I will let you read through this. This gives an idea of the proposed business and uh what the applicant is in

With that, I just want to give you a context of the um subject property and the surrounding area. This is uh looking at the at the vacant lot with the electronic billboard sign and the and uh some of the um outdoor storage as proposed. Uh looking at the subject property from East 27th Court. This is looking north from East 27th Court. You can see the single family structure and the detached accessory structure that's um towards the rear of the subject property. Again, this is a closeup of the of some of the equipment that's proposed to be um displayed on the this is looking south on East 27th Court and this is the residential area. East University corridor is primarily commercial in nature with higher intensity commercial uses such as car lots and uh retail restaurants and uh those type of uses. Um however to the south of university the area is primarily single family residential. The subject property does but residential uses south. This is the existing business that's across the street. Here you can see some some outdoor display that they have for the smaller equipment. Um, and just looking uh west on on the University Avenue in your staff report. Um, we've provided some zoning history for the not just the subject property, but the other par parcels that are associated with the business that's associated with the subject property. So, they are um

they're listed here. The applicant over the years has um um reszoned has uh secured some variances from the zoning board of adjustment. So there are some conditions uh zoning conditions and other uh conditions that are applicable to one of the parcels within the subject property as well as the other parcels that are associated with this business. And they're listed here. If um if you have any questions, I can come back to these later, but it uh lists chronologically what are some of the zoning actions that have occurred over the years as the applicant has expanded the business and sought some zoning changes and variances. As I mentioned before, the University Avenue corridor is primarily commercial in nature and um the proposed use although uh it has been there historically existed in the context of what is happening in that area. uh staff does believe that the I1 industrial use is not appropriate for for University Avenue corridors especially because of the commercial nature of the corridor and because of the close proximity to the state fairgrounds as well. Additionally, there is um lowdensity residential to the south of the subject property and staff believes that a industrial designation could potentially have impacts on the surrounding areas and will not fit the character of the of the University Avenue corridor. Therefore, staff thinks that this uh proposed reasonzoning request is um not appropriate for this location and staff is recommending denial of the request to reszone the property from MX3 and limited MX3 to I1.

The applicant held a U neighborhood meeting as required for all reasonzoning actions. And here is a summary of um some of the discussions with the folks that attended the neighborhood meeting. It uh appears that the attendees were in support of the request. And here's a signin sheet. We also received a letter of support from the president of the Fairgrounds Neighborhood Association in support of this resoning request. Additionally, we also received a few comment cards which are all in support the consent map. I'll be happy to take any questions. Can I clarify one? So you identified that industrial is probably not the right zone for this area. You didn't say the business. Does it make sense for the area or did I understand what you meant there?

Um the the business has been um in existence for a number of years and does fit the character of the area. Um it is the zoning district and the proposed outdoor storage um that is being requested that does not fit the character of the university avenue. And is this one of those where in order to get the use variance like we've seen before, we have to deny here in order to give them access for a use variance. Is that right?

If a reasonzoning is denied, then the applicant does have the recourse to seek a use variance. However, they will have to meet the the uh hardship test where they would have to prove that there is absolutely no other viable way to use this property and if if they can demonstrate that then they can see then they can get a use variance. So those are very difficult to come by but the applicant does have the right to seek a use variance if a reasonzoning is denied but they would have to have the reasoning be denied first. But when you say it's difficult to get in this case because it is an existing business that's still so hardship I apologize. Can you explain that part because I haven't heard before that the probability of them not getting it was high.

So the um the zoning board of adjustment um looks at a few different criteria in order to um grant a use variance. And one of those is to meet the hardship test where the applicant has to demonstrate that there is no other viable use of the property other than what is being proposed and therefore they have to seek they have to get a use variance. There's no other way to get a profitable use of the the land nor profitable way by them or no other profitable way by anyone by them by this proposed use.

Okay. Do you have any more information you can share about the billboard and the billboard easement? Um just is that a per is it is it indeed permanent? I saw that in one of the the letters.

Yes. And I think um I do not have the exact dimensions and um areas to share. However, you can um you can see that the applicant has designed the the drive and the display taking being consider being taking that into account. So maybe that's something the applicant can address but uh you know they they cannot be under the billboard. Um they also have to maintain some separation from the billboard to the um to the display areas. I guess I I wouldn't expect to be able to answer this, but thinking of, you know, what what would be the best high use um for this for this for this plot of land and if it if it remained mixed use and what the city would envision and then, you know, how could that be developed with the billboard there? Can the billboard eventually is the thought that the billboard um can in the future go away and that whole frontage can be developed as something else? Is that what the city's kind of looking for.

Ideally, staff would um stop staff would hope for a more of a commercial or retail business along the corridor. The the billboard does present challenges because of being able to maintain um adequate separation. Um however if if staff's preference would be that if there is an office or a commercial establishment that it front University Avenue and any any kind of display or storage if should that occur occur on the southern portion of the property and not front University Avenue so as not to create that um um change in the character and feel of the of the corridor to keep it primarily commercial.

Can you go back to slide two that shows the where the actual business is? Is there anywhere on that site where this these this equipment could be stored? And would that be allowed if it was like behind the building? Would that Are you Are you uh talking about the areas across the street here?

Right. Would that be allowed in an MX3 if it was behind the building? Um it would um the issue is not um the issue is still the the outdoor storage associated with the with the large equipment that the applicant is proposing. Um so it's they would still have to reszone. However, I I think the the um the factor about the character of the university avenue will not play into that. It would be at that time it would be more of how we would maintain um some sort of separation and screening from the neighbors to the south.

A question actually I have two questions. Uh the first one is some of the zoning conditions from prior actions state that any expansion of the business has to comply with a site plan. Does that apply to the business across the street?

Yes. I will um I'm actually going to pull this up um on the map so I can show you here real quick. So the the so you can see here the the zoning conditions that that are applicable are these areas that are um have the yellow hashing on them. So if if there were to be so those specific zoning conditions apply to those parcels and it's it's it's all associated with the same business but because they have incrementally expanded over the years there's different zoning conditions and variances that apply to the different parcels.

So all of those would have to be brought up to compliance with a site plan or just the expansion. Correct. all of the all of the the yeah my understanding is that they already have done that when okay there was some enforcement a few years ago when they had to do the resoning I think that's all been taken care of but now this is a new expansion of the business to include the large equipment where the past equipment was all the snowblowers lawnmowers smaller equipment that we could allow in the MX3 but since they're now getting into the bigger equipment That's what's driving the need for I1 industrial the

And this may answer my second question because I was wondering why the house was part of the reasonzoning but it looks like it's because it has the prior conditions.

Yes, I the those same as Bird mentioned the ones across uh here on the western side they have they those have already occurred. However, this this parcel which is part of the subject property right now has those same conditions associated with with the other parcels across the street. Uh the reason uh I think there's some um in I I can go back to the zoning history, but I believe that the city had um reszoned when when the citywide reszoning occurred, most of these parcels got zoned to MX3, but the parcel that has the single family unit got zoned to like a neighborhood district N3C. And then um when the applicant came back and um and these conditions were applied the these this this got zoned to a limited MX3 with those condition but this was actually zoned as a single family residential district before that because it was a residential property.

Uh I have a question please. Uh the request is to um allow industrial district uh and according to the staff uh report that would allow or uh the request is for sales, rental and repair of small and large machinery. Um give me dimensions of large machinery. Give me the size that this would allow.

That is a good question. And I don't know that we have any um definitive or any definitions in the code, but the small is generally um used in like a residential setting for a yard for um snowb blowing stuff like that. It's when it gets into like the tree trimming and the the boom boom the lift. Uh that's um a zoning determination that's been made by the zoning enforcement division. So, what I hear is that a tractor is a large machinery.

If you're talking more than like a lawnmowing tractor, like a riding lawn mower would be considered smaller, but Yeah, I'm I'm thinking about, you know, a farm tractor, right? That would probably be large equipment and it could be larger than that, right? Thank you. Any other questions? Is a car large equipment? I don't believe so. I think that would be like a vehicle or an automobile which would be allowed in MX3. So like a semi-truck would be allowed in MX3.

You're talking semi sales probably not. That would be like a trucking and transportation terminal that would also need I1. I'm just curious because I mean I'm trying to make sure I understand where the boundary of our definitions are and where we have access to interpret because obviously I think I agree that we don't want an I1 but it seems like there's a reference into here that 5,000 lb is a threshold that must have been discussed somewhere car is going to be more than that right and I'm just curious if we actually do have a definition or if we can just say hey these things these boom lifts don't have motors they aren't an actual tractor they're not a large equipment, right? I mean, is an augur large equipment just because it's long or how ex, you know, what's

large? Yeah. Um, I guess I would need to defer to our um zoning enforcement to make a determination on that. I know they had uh back in May when these um machines started to show up there, there was a code case started by the zoning enforcement that had determined these were large and not allowed in MX3. Since enforcement enforces what we say, can't we tell them that they're wrong? Aren't we zoning? I know legal has an opinion on that.

Like why is enforcement leading zoning? Well, the they're the authority the um they make that that administrative determination on what zoning or use does fit this in for this property. So, they're making that determination where I mean PNZ is receiving that as that's I mean how the city is interpreting that and where that fits. I mean, I guess I I I don't I I don't see an avenue where the commission can, you know, just disregard that, you know, that city determination. I

Yeah. No, I'm saying don't disregard it. Say you're wrong. These aren't large. Um I guess we motion that instead. where I I don't h I I don't know I guess where you're leading with that question because I I I don't know that determination you're looking at whether it's a small or large piece of equipment. If they're making that determination I that's how it's enforced across the city. I don't again if you're if you differ in that I think that can be a recommended code change but I don't know

well it sounds like we don't have a code definition. So if we don't have a code definition interpretation comes at us. If we don't have a death from large, we can say these aren't large until clarified. And if we are saying this isn't large, we don't need a reasonzoning because we don't need an I, we're an MX cuz these aren't large. Problem solved. Then your route is to deny the reasonzoning and and say that these are large, these aren't large. This isn't a code enforcement. Code enforcement, you're wrong. Again, that can be a recommendation the commission makes. But I don't have any further actions that the the commission can make at this time. you know, in that regard. So,

and Shroshi, can you pull up the zoning code because I think maybe chapter 1 or section 134-3.6.3 does provide some clarity. Um, it defines like the trucking and transportation terminals major, which requires I1. es uses engaged in sales, rental, dispatching, servicing and repair or long-term storage of large trucks, buses, construction equipment, which I would argue this is construction equipment, agricultural equipment, and similar large vehicles, including parcel service delivery vehicles. Um, also uses engaged in the moving of household or office furniture, appliances, and equipment from one location to another. I think that's the definition that zoning enforcement had pointed to that this is construction equipment that's being parked there that needs the I1.

So getting back to the subject um is there a way to amend the MX3 to be limited to these specific um rental units? Um, you could recommend it be reszoneed to a limited I1 with conditions that uses be limited to MX3 plus this specific use.

And the reason why I bring that is bring that up is because I have concerns with the u with the sign there and future development opportunities like it really constraints the site and what you can do with it. It's just some of my thoughts at this time, but I do want to say that I agree it's not the best uh location for industrial outright. And one other thing I would um add on to um Chris's point that the applicant does have the opportunity to appeal the zoning determination to the zoning board of adjustment. So that'd be the correct avenue if they would disagree with the zoning enforcement's decision that this is or determination that this is construction equipment. Um they could appeal that to the board of adjustment.

Wait, so what I apologize. So I'm just making sure we're clear that. So, this is brought up because enforcement considered what's going on there this to be considered a trucking and transportation terminal, a major trucking transportation terminal. That's what they're saying is that's what this is what they're saying is. So, it's not just an empty lot displaying equipment for sale. They believe it is this 363C, right? Because it has the construction equipment that's available for rental or for sale or just for Uh the outdoor storage seems okay.

Okay. Any more questions for staff? Otherwise, we'll move on to hearing from the applicant and we can get back to discussion afterward. Thank you. Applicant, please come forward. State your name and address for our records and then sign in on that white sheet when you're done. And you have up to 10 minutes. Uh Jeff Nicholson, 2715 East University, our main business. Good evening. So, I got a list established here, but I kind of got off target because of the definition of large equipment that you've been on. Um, that has kind of been it looks like a moving target and up to interpretation. Um, and these pieces of equipment are at almost every ACE hardware store you see all around in other towns, surrounding communities. No other town seems to have a problem with it. U I think the definition of large equipment is very loose. Um they don't weigh over 5,000 pounds. Um I've got a little I've got a PowerPoint here that I can show you some things in the neighborhood that actually weigh more and are probably larger. So we've already been through we're MX3 we we're going down the path of I1. I would like also like to add that the

reason we're taking this path is I have been working with city um in an agreement to follow their path um so that we can find a way to comply. And I was told that I1 is the route to go. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it is uh not recommended by staff even though that they led me down this path. Um there's subject properties. Um this billboard lot. This billboard lot there is the equipment that that this is what we rent most of. There are three lifts there. They are a trailer. They're not very big. They're not very wide. Um they are a tremendous resource to a lot of our tree services that come in and buy the equipment that we sell daily. Um and it just keeps our people from having to go somewhere else to rent a piece of equipment. Um business is challenging and over the 25 years that Tanya and I have owned the business, there's been many challenges. There's been many times that I have had to take time and and work with the city to um comply with regulations that sometimes didn't change. We just and we didn't have a complaint. We just had an inspector that thought that it wasn't code. So, here we are again. Those have not just been there for 3 months. Uh we have been renting those for about 2 years. Uh we just have a new inspector in the area. Um this is one concept that we were working on. Um

it is very raw and subject to change but I would not consider what we want to do an I1 looking um business. we are just following the path that we need to so we can have the equipment that we need to so that we know that and we we've got considerable amount of money invested when we invest more money we just don't want another roadblock thrown at us. So um we we are following that path at this moment. Um this property has changed hands several times since we've owned the business. It has proved to be useless to the other people that bought it and had great intentions on doing something with it. But with a permanent easement on that sign, there is very little use for this. It is a dirt bike track on the weekends. Uh if I stay late on Saturdays in the summer, I typically am chasing I'm the bad guy, chasing off somebody who's riding a dirt bike around there and tearing up our grass that we do test our mowers on. and it is a little bit valuable for that. Uh this lot before we owned it, didn't get mowed very much, had trash all over it. We take very good care of it. We want it to look well as people come down through that corridor. We'd like our other business to look well. Um you know, we want to look like a good reputable business and we would do the same uh if we are allowed to uh develop this Um here's some pictures of properties in our neighborhood. There is uh car lots up and down that corridor. Um I would trucks weigh more than what the equipment they're considering heavy

equipment. Maybe some of these cars don't. Um there's last stop beer store. There's another car lot that a lot of these car lots don't look very good. They don't keep them up. Uh this is less than five blocks down the road. This is AE Dairy. Great business. Love their products. Glad they didn't move years ago when it seemed like uh they were considering it. But AE is zoned I1. Um they do a great job of keeping up their frontage and it looks great. But they do have semiis coming in and out of there all the time. Um another slide here. There's a giant generator right there. It happened to turn was on when I was taking pictures. Um, it it's pretty noisy and it I could feel the exhaust coming off of it all the way across the street where I was taking a picture. That that is about a 3minut walk from our business. Uh, again, this is AE with their um Passover over Hubble. Uh, and then we got Tom's with Tom's trucks. another great business. We buy trucks from them fairly regularly, but these trucks, all of these trucks way more than any of the equipment that I'm renting. Uh we have the fairgrounds down the road. Looks good in some parts. Uh this is an old fence that uh is along that corridor less than four blocks from us. And as you can see, um that isn't uh that could use being updated. Uh I did read through plan DSM creating our tomorrow comprehensive plan and one of the goals that jumped out at me was to foster economic prosperity and stability by retaining existing businesses and recruiting new. We do own a property in Pleasant Hill that we've

owned. It's 7 acres. It's u it's got frontage. We haven't left the city for a few reasons, but it is always an option. Uh I don't like the thought of moving a business that's been there for next year will be the 50th year that PMP Small Engines has been in that location. Um so there's there's something for being there that long. Um, but over the years we've been there, I would say that the city has not really acted to us like they wanted to keep us there. It seems like every few years we're here for something. Um, in 2019 when those properties got reszoned, that was a resoning that took place without us even being notified. I was told that we should have been looking at the city website. When you're running a business, you don't really look at the city website. We have a lot going on. It's hard to get everything done during the day. By the time we noticed that this was happening, we were notified that it was happening. It still hadn't been finalized, but we were told we couldn't get pulled off of that agenda, that it was a done deal, and that we were going to have to file to reszone everything. So, we spent the money, spent the time, and some of those properties got resoneed, but I think there's a couple of those five properties on the billboard lot that somehow got missed in all of that. I still think there's a couple of them that are MX3, but zoned um residential. Uh, one of the other goals that I pulled out of the plan DSM was focus economic development efforts in strategic location v locations for vitality and growth. And um, ED6 support revitalization of obsolete commercial

locations and identify alternative land uses and adaptive reuses for commercial properties that are both functionally and locationally obsolete. uh also focus economic development efforts in neighborhood, community and regional nodes and corridors corridors served by transit and a support industrial growth and expansion although that may be a little bit taken out of context because of considering the neighborhood there. We do have great support in our neighborhood. um the neighbors behind us, the ones that couldn't make the meeting called and said, "We have you have our support. Uh we have a good relationship with the Fairground Neighborhood Associations." They gave us a letter of support. Um a lot of what we want to do on that lot is rent the pieces of equipment that you saw. We have a couple dump trailers that our landscapers like to use. We have too many skids. we've been renting. Those aren't any bigger than a lawn mower. You stand on them to run them. Those are also considered heavy equipment. I was told that the equipment that we're renting can't even be stored on our business at 2715 because it's in violation of code because again of the loose definition of large equipment. When most of us think of large equipment, we're thinking about things that semiis have to pull, things that weigh 20,000 lb, 15,000 lb. Um, so

sir, your time is about up. If you could wrap up your thoughts.

Yep. So, I just would appreciate your consideration. Um, you know, there's challenges in business. We are in a environment where um our manufacturers are trying to sell around us on parts. Uh we have the Amazon factor where people can buy parts around us. And so um with the rising increase in wages, we've looked to other avenues to be able to continue to um supply for our employees. We have 15 employees and we would like to pay them good wages and you know we just always trying to adapt so that we can um keep up and stay in business. So thank you for your consideration. Thank you.

Can I ask you a question? Yes sir.

Um what can you tell more about that billboard? Like who owns it? How long has it been there? How long will it be there? So that is it was owned by the guy that owned the billboard company. He gave himself a permanent easement, which I didn't know was a thing. Um, but I don't know how we ever get around that other than if the city says we're done with these electronic billboards because I grant I have to grant them easement. There's one of those subject properties that has the the easement so they can get to the sign to work on it. Um they have a line of sight stipulation that any of those properties that touch it, we can't block line of sight to that sign. Um so they don't pay us any rent. Um, you know, and at this point we just if we can't use it for anything, we just pay tax on an empty lot, pick up the trash, and watch the neighbors ride motorcycles on it.

Why Why do you, in your opinion, why are why are you being asked to go through this process?

Uh, it was the citation that started this. I talked with staff on it. I went through a preapp meeting. I talked with my city council member Joe Gat on it. And um I'm here because I have a lot of money invested in some equipment they claim that I can't even have on the other side of the road, which we if we had room for it and it was compliant, we would put it there. But um we just don't have a lot of room out in front of the store. And although it looks like there's a lot of room in the back, there is a lot of inventory that is stored there, um, we just we don't have a lot of space uh, other than this lot. And I really didn't want to put the kind of money that we're looking into that lot. But after thinking through it, I think that if we developed it right, that if we had our ride-on mowers out front, if we could fence it so we could didn't have people in there using it for recreation use, I think that it would generate more business. There's a lot of people that just don't know all that we have to offer because it's stashed behind and we have to take them back there. When we're at the state fair and we have everything that we have out to offer, people are like, "This isn't all your equipment, is it?" And like, "Yeah, this is what we have at our shop all the time." Um, and they're just impressed by the line that we carry. So, couple times a year we would move equipment over to that lot for an open house and, um, it generated a ton of traffic. There's no road in De Moines I would rather be on that there's tons of traffic right by traffic every day. Um we get great visibility. I you know I again I think that this wouldn't look like your typical industrial area but if

that's what we have to do to get to the end goal um I think that the extra sales off of lower would hopefully pay for the improvements. you mentioned I'm sorry I have two questions um first one is how often is the equipment leased and not on site the second question is when the booms are on site or do you call them boom trailers uh they're tollable boom lifts okay when the boom lifts are on site do the buckets have to be up or can they be down

they could be down if I had a fence around it I probably wouldn't display them up. The reason I do is because they're not secured and for them to be stolen, they have to lift the outriggers up, but they have to also know how to run the basket to get it down cuz the outriggers won't come up before that. So, okay. In our area, um, nobody's messed with them yet, but I just wouldn't want to be missing one of those. So, that's why we do that. Storm down. How often are they there?

Well, there's day rental is there's days when you don't have enough and then there's days there's three of them there, but um I would say on average there's one lift sitting there during the busy season. We're getting into the time in winter where a lot of that work will slow down, but um and I usually don't keep them all there right now. During that time, I pull some of them off site, take them to another location. But, um, but we do rent, you know, many skids are both gone the next three days. We got all three lifts. It looks like there's days that lot is just bare that they're all out. And that's happened several times over the season, over the summer. Then, do you know the weight of them?

I think the towable boom lifts weigh somewhere around 4,000 lb, but our mini skids weigh around 2500 lb. Thank you. Yes, sir. You you talked about the miniskits and the lifts. What about the dump trailers? Cuz that's where I saw that on the letter. I think that's more concerning than the other two. Are those So, the dump trailers uh have a payload of 10,000 lb. I don't know what their GVR is, but I'm pretty sure that they're somewhere in that 5,000 or under. They're smaller.

Well, so the so they are 14,000lb trailer with So they weigh 4,000 lb cuz that total weight can only be 14,000. So you got a 10,000 payload. So they're in that 4,500B range. And the other question I had, are you planning on keeping that existing house or what is the plan for that house and the lot that's right behind it or

correct? So in talks with staff I one you can't have a house. So that would need to be demolished. Um, and if uh if we could somehow find a way to get a building on there, I think the only way to do that would be to get rid of that house and have the building to the back of the property. It wouldn't be a very wide building. Um, but it could be a longer building because of the length of the property. So, so the house looks to have to go. Um, and depending on the con, if we do nothing, the house we do anything under I1, the house has to go. I'm not sure if we could convert it to an office. One thought was to strip it down, convert it to a rental office so that we could have the rental office right there on that side of the road. Um, I guess that bridge I thought we would cross when we had um a site plan and came to permitting and stuff like that. But I've got I've got one question or one comment and one question because it seems like some of this just sounds like it's getting dumber like getting rid of that house seems odd. bit and I but I think to to your comment real quick I think I agree with you that the process I think staff is driving you towards may seem confusing but is the right one and in a lot of cases for how we've usually approached these is right due to state law in order to get you to the opportunity to put the actual alternative use based on the interpretation of the use it has to be denied if something we don't want to do I think we don't want this to be I1 but I think that right now it has to be denied to get there so I don't think anyone's misleading ing you. I don't think anything is is is not clear, but like plenty of people have come up like you and it's been confusing. It seems dumb, but the state law is what forces this process. But my question is right

now, ideally, you aren't wanting to have an extra building. You're not adding another building on there. You're just parking these things. Is that right?

I'm 50/50 on whether or not we would try and put a building. But keep in mind the building would look like other buildings on there. It just would be pushed to the back if that is allowed. Uh and it would have to have, you know, the facade on the front that meets all of the reason I ask is because if there isn't a building, right, it sounds like we've got a parking lot. Sounds like parking is very different. That is not what we're doing. We're not renting on this site. We're renting across the street. They're not the same site. And I guess my next question is, are these self-propelled, any of them, or are they just all towed? Uh, the mini skids are self-propelled. So,

that's a clearly a small thing. That's not a large. It's not any bigger than my mowers, but when I got into the discussion with staff on that, they said it had hydraulics. So, it's large equipment. A lot of my mowers have hydraulics. The forklift that I run on my existing business has hydraulics. We unload semis at my existing business regularly. I think my kid's bike has hydraulics. So, okay, just checking. That doesn't seem like a large determination. Okay. But right now, the vast majority of stuff, anything that's even in the category perceived as large, isn't self-propelled, they're towed,

and the plan that we're looking at isn't a building. So, this isn't, you know, it's just a parking lot is what we're looking at, right? It would be more like a display lot um for equipment cuz I don't think they'd be parked there per se if they're available for um purchase or rent. So would still be display and there I was told as I went through this that there's a difference between I1 display and I1 storage. I1 storage, you're considering there's a lot of other things outside besides whole pieces of equipment or things that might not be as attractive like pallets and who knows what else out there. Um,

yeah. Again, I'm just trying to get us to certainty tonight that keeps the business opening, gets us what we want, which is a cleaned up lot, which gets us to a surface lot, which is going to look better, which is going to increase the value, which is going to increase what we're looking for in this neighborhood without doing what we I think we all don't want, which is turning this to an I1, which isn't rational, and also doesn't take out a house at a time where we really need housing, which also seems like an even dumber addition. So, that's I guess where you're where my questions are coming from. The the one thing uh I'm not sure I can put a fence up the way we'd like to unless it is I1 to keep to keep it secure and keep people out somewhere along the path. I pretty sure I was told by staff if it's becomes a storage yard then it could be screened. It probably would have to be screened if it's an outdoor storage yard.

An outdoor storage yard under MX or outdoor storage under under I1. I'm just trying to figure out if it's a parking lot under MX. What do we have now? Is there parking? I'm sorry. This is a discussion piece. I'm sorry. I I didn't mean to overstep the questions part. Sorry. I have a question for staff. Sure. Why are all five lots being reszoned? Like does is that a requirement or can he do like the the three where the where this where the display is happening?

Yeah, I don't think there's anything requiring him to seek reszoning of all of them. I think that's what he applied for. So that's what's on the agenda. But if he wanted to exclude the single family house and only reszone the other four parcels, he could revise the application to do that or or the commission could recommend only, you know, three or four of them be uh reszoned, but there's nothing requiring him to seek reszoning of all of those properties. if he would want to convert it to an office like he said, then it probably would be in his best interest to keep it in the resoning.

Well, I thought it would limit the options in the future. Um, the more we look through this, at the very beginning, all we thought was was a lot, but as of recently with some of the challenges we have of moving things five times before we get it sold, we thought that if there's a possibility to get a 30- wide building across the back of that lot and then be able to hook the fence to it to secure the lot, that we wanted to have that option available. Any other questions for the applicant? Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Um, is there anyone in the audience tonight who would like to speak in favor of this item? Anyone neutral? Anyone opposed? Okay. In that case, do we do a rebuttal and do five more minutes? Not if there's any not any speakers against it. No. One thing I would I don't know what now's the best time to mention, but we as staff we do realize it's it's kind of a tough position. So, we do have some potential conditions that the commission could consider if the commission's inclined to support this. So, I don't know if Shoshi wants to put those up. Um we might allow the applicant to take a look at those. He hasn't seen him yet, but um could provide some insight on whether he has concerns with

But did we close public or is he coming back for rebuttal?

No, I haven't closed the public hearing yet, but I am about to. So, I will now close the public hearing and open it up to the commission for discussion and motions and review of what is on the screen now. Uh I'd um like madam chair to call could we have on the screen the um one of the city's plans for the area? You had a couple of them you showed earlier on aerial view. Yeah, that's that's the one. Thank you. Um I'd like to call attention to a safety concern here. Um, I know if you drive on East University Avenue, you know that it is a a major artery in the city. It gets a lot of traffic, right? Everybody knows that. I'd like to call your attention to East 27th Street that's there on the left hand side of the screen. um it doesn't show the full um the full street obviously, but if you think about it, then look at um if if you're familiar with the area, you know that the DAV store is directly to the west of that. The DAV store gets a lot of traffic. A lot of traffic. Um I'll hear it. Yeah, you can see it's sort of here on the far upper left. Uh, and for the store, um, let's go go get it higher up, please. Yeah, that's fine. What I want to call your attention to is the is the south side of the street, um, East 27th Street. You see how it angles up? Um, for whatever reason that was, and I have a hunch that this is a lazy fair thing in De Moine where, you know, the city didn't care what you did as far as

you did what you wanted to do. Um and then the city to rationalize this you see did a little bit of a curve to come up to the street there to the north. All that notwithstanding the fact is that a lot of people shop at DAV and when they go home they go home usually where on University Avenue. And my point is that this angle adds a safety a danger to the street already because you're not looking straight ahead or to the left or the right. You're looking kind of angled up to the left. Okay. So, that's a problem there. And if you slide over a little bit to the to the east more, we can see it. I think 28th Street does a little bit of the same thing here. You can see, you know, these are dangerous intersections in and of themselves. That's my point. Okay, that's my my point as far as safety is concerned. It's dangerous enough already. And my other point is one that several people brought up here on the commission tonight that if there's a question about the appropriateness of this zoning, you know, um it seems that makes sense to ask the zoning board of adjustment to have their opinion about how to approach this situation. All that notwithstanding, I would um you know really ask you to seriously consider the safety issue.

Thank you. Will Spirit, could you pull up those conditions again? I I have a concern that if we go I1 with these restrictions, we aren't getting to what we want to do anyway, right? We're pushing everything to the back. We're getting rid of a house. Um when really what we're looking to do is put in a parking lot. So, I guess I would love to understand if there's any way to make a motion instead of actually putting this into uncertainty by going to the going to um alternative use review. If we just say instead, is there any reason we can't identify this is a surface parking lot under parking non-acessory 1343515? I guess I I would reiterate what Bert had made um clear is that there was an option to there is an option to appeal the decision of the um neighborhood services um individual you know staff member that made that determination. Um they have that route through ZboA as well. So that's we're not the body here to hear that. I guess I'm not directing any, you know, direction of, you know, a decision, but the the the route to do that and make that determination is with ZBA and not here with PNZ. The request at hand is uh reszoning and not necessarily that determination of what this use is. Um

don't we then by not making a decision of how we think about this leave the uncertainty remaining which is problematic for other people if there is a similar condition instead of saying sure maybe we deny this and in there we say we would highly recommend this be considered uh 3515 instead. So because nothing everything we do is advisory, right? We don't make any decisions here. But I think that saying, hey, this should be considered X versus what you're looking at it cuz this isn't a heavy truck transport. The way large is used in the sentence that we pulled up earlier. Looks like it's an adjective that applies to all items within the list, especially considering the last one in the in the actual list says or any other large things. These aren't large things. They're not self-propelled. they're not, you know, they they aren't applicable to even the title of that item. And really what we're looking for is cleaning up a parking lot in the front that doesn't with this billboard sign gives us limited options to improve this.

Again, I would reiterate there has been a determination by staff that this is a you know falls under a use. There is no the route to you know wave or uh avoid that determination or change that determination is through another process that's not here today.

Yeah, I agree with you. But I'm saying we can still as a voluntary board say we believe they're wrong. It doesn't affect anything. Nothing we say here affects anything directly. It doesn't change that appeal, but does give us the opportunity to state we don't believe that determination is right. We as the individuals who are setting what is our future precedent for where things should be reviewed can state this is how we believe this should be reviewed though is that not accurate or what what am I what am I screwing up in that process?

You can include a recommendation that it should be considered but again that's not a determination you can make today is a reasonzoning and that's what what is in front of you. You are not making a use determination that has already been made by staff. And I've also heard the applicant say their desire is to put a fence around it, which again reinforces that it would be more an outdoor storage lot than a parking lot. You can't fence a parking lot. I can you fence a parking lot? So, yes, you could. Oh, I can fence a parking lot. Okay.

All right. So, I um first of all don't want to get caught in a side issue about whether or not this is a house that's ever going to become a residence. Um so I I and given the fencing and that we have a business owner here who um I think made a very strong case for how the lot is being used and their intention to stay consistent with that. I would like to move that we accept the zoning change with the proposed um re alternative recommendations before us numbers 1 through five presented by staff. Emily, did you have something?

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that this gets him what he needs. Applicant, are you in agreement with the conditions here? I know you I think this is the first time you're seeing them. Yes. Doesn't 30 ft make the far west side on I have concerns with item number two uh with the 30 ft from the front property line.

I don't know if that's a requirement as a regular parking lot. I don't think that applies to a regular parking lot. I would like to see something along the lines of what would we require for a setback that's not 30 ft for a parking lot because I think 30 ft is a little excessive.

Yeah. And that 30 ft was really just um wasn't based on anything in the code. It was just we looked at the site. The building across the street to the west is has that about that setback. So, um, we thought if you're driving down the street, you wouldn't see the large equipment, you know, kind of in the front yard areas, but if if the boards, can you pull up the um site plan again so we can get a sense of what 30 ft looks like? 30 ft goes through the middle of the middle of the sign. It's going right through the signpost that it makes the whole west unusable,

right? Their drawing shows a 10-ft setback. what what I hope we can do is leave this clear. So I will say that I would I read that point number two at storage is storage like I was thinking building. Um so if anybody wants to make a friendly amendment about that I'm I'm open to that but I do want to make sure that there's clarity. Um so that because it seems like there's a potential here for somebody to get caught in a whirlpool of never no answers and getting moved from commission to commission and we certainly don't want that to happen.

I'm with you Jane. I I want to work with this guy. I think he's doing uh has a good business for our city. So, thank you. Um if 10 ft is reasonable, I would do a friendly amendment to adjust that to 10 and make sure that gets you what you need then. That that's my amendment to your motion. Okay. Any discussion on the amended motion, John? Yeah, I guess I'm curious about the potential to use um the existing house as an office. Is that with with with this motion. Is that still something that that would still be okay potential as long as you can make building code. Yeah. Okay.

My concern is the uh the bringing in and the taking out of this equipment. I mean, you look at these pieces of machinery. I mean, this is a rental. This is a sales. How often is that going to occur? Is that not a safety issue? Is that a question for the applicant? I assume these activities are currently already happening. I think he's been doing it for two years. It sounded like

I think that's a question for transport. If transportation hasn't identified that this is an issue, as we've always done before, we've never said anything if the transportation department doesn't think it's dangerous. So, in this case, I guess we're not supposed to think about it. Well, I guess it would come into play when the site plan is submitted. The transportation will get a chance to look at it. Right now, it's just the reasoning, correct? That's a good point. There's trailers coming in and out of our parking lot because our landscapers are pulling them that are similar size and have been for 50 years since we've been there. So, and there's semis coming in and out of our parking lot pretty much daily, too, to deliver equipment, parts, and stuff. So,

okay. Thank you. Um, we've got a motion on the table. I would like to call a vote on that if there's no further discussion. Was the motion with number two modified to 10? Correct. Cuz it Okay, I do have one more question. Was the applicant okay with the other conditions with the modification? So number four, outdoor storage areas being screened with building fencing andor landscaping. So they're if they're trying to hide the equipment that we're promoting, that would not be that would not be acceptable.

Well, the part about the satisfaction of the planning and urban design administrator means you get to like negotiate with them. Basically, this is probably about as good as you're going to do right now. Okay. And I think this applies to the side that's adjacent to residential, not to the street sites, I believe. Okay. Or you could clarify it to say shall be screened from residential, but that's understandable. I'll make another friendly amendment to adjust to what B just said.

Okay. So, the two friendly amendments include modifying item number two to have a 10-foot setback and modifying item number four to clarify that outdoor storage shall be screened from residential uses with building fencing, etc. Okay, any further discussion on the amended motion? All in favor, please raise your right hand. opposed. Okay, motion passes. Thank you. Um, do we have any committee or director's reports this evening?

No reports. So just going to um remind the commission that we have approved our 2026 schedule of meeting dates and that the meeting locations will likely be switching from this building to 12200 Locust Street sometime in 2026, but we don't know when. Very good. Thank you. Yeah. Right.