Planning Commision - Regular Meeting

mixed use and residential so it does meet the bl the any industrial uses in that space do meet the black criteria according to state statute um doesn't mean that anything's going to happen it doesn't change the operation of those businesses at all but it does meet the state statute which allows these two anchor projects to be able to have an additional seven years of increment to help do remediation in those spaces Again, we've identified the preliminary projects. The two direct developer ones would be the housing project on Malden and potential redevelopment within Banbury Place. We've also identified two projects Infrastructure projects, which is the Galloway and Putnam railroad crossings those were identified as needs in an earlier I'm not sure what the date was back in the early 2000 teens as needs going forward 2014. Thank you very much we have funding for one of those projects the the city was able to acquire a grant for the Galloway Street railroad overpass and the tid it had been in the cip plan but the ted district will allow the ted funding to be able to use for the match that's required to do that overpass again any projects moving forward will have to be individually approved by city council so any project that's using tid funds council will make approval on how that is used common questions and just kind of reiterate a few things creation of a blight elimination district does not decrease property values has no impact on property values or assessments or how you sell or market rate of your project it does not increase taxes within that district and that's a common misunderstanding with tids. People think, oh, a tid district, taxes are going up. No, the only thing it does is redirects how the taxes that would be paid otherwise are used just within that district just for a certain amount of time and only new, kind of reinforce that, only new increments. So, Those projects that are building new facility or expanding facilities. This does not lead to eminent domain. There is no eminent domain tied with this. This is not something that says now suddenly the city can take your property or acquire property. That still falls under standard state statutes and guidelines. And it does not mean we're automatically going to demolish structures. It simply means that there's assistance available to help incentivize or help make adjustments to blighted properties. That could be acquiring a site. It could be helping a project do a renovation to save a historic building or save a structure that still has useful life. It could be, again, soil remediation. The Malden project is a perfect example of that, where it was an undeclared or an unregistered landfill. And I should probably specify that it was owned by private property or private owners. The folks in the neighbor and the region dumped their trash on that owner's property without their knowledge for decades. This had been in the 40s and 50s and even in the 60s until it was discovered and then it was declared as a landfill site by the state and it was registered with the DNR as an unregistered landfill and it was capped like a landfill. That occurred without the property owner's knowledge. The city acquired that space to do Fire Station 10. we had three and a half acres of leftover ground from that acquisition and construction of fire station 10 and this is an opportunity to take what is currently a capped unregistered landfill and turn it into a taxable housing project that delivers a need that's in the community so these are the things that blight elimination districts do not do they don't do any of these things they don't change anything in terms of operations within those spaces And again, reminder, any projects have to be approved by councils. They move forward on a project-by-project basis. Chair, we have a question.

Thank you, Chair. I have a question about the Western Boundary. What's that street name?

So that is not a street name. That is the property boundary for Banbury Place. Well, it's on...

Yeah. Is that as Putnam? Okay. Yeah. So with the boundary being presumably up to the street, or does it include that street?

We put it on the property line.

Okay, so it's on the property line. Does that offer any TID assistance to potential improvements at that Putnam Street crossing, or not really?

Yes, and we will hit that in a slide here just shortly. Fantastic. So going to the next slide, we're going to hit, yes.

Quick question. When you talk about the boundary lines, my previous experience with some TIDs in another community is that city council would have the flexibility or staff would have the flexibility to recommend a project within a certain distance outside of the TID.

There is a half-mile boundary, TID, which is part of what will answer Commissioner Brewster's question relates to project. There is a half-mile boundary in which TID funds can be used only for public infrastructure improvements, nothing else but public infrastructure or blight removal. But we'll be able to cover that when we hit that slide as well. So this is the construction year and kind of identifying the valuation year, what we're looking at in terms of the number. We have some proposed projects that will come in early on. The first increment is showing in 2027. Obviously, that may adjust a little bit based on construction schedules, but we're looking at a couple major projects. Two of them in there are known. We've not really included a lot of other potential projects in there because, again, the TID districts can be very speculative on the front end. We don't know what the owner of Bambury Place may do if they have a project lined up for that end space. But we have identified what's expected to be the added value for the projects that we have identified. It means the 55 and up lifestyle facility, and we know there's some projected growth on another project along Galloway Street. So those are the numbers the table includes. Estimated tax increments over time and shows what the final value for the district would be. Again, estimated full development at $60 million. Total projected revenue of about $24 million over the 27-year life of the TID district. Actually, we're missing several slides. Where did they go? Okay, I don't have the, I lied, I don't have the half mile boundary slide on here, which I thought I did. So within this gray area, the TID plan, and it should have been in your TID packet, there's a half mile boundary within that radius. It is identifying these light blue lines. The highlighting in that packet identifies the proposed projects. It shows, may I borrow that? I can actually put it on the overhead camera.

Ned, would you find the camera? Thank you.

All right, perfect. Thank you very much. So again, the legend below shows the upper right-hand corner is the Maughlin Avenue site, which is the proposed multifamily. That pink area in the middle, that is the tail end of, that's that eastern section of Banbury Place that is looking for redevelopment potential. The green area is the Galloway Street Railroad overpass that has grant money tied to it. The yellow area just along the river, and I take back, this is actually an older slide, that yellow space, we've updated the map, apparently it did make it to this slide, the yellow space is on the north side of that river not the south and we've made that adjustment to the packet and we'll reflect that in the map moving forward and the blue space off the left that's supposed to be the putnam crossing it's actually one street over to the right so we've made the adjustments on the map and that's what we'd be looking to move forward to council The Putnam Railroad Crossing is, again, one that was identified as a crossing improvement in a previous study in 2014. Hasn't been funded, hasn't been in the CIP yet, but it is a proposed project and is within the half-mile boundary that could occur there. The yellow area that's identified, that is actually what everybody typically is referred to as the hip site. The hip site... was a demolition project along Dewey Street, the corner of Dewey Street and Galloway. The Dewey Street bridge repair is gonna be moving forward and there are serious soil conditions under the land there. It's deep, not structurally sound for construction or heavy equipment coming in. So there may be an acquisition or improvement within that space to ensure that we can do the Dewey Street project, the Dewey Street bridge replacement. So that's why that's been identified as a potential remediation site. what it would likely refer like would likely entail would be excavating out poor soils and bringing in structurally engineered soils to ensure that we have a solid base to bring in the heavy equipment that will be needed to do the bridge repair so that's why that was included within the tid district so those are the projects that have that have been identified within tid plan 18. now other projects can come forward other public and improvements could occur there's a lot of trail space down there we may see a trail project coming forward but this is what we we are starting the district with and these are the some of the plans that we have identified the front end that will that will be advanced because of the the tit 18 and its blight status i'd be happy to answer any additional questions

I do. Maybe embedded within all these slides, is there a percentage of the TID of the $60 million, roughly, that you're looking to be paying out for incentives to developers?

That's not necessarily built in the TID district, but that is tied within our TID policy. And actually, we're done with this, so I can return this back to you.

Thank you. Thank you.

So our TID policy for the city, which was passed in 2016, specifies that any project that's looking for TID assistance, if it's in an existing TID district or part of a district that's being created at the direction of the city, requires a minimum of a $5 million capital investment, a taxable investment. If it is a project driven by a developer, that minimum is $10 million in taxable investment. And the policy that we have been using for a number of projects is no more than 10% of the guaranteed taxable value over a 30-year period is eligible or is provided as an incentive to developers. And we have stuck with that. That's been the guiding principle that did the P&R Properties Project, the B7 flats on the old... B7 Square property, the Sevens development down on Old Town Holt Road, those tax incentive assistances that were provided there were, they guaranteed, it was provided no more than 10% of the guaranteed taxable value. and at this point do you have a preferred developer that is looking at doing anything in there yet no the malden avenue site is under an mou with a developer it's the same developer that built the current and the eddie in the canary district off oxford avenue we have had a an mou with them for about two years now looking at that site they've been doing engineering work examining and evaluating the space so that is the expected that that's the developer that we're looking to move forward with on that and that project will still come back forward to council for approval as well I also referenced that any assistance that's provided through these is done as pay-as-you-go or pay-go, as we refer to, which means these projects would not be any upfront assistance. The developer or the builder or the project owner would need to finance the project, and then the TID would reimburse for those costs up to the agreed amount point that follows policy and meets any but-for clauses and the financial review that are required by state law.

Any other questions? Any more from you?

I think we've covered everything, so, yep.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Is there anyone who would care to speak on the second page? Yes. You're welcome to speak your name and address. Thank you.

Leticia Papke, the address for the business is 2219 Galloway Street for Johnson Lithographics. My residence is E6250 Hickory Road, Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I'm here regarding Johnson Lithographics. Real brief history, Johnson Lithographics has been in Eau Claire as an industrial commercial building or commercial printer. We've been here for over a hundred years. I myself, not that long, but the company has been here that long. I guess I did have an opportunity to speak with Erin White this morning, but I still have a lot of concerns regarding this. I guess and one just really hit home just a few minutes ago when first we've been told that we're blighted and then He specifically said the money is used for blight removal. So I guess our concern is since we're industrial and you guys are heading towards apartment complexes and commercial, we see this as a potential for either taxes or other ways of eliminating us and removing us. And I know comment was made when I talked to him this morning, well, we can relocate. Well, you don't just relocate a company that has millions of dollars worth of equipment that has to be moved. So my biggest concern is how this is truly being handled if we're being told the truth, because it's my understanding there's absolutely no Benefit for Johnson lithographics for this We've already been assessed the cost for resurfacing The water pipes everything else has been previously done so I'm not sure where it comes in regards to Having any benefit for us because we've already paid for all of that with the assessments and I know they say that there's not gonna be any taxes changes, but if you do put in residential and increase the cost value, I still see it as an increase that'll come to hit Johnson Lithographics. I see it as a sneaky way of trying to eliminate Johnson Lithographics. Thank you.

My name is Tom Gillette. I live at 419 Roosevelt Avenue down by the University. Was there another? Was there another?

Double T, no E. Jeff Clark, business address 313 North Hastings, Indian Head Food Distributors. And I do not live in the city.

So we represent in a manner Indian Head Food Service, but The property is owned and managed by Hastings Place LLC. So, IFD Food Service is the sole tenant and has the lease, long-term lease on all of the property. So I can lay a little groundwork. How do you get this to do something?

Huh?

Oh, okay. Go ahead and do that so we have a commercial plan development approved on by the city and This is it This is all the pieces so I don't this is up top there on the bircher, okay and so This piece is done Half of this piece was just done This is done And then our next scope will go to this and this, which they kind of go together. Probably, I hate to say it, I choke on these numbers, but it's probably 14 million. And then the next piece after. So these come because we need the space. So we're food distributors. We sell food and food-related items to restaurants, schools, institutions, government accounts. It's anybody who buys food, prepares a meal, and serves it to somebody on that site, not like a grocery store. And so I know some of you are, oh, did I remember Armor? We bought this from Armor and Company. An armoring company closed in 91. We bought it from them in 92. So we've been here since 92. There was about 33,000 square feet of warehouse space. We now occupy 175,000 of warehouse space. But what they had was older, and it wasn't so up to date. So we've upgraded all of this to be like a Class A warehouse system. All right?

Any questions on that?

I guess I don't ask that, do I?

You do?

So this is us, as I outlined this, so that's us, right? There's three parcels there, just because when they put the road through and then we bought some of the land from the city some years ago. I guess the question that we have is, will the commercial plan development still be intact and still be... Can we still rely on that to develop these additional pieces going forward? Or does a TIF district interfere with that agreement?

I think we have to ask the staff that question.

Certainly I'd be happy to answer that. It has zero impact on your project. You can continue to develop exactly as you propose. It has no impact on what you're doing.

And then?

No impact at all. Zoning? Zoning doesn't change with a TID district. It simply identifies that community. Overall, I would like to see this as something other than industrial, but it's still industrial. It doesn't change your zoning at all. It has no impact on you.

Well, it didn't come over on district because Armour was... Manufacturing.

Yep. Yeah, it has no impact on you whatsoever.

Okay. And then how does this benefit us? How does it benefit us?

Again, you certainly could if you have a project that has a need anywhere along that stretch, you could come to the city and apply to see if there's an opportunity for TIF assistance on anything that you're looking to do. It has to meet all the TIF requirements, the state statutory requirements for the but-for clause has public benefit, but you would be an eligible project potentially to ask for assistance.

How would we understand what could be included in the TIF district for us?

message is to as we tell anybody just reach out to the city staff and give us an outline of what your project is is that you see yeah that would be me you can reach out to me and we can talk to see if it's something that would be eligible

Do you have anything? Yeah, just a few questions. Whenever we're looking at this, this is an improved parking lot that's been resurfaced, landscaped as a water runoff, but it's considered to be a blight area. So what really is a definition of a blight area? Because this is our property. It's considered to be blight. This property right here. is where we're having these plans set up for, also considered to be a blight area. So whenever you have an improved area or you have a future expansion that's already been filed with the city, why would those pieces of property be considered to be blight?

I'll let Mr. White answer that one.

Again, to classify the blight district, to be able to provide the longer TIF period of 27 years versus 20 years for like a mixed use development, 50%, over 50% of the parcel that's the raw land in that space has to be designated blighted. We hit that metric because there's a lot of space that's zone industrial and by the comp plan it shows that it's kind of an outdated, by the comp plan it's outdated use. That is a technical requirement by the state that allows it to meet that designation. Again, it doesn't change any of your operations. The parking lot on the south side, which is along the river frontage, that's, again, that's a shift in the city. They're trying to get away from surface parking spaces along river frontage property. So it meets, again, some of those elements that meet the legal definitions by the state statute of blight. It doesn't mean that it's a bad condition or falling apart. It just simply means that it meets the state requirements and allows it to be a blight designation, which has, as I said, additional seven years of increment capture to help remove blight.

Some of the issues areas that we're looking at Just statement, sorry Question one more question that we have is that if I'm looking at the way that this map is drawn out We from basically Birch all the way to Bainbury all properties along that line on the north side below the hill are included in this except for marketing johnson's offices why would they be eliminated whenever everybody else is included in it and then on the south side from bainbury all almost all the way up to birch street everybody is included except for the new addition galloway flats why would that not be part of this district

Mr. White certainly so we did not include Galloway flats it's an existing development that's occurring it doesn't do any good to bring a development in that's already occurred it doesn't provide any increment there's no opportunity for redevelopment in that space as a residential space it fits with the comp plan it's also zoned for residential so it's it's zoned by the comp plan and what's intended use market johnson is a it's a commercial office space so again from a from a longer comprehensive plan for the for use in this area that's the type of use that the city envisions long term to be along the riverfronts commercial and residential mixed type of operations so that piece on the north side is a is a fits with what the comprehend the comprehensive plan would have identified for that area again this is based off of the 2015 comp plan which we are in the process of updating this year as well so there's a budget for this thing on how much you expect to happen if that budget gets blown through does it stop there then

Pardon? There's a budget for how much you expect to be expanded or reinvested by the businesses. Do you expect then if you hit that ceiling on that, that it stops or does it, so does it first come? per serve or do you expand the budget?

These are just projections. They mean what could occur, what we know has been committed from a developer. If more occurs, it actually means the TID district could close down early. It's based on that revenue, but there's... other things you can do with a tit district if you're seeing a yield the ability to close revenue down faster council has an opportunity to designate use for for affordable housing there's some things that can be done but no it doesn't change anything or impact anything else

sorry just one more question page 94 is talking about a list of estimated project costs and we're talking about phase five and showing a five million dollar uh development incentive and then if i look at the rest of this project there's also a spot where it talks about five million dollars for a warehouse what warehouse are we referring to

Again, we don't have any specific project. We're just putting in some speculative investments that's occurring. That's part of what a TID plan is, is speculation on what might be occurring with any type of space. The only project that we truly have been working collectively on is the Mall of Magic project.

So as we... to understand this more completely you can't take all this time standing up here and asking all these questions would you recommend that we engage with city staff to drill down with all our questions and how much yes mr gillette that was that was going to be one of my comments that

I think most of your questions could directly be answered by city staff, and it would be best to do that in their offices. And I'm sure they'd be happy to talk to you and answer any more questions that you might have regarding this tip. opinion on this is just giving opinion to the city right whether you feel the tip district should be approved by recommended for approval by the Planning Commission or not recommended for approval by the Planning Commission that's our place to do that yes it certainly is you can express yourself right now oh I don't know okay all right

Thank You chair I have a quick question for the two of you um you know since one of the main projects that this tid will be helping to pay for is the traffic overpass of the Galloway railroad crossing and that also since y'all have a series of trucks coming in and out of your space, would you consider that to be a benefit overall to the business, not having to wait for?

Well, we use that street, you know, like everybody else, not Burke Street, right, which is intended, and so we would use Burke Street, I mean, until it's done. Okay. How many trains go through there a day, one?

So if you look at our trucks going that direction, we really don't have trucks going that direction. All of our trucks are going the other way. So employee status, yes, some of our employees get stuck on the other side of the tracks and can't get to work and end up being a little late. So there is some impact from that. But for our business, it's not a huge impact.

Okay. Just wondering. Thank you.

When would you expect that to be started?

I guess I would defer to staff on that question.

I know it is within the five-year CIP.

Is that part of this project? Yes. OK. Great. Thank you. Anything else? No? Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would care to speak? Yes, sir. Please state your name, your address, and spell your last name.

Lance Papke, P-A-P-K-E, S10760 North Martin Drive, Strum, Wisconsin. I'm here representing Johnson Lithographics. I'm the president of Johnson Lithographics. And I mean, I know a few things have already been touched on regarding the taxes and that type of stuff. And obviously we're maybe discussing having another meeting from what you've promoted here. I guess, you know, just the concern with these properties, and I believe, you know, Indian Head just brought this up regarding their parking lot, and not, and then the discussion was about riverfront property, and I know Leticia, who spoke earlier for Johnson Lithographics, had mentioned one of our properties is on the north side of the railroad, and she brought up the question of, well, if we wanted to expand Would we be able to do that and there was the concern well riverfront property you might not be able to get permission to do that and Now, my concern is that's not the riverfront property. There's actually the railroad, and then I believe there's a small lot on the other side, narrow, but potentially that might be the city of Eau Claire's property. I'm not sure. So where does riverfront property stop? Is it the property that's right next to the river? Is it the railroad? Or are we going to step into, you know, the north side of the railroad? So that's concerning when we're talking about this and things are being discussed. And like Indian had food brought up, you know, the city's probably been planning this or having discussion about this for decades. More than likely a year, maybe longer. We've got a few weeks from the notice. I know the one packet I got, the draft was August 26th. 26 and It's August 31st and we're here discussing this so it's just a little concerning like where you know how much information Maybe some things can be brought up. But at that point if we're discussing this in a week, but you guys here tonight are proposing to move forward to pass this along to the city to make a vote on it and the 22nd of September and if my dates are appropriate. You know, you're asking us to give an opinion, comment, basically, but we don't really have maybe all the information. Like I said, back when the bridge was getting put in, I know there was a committee meeting. I was part there with Dan Market and stuff like that, and I believe Tom might have been there for a minute or whatever, you know, about discussion of how the bridge and the road and stuff was going to go through. And, you know, we had some input. Not sure if that was before or after the part, but I'm trying to think of if there's any development on the south side of the railroad, there really isn't much room for anything to get down there. I know if there's more bike paths or whatever, I can't believe they'd be putting any more bike paths or anything on the south side of that for how steep it is, or you'd have to come back and cross the railroad again. And I know working with the railroad, they... pretty much get to decide what gets done and not gets done on things um a second concern is i know there was a comment about uh eminent domain however in these packets they say the acquisition of property acquisition of rights of way and acquisition of easements are built into this so We say that there's no eminent domain. We aren't going to take anybody's property, but we don't. you know in the contract itself is saying there's the right to be able to take property and we don't know what that is uh... for example you know this plans coming out and we're talking about a couple different construction sites that are being okay to approved and yet that looks like those are you know things that need to happen for the city as i've seen on some of these other ones there's many amendments to these plans. So, you know, what happens when, when will I be like maybe an individual business sitting here going, Hey, we, you know, the city's planning to make or do this one particular thing and it's affecting your property. And now instead of there, you know, there's probably only nine or 10 businesses on this that are in this group, but I could get individualized later when there's some plan getting made that, um, You know, I might be standing here by myself going, well, the plan's approved, and we're going to do this, and it might affect your property. And that limits any backing here for, you know, Johnson Lithographics. I guess that, like I said, too, I mean, it's been brought up, the fact that what am I gaining from it? I know you brought up the fact about the railroad crossing. Some of our employees come that direction. Some trucks go. A lot of the trucks that are coming in and out delivering paper or taking product, they're heading the other way to the crossing. But in reality, if a truck has to wait three, four minutes before they deliver paper to us, it's not the end of the world. So a multimillion dollar project for that bridge or overpass, it's probably helping the whole city as a whole, or maybe even helping the downtown more than it is potentially helping any of us few industries or businesses on that Galloway Street strip. Just a few of the concerns. I'm sure some of us businesses would love to have the conversation more, but right at the moment, I just at least have to put out my concern that we don't have enough information. What's going to happen in future years? You know, as future proposals come up to the businesses, what's going to get done? You know, is there going to be all of a sudden we have this green space that we've been saving for development? Is it all of a sudden going to be, well, we're doing a development over here, and we're going to use your space for a retention pond, and it's going to be taken from us for future development, taken away from us. So I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Mr. Pathkey, I'd recommend that you do take an opportunity to talk to staff. I'd start with Mr. White. And I'm sure he can address a lot of your concerns and give you more information about the process and how future development may or may not take place in a TIF district. A lot of it is just simply unknown at this point because the public projects, for instance, the Galloway overpass, for instance, over the railroad tracks, That is something that's been on the works at the city level for a while, and they can discuss that with you. And maybe there's other public improvement projects, but when it comes to the private sector, that's really just an unknown at this point. And it may or may not benefit you. You may qualify for some of the incentives, let's say, if there's a project that's in your future. So that part of the TIP district may be a benefit to you. But it's simply an unknown situation. And the idea is that the TIP district will help catalyze a lot of these projects, but they aren't under the control of the TIP. of the city of Eau Claire at this time. So I would really recommend to you that you discuss this with city staff before the council meeting on the 22nd, and there'll be an opportunity to address the council at that time also if you have further concerns. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Brewster?

Yeah, thank you, Chair. I just wanted to say I use you guys for printing all the time. I did my campaign lit. You do a fantastic job, and I would hate to see anything happen to you.

We appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak regarding this public hearing? No one else. Thank you.

So moved. Wolfgram seconds.

Is there any more discussion amongst the commissioners?

Thank you, Chair. Yeah, so there's a couple things that I just want to speak about. And I'm pretty sure I have a good grasp of that. But staff, if you hear me saying something inaccurate, please feel free to jump in, because I would hate to misinform anyone. But when we use tax incremental districts, it's basically like almost exclusively for infrastructure. We're not, it's not an RDA district where we're actively buying land and encouraging different types of development. We do that like in a broad, in a broad way with the comp plan and zoning and things like that. But this is, you know, Like other TIDs, the one that had the Pablo Center in it, for example, the TID paid for Haymarket Landing as well as the pedestrian bridge that went across the river, and that's not impacting, other than, I guess, the parking lot that used to be there, which was purchased and compensated for, as far as I know, and not eminent domain. Right, Ned? Yeah. And so, yeah, I think this just gives us some flexibility to help businesses currently located there if they have expansion plans, potentially, as well as make sure the infrastructure for those expansion, expansive plans are, you know, covered as opposed to other types of bonding for it. In general, I like the use of TIDs in that way. It keeps the focus of tax revenue in the area that's generating it, and so I will be supporting this.

I just want to say that I heard how the notification timeline is too short for something this consequential. So that is very important feedback for us and for the city and I want to thank you for that.

I'll go after him.

I have two things, thanks Chairman. What is the difference between the regular TID and the blighted? Obviously it's the seven years, but why did we go with the blighted version? I mean, the businesses are saying that parts of their property are blighted that have been here for a long time.

Sure. So the ability to recoup investment in cleanup, thinking the Maldon Avenue site particularly, is going to be a very expensive soil remediation and cleanup. Potential for high expenses to assist on something at Banbury. Brownfield type of cleanups tend to be very expensive. Additional seven years of increment allows for recouping additional costs. and assistance so it's intended to do that there's really not a whole lot of other differences but it is it does open a few of the uses you know a little more focus on or black removal is generally focused more on remediating issues within the district So again, looking at the Moulton Amnesty site primarily, which is a landfill, what could be used for a project at Banbury Place, which is likely a brownfield site because of the coal plant, the old power plant, this is the appropriate tool to use that.

So what I listen from these businesses that have been here for a long time in that stretch, I don't want to see them going in any way, shape, or form. So the reason I ask for this blighted is, is that going to affect them in any way where they're required to, I don't know, how do you want to say this, be not blighted?

I mean, it's... It has absolutely zero effect on their businesses. It doesn't stop them from doing anything within their business. If their zoning is correct, they can expand based on their zoning. They can do anything they want in their business. This has absolutely zero effect on them. Zero effect.

okay yeah it's just it was seems like the timing of them being able to speak with with city staff i think was shortened and this has kind of been expedited and listening to these business owners that have come forward today you know i would have Rather seeing this table the month so that they have the time to answer questions?

This process is defined by state law. TID law, we have to go through the Joint Review Board, then it goes to Planning Commission, then it goes to Council, and it goes back to the Joint Review Board. That's defined by state law. OK.

just like to share and those who have addressed us thank you for that but i would just like to share that i've been through a couple of these in other communities once you get a full understanding of what these are and the comments that mr white has made they are actually there to benefit and help you and i would just encourage as our chair has encouraged you meet with staff get a better understanding what this all does to to potentially help you down the road it's not there to hurt you And I think in the long run, as everyone gets a better understanding of what this encompasses and can do for you, it generally has always been a good thing from my past experience that I've dealt with these over the last 20 plus years. And that's where in other communities, not Eau Claire, but those communities that developed them and worked within them has been a very good thing for them.

Mr. White, you mentioned that the old coal plant is something that could be used for redevelopment. How big a parcel is that?

I'm not sure what the size of that is we spoke with Jack Kaiser about that property being pulled into this and could be a potential use and the reason the entire Banbury place was put in state law prohibits splitting a parcel down it has to be used by either streets or full parcel boundaries so that's the reason why the entire parcel was included in I'm guessing it's in the two three acre space maybe it's an odd shaped parcel but

Yeah, the entire parcel is 26 acres. Okay. And what other property is available for redevelopment in that district?

Could be anything that occurs. It's any property owner. If it changes hands, it could be anything. Like I said, we only have two projects that are defined, and that's the reason for the take creation. It was the Malden Avenue site, which is a project we have been working on, and then the potential for assistance on redevelopment of part of Banbury.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. I just want to talk a little bit about the term blight, especially for people that take such obvious care for their businesses. I understand that it can feel kind of icky to have your space considered blight. I wish there was a different word in statute that we could use instead of that, but unfortunately there isn't. That doesn't mean that we're looking at your businesses and be like, oh, I wish they would paint it a different color or something like that. We kind of went through the same thing when we were looking at the RDA district up by Sacred Heart. And that's also a substantial amount of blight. A lot of it has to do with stuff that the city did in the 80s, like the way the roads were done. makes an area blighted if it's especially 80s style car centric, for example. And it's just the term that the state uses and therefore we have to use it. And so I just wanted to make the comment that just because that term is in there, that doesn't mean that we at the city think you're doing a bad job maintaining your buildings or anything like that. So I just wanted to clarify that.

Is there anyone else who wants to speak on this topic? We are at the point of motion on this. And it's been moved correctly. And it's decided. So I will call the question. And I'll start with Mr. Lawson.

Aye.

Mr. Leonard. Aye. Commissioner Holzman. Aye. Commissioner Gettinger. Aye.

No.

Commissioner Brewster? Aye. Commissioner Reed?

Aye. Commissioner Wolfer?

Aye.

Commissioner Zoy?

Aye. Chair votes aye.

And the motion passes 8-1-0. Okay, thank you again chair this project is

has submitted for a conditional use permit public hearing. This project gets considered and possibly approved by you. It does not go to the city council. And if we can move this forward. Could you use the forward arrow?

I don't know what happened.

Maybe it died. Something's wrong Okay, here's a subject site You saw this site this project a few months ago with the rezoning request for urban commercial. So that's in place now They're looking to try to fill retail Tenants and one option is to present a drive-through that is required a condition use permit in these more urban areas for sensitivity with being more urban and so move to the next slide Here's the site plan, shows a future building that would be administratively approved once they're still working with us on this, but this conditional use permit is just for the drive-through only. The condition is stacking, is identified. It's really primarily based off of the different type of tenant that would be in there, but I think they want to keep their options open, and so we understand that. They're showing conceptually here that they could have six stacking stalls to set up if the menu board is right at the drive-up window. So again, this could be a coffee shop, you know, cafe. It's obviously not going to be McDonald's, but they would need to still meet the rule once they identify the tenant. So we'll work with them on that, but conceptually they show how they are actually meeting the conditions of the permit. And so if you go to the next slide. This blows that up, shows where the actual menu order board would be. There might be like a display sign further up to help people to understand the order. Again, no tenant has been decided. You can kind of see where they might have some outdoor dining as part of that potential use. Next slide. So there are conditions here. Again, they'd have to still meet all the conditions of the permit, so that's in place if you approve this tonight. They generally meet all those standards. You know, future signage would be approved by staff at that time, making sure that the stacking is appropriate for the tenant use. But conceptually, they show how they can meet the code, and so we would recommend approval subject to these conditions.

Thank You chair do we have any restrictions in the LDO on you know drive-throughs in particular sorts of areas I mean this is this is an area that already has like a multitude of potential friction points for traffic and I guess I would I would be really hesitant to approve something like that

Yeah, this dumps out onto 10th Avenue, which is basically already severed from the north. It has no exit. You dump back onto Menominee there and then back into the roundabout. So it is part of that teed-off street on 10th Avenue. Deputy City Engineer Al Rink is here to speak on any traffic concerns. But through the Conditional Use Permit, that is required with the urban... COMMERCIAL DISTRICT. AND SO THE GREATEST SENSITIVITY IN THE CASE OF THE ACTUAL USE IS TO THE REMAINING PROPERTY OWNER TO THE NORTH, WHICH WE'RE RECOMMENDING SOME SCREENING THERE SO THAT THAT PROPERTY OWNER DOESN'T HAVE THAT USE DIRECTLY IMMEDIATE TO THEM IN TERMS OF SEEING ALL THOSE CARS. THE SCREENING WILL HELP TO SORT OF DIVIDE THAT AND CONCEAL IT.

FOLLOW-UP. WHEN YOU SAY PROPERTY OWNER TO THE NORTH, ARE YOU REFERRING TO PARCEL 109? CORRECT.

So not not parcel 337 337 is located Also to the north but on the to the north of 109 but also yeah that that property owner is actually part of I believe the development team or is working with them They have plans to do almost a second working We've seen some conceptual things as another mixed use building to the north on Water Street. So they're trying to work together with those property owners, but this one is, this application is just for the conditional use permit.

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you. Just to clarify, you said that the applicant is trying to make a drive-through but hasn't had a specific business in mind in terms of what could take that spot?

Correct.

Is that pretty typical in terms of?

It's a fair proposition. Yeah, they're trying to basically be able to show that use is possible for a tenant that would locate there. We've seen that before on Water Street as well.

In terms of I know you know different types of businesses we could have some different impacts I know we've had like seven roofs in the city and stuff like that in terms of the high volume of traffic at specific times Would it make more sense to push this until we knew the applicant in order to maybe you know for screening purposes say it's going to be early morning type business hours or

It's not a condition to know the actual tenant. That would be against the actual conditions. And we do have to make sure that we approve or deny based off of the actual standards and not subjectivity. And so if they're meeting the standards, that basically is something that you'd have to approve. State law changed in 2015 in that regard, so we need to make sure that we're not being subjective. So the applicant might have some other ideas of who they're courting for a tenant.

I'm spacing on us doing whatever this property was before, so what is this zone currently?

Urban commercial. It was rezoned from, it was urban residential and prior to that it was R4. So it's always been high density. They just wanted more ability to do mixed use.

And two lots of those three is vacant at this time, correct?

Right, they've torn down those houses in expectation for this mixed-use building.

Any other questions? I have a question. The bypass lane is there, excuse me, but there is no bypass lane here. So if you have someone that's in line and they say, I changed my mind. I don't want whatever I wanted from this takeout place. They're stuck in line until their time goes through. Is that correct?

Yeah, this is an urban condition, so that would be the case. Okay.

I gotcha.

They better know what they want to order. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I mean, I guess that's the risk you take. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Brewster.

Thank you. Does the LDO have any, state any preferences with regards to drive-throughs being in a more core area? My understanding is that Water Street doesn't allow them. Is that accurate?

The plan in certain blocks doesn't allow them, correct, yeah. There's greater sensitivity, that's why this is a conditional use permit in this case, but yeah, it gets more restrictive as you get more urban. So generally we're trying to not have them, but we do allow them in certain cases.

Any other questions?

Yes. I do not. That's great, because... Because I'm back up here for two items. So I'm here on behalf of the developer. Again, we don't really know who the tenant is going to be. What we did end up showing is we showed the stacking for the worst-case scenario to have the six vehicles be able to stack, and that would be for a restaurant type. I think if it ends up being more of like a pharmacy, it'd end up being four that could stack before the order window. But we have been working on this for a while. We did end up changing to the urban commercial several months ago, which allows commercial on the ground floor, and then it allows for apartments and stuff above that. We've worked with staff continually over the months, parking, connectivity through this, again, the rezoning, and this is just something that that we're looking to end up doing to entice other tenants and stuff. But it's not gonna be a high volume, obviously Caribou, Starbucks type of coffee shop that would end up requiring a lot more type of stacking and situations. So with that, I'm here to answer any other questions.

Thank you, Chair. So if a Starbucks wanted to go there, you'd say no?

I'm not going to speak for the developer, but I would end up thinking it's going to be a hard pass because we still have to end up working with staff on this, right? I mean, we have a site plan approval that we still end up having to go through. And stuff so you know by that time and stuff I would end up you know when we're going through that process We still have to go for signing And I think there's other conditions on this that you know at the tenant stage and stuff to be able to end up telling Where that order box is going to be that type of stuff, so? It's not our intention to back up the parking lot blocking stalls put it that way so I Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this matter? Anyone else? Seeing none, I'll close this public hearing and I'll entertain an motion.

Can we hear from Mr. Rincow, please?

Yes, we can.

Yes, the traffic issue. Thank you.

Yeah, so I mean, traffic could potentially be concerned, but this has to go through staff approval. So for me, as far as traffic goes, We'd have to wait until we come to that point of this process, and I'd have to see who is the business that's being proposed, and I'd have to at least get an IR, an initial review, see what kind of traffic the potential business would bring, and see if queuing would cause potential problems. I don't really see a problem with it coming onto 10th Street. That's the exit. It's a side street. You know, I've learned with Seven Brews, you know, things that I don't want to see dumping out onto, you know, Maine. Like if it was dumping onto Water Street, that would be more of a concern than 10th Street. This section of Menominee Street is quieter. It's a local street. But, yeah, I would want to know what is the business. If it's a Starbucks, I probably would have to deny that. Even if they wanted it, depending on what the traffic volumes are showing me, they may want it, I may not allow it. So, yeah.

This is a little bit of a loaded question. How many times in your time at the city have staff had to go out and put cones on a road because drive-throughs were backed up into an actual street? I can think of three, but I'm sure there's probably more.

Well, in my time here, a little over two years, I mean, I just, the two seven brews is all I'm aware of that has caused problems. I can't think of anything else personally that I know, but yeah. Oh, raising cane. That was another, another issue there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anything else? Could we see the diagram that shows the roundabout? Yes, that there again. So this dumps out right onto, I forget the name of the street there.

That little marsup on there?

Yeah, 10th Street. And 10th Street does not go through to Water Street, is that correct? Right. So I mean, but you cannot access Water Street from 10th directly. Water Street from 10th. To the north. Yeah. Well, Menominee's on the south end. Water would be up on the north end, and then we've got 10th running north and south, correct? Yeah.

I'm trying to think if that's closed off. It is cut off. Is that cut off?

Yes. That's what I thought, but I just wanted to confirm. So all the traffic would either be going back east on Menominee and then take a side street up to Water, if that's what they chose to do, or to the west you'd be going to the Roundabout on Menominee. Is that correct? So basically all your traffic would be going one direction or the other on Menominee Street to go east and west. And north, for that matter. Perhaps you'd, yeah, I mean, you'd have to go, if you wanted to access Water Street, you'd have to go a block either direction to get back on Water Street there. Okay, that was my question. Thank you.

Yep. Anyone else? Any questions? Now, I don't see anyone else from the audience. Okay. So move rooster second No, I don't all right, thank you chair um Yeah, I guess I

I'm a little iffy on this. I know that what it is is not supposed to impact whether or not we vote on it, but I guess I'm just like... I just don't like the idea of more drive-throughs. I read a stat, I want to say it was in 2010, that Americans waste 650 million gallons of gasoline a year idling in drive-throughs, and I've not used a drive-through since. And not to go all eco-fascist on a design schematic, but... You know, this is an area that's dense enough and walkable enough that I guess I would be really hesitant to, I guess, approve this conditional use. No.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. And that motion carries. 7-2. 9-3 on the number 9. Correct the date for the City Council's success plan declaration. Three parts of the plan. The second was a discussion of... Hi Thank You chair Erickson commissioners This has been in front of you before I believe Aaron presented it so a little change up for you today and

So we'll go briefly through the history. We had a lot of residents, developers on various lots around the city that we owned asking about them, what we were going to do, if they were for sale, different things as we were exploring options for housing affordability. So we started putting those two thoughts together and with the city owning the property, that's a way we could take the cost of land off right from the front and impact most likely at least $50,000 off the cost of a home. There are also, on some of these, council had mentioned they might like to sell some of them at market to create a fund for housing, so that would be a consideration also. We do own a total of 433 parcels. Not all of them are developable. We are going through all of them to determine which ones are. And then the various things that can be built help improve affordability like cottage courts manufactured model or modular homes and other options and we did recently just uh work with habitat for humanity on a couple lots that i think they're gonna put duplexes on each so that's gonna be four new homes through them The map in the red, you can see all the city-owned parcels. Again, not all of them will be suitable for development, like along the rivers and stuff like that. Those areas wouldn't be. But we'll review each of them. Methodology, we did identify the properties. We're working on eliminating ones that don't meet the lot size requirement, eliminating ones that are in use, looking at elevation and other things towards buildability. um zoning use we'll be doing this at least twice a year we do once we identify properties before we do any other steps we send them out to various departments within the city utilities engineering planning just so they can review them and see if there's any issues like there's a utility line that we might not be aware of or We had one property we thought would be great, but there was no way to put a driveway on it with the curve that it had. So we send these through various departments so they can do checks to ensure that if we did declare this excess, there wouldn't be any issues. And then we have a community outreach plan. With this one, we had two public meetings. Council Member Brewster and Director White held one at the airport, and then we had for the well-filled ones, which we'll discuss, and then we had another open house at the library, which all the properties were discussed at. So we have public feedback from those and the emails in your packet, and I left one for you guys that came in today. So the first one, Park Ridge Drive, you guys did approve this one. Council did ask for it to go back to Waterways Parks and Urban Forestry. Waterways Parks and Urban Forestry did approve this one. Recommend for approval to council to be declared excess. If you guys would like me to go through this one again, I believe Aaron covered it. I can, but you guys had previously approved this one. These are the two that you sent back to Waterways Parks and Urban Forestry. Riverview Drive would be the north and then Lawrence Drive, the one on the edge there. There was a lot of conversation about proximity to the well field, so we did do a map to include. You can see the areas that are planned for potential development. The green is a thousand foot buffer, so neither of those areas come within a thousand foot of the closest well. And if you look at the map on the side here, you can see there's quite a bit of housing development within 1,500 feet from existing wells already. So housing that's been developed closer than either of these sites would be. Riverview Drive. So the concerns for both of these were the same, Riverview Drive and Lawrence. These areas were originally intended to be housing many, many years ago, probably decades ago. You can see where the sewer and water's been stubbed in. Again, we can reduce the cost of the land at least $50,000 right off of the top. For both sites there's a potential to add 20 plus homes. The gentleman who spoke earlier that that could end up meaning 80 units. There are different sizes for lots as you go from single family to fourplex and other stuff. So you wouldn't be able to squeeze like a fourplex on the size of a lot for a single family. And it was also mentioned that types of homes won't know until surveyed. If approved, we'll go back to council with the work session to get recommendations from them on the type of housing. It wouldn't be with the survey. That'll just determine the lots. There's been a lot of conversation and in the emails was conversation about the value. Selling these, we're not looking to make money. The ones we recently did with Habitat, we sold for a thousand each just to cover the cost of transferring those. It'll be up to council what cost may be put on these, but we're not looking to make money. We're looking to impact housing affordability. They'll also, right now, they don't have any tax benefit, so if they are developed on, there would be taxes on the properties. Those taxes aren't going to be largely significant. Some of your emails, it talks about the budget and everything. That, again, is not a major incentive for doing it. It's the housing affordability. Some of the concerns, wildlife, transit access that we would end up building. excuse me, building out the entire area, both reduced housing value and increased property tax. White Pine Treaty, City Attorney Nick had done a presentation to our Waterways and Parks Committee, and that is not applicable for this area. And then we did get a lot of NIMBY type comments, especially at the public hearing. that kind of housing and there are some throughout the emails like why don't you build it somewhere else and there was one that even suggested one of the areas we recently annexed like put affordable housing out on an island away from the city so there was a you know quite a few comments in that um That realm also Riverview Drive there's been concerns about putting affordable housing. I do want to emphasize it will be more affordable housing This is not going to be low-income housing We wouldn't have the ability to subsidize it down to the level where it would be low income these homes as you've heard earlier are probably going to be 300,000 or more um we would hope to get down you know 250 but it's going to depend on the type of homes and everything from that so we'll work on all that later but up on riverview drive here's your assessed value the larger lots are assessed um quite quite higher the big one at the end that lot is 10 acres alone most of these little lots are about 0.2 0.3 acres And along the river you are going to have more value, but you can see from the ones on Riverview Drive south of it those are going to be right in the realm of what we're building the new houses May even be more expensive just to building cost now um lawrence um same concerns um same type of things also you can see where these have been um stubbed in total of 20 for both about 10 on each side um and here's the assessed value you can see on this side this is mostly um like uh I'm not going to think of the ranch houses like your ranch style homes. There are a couple that look more like your newer modern from 2000 up homes. But these are all typically low 200s and down on the assessed value on those. Overall benefits, it does create more affordable options. It utilizes infill lots versus sprawl, creates generational wealth. If we would find a way where the city could build these, we could potentially use them for low-income rental options with our housing authority. It helps encourage innovative ideas that will hopefully help bring costs down more. Provides opportunities for smaller local developers. A lot of those were lost across the country after 2008, so this gives the ability for those smaller, more local ones that just want to build a house here and there, the ability to do so. And the last two, not huge drivers, but it will generate tax revenue and it will eliminate some maintenance costs and that'll mostly help with staff being able to do other work besides work that they're doing here. And I believe that is it, unless you guys have any questions or if we need to go back and talk a little more in depth on anything that may not have been covered between me and Aaron.

Thank you, Chairman.

I have one question, and this came to me after this last meeting was, so these were meant to be developed many, many, many years ago. The question I had was, why didn't they get done? No one knows why.

We haven't found an answer on that. There still has been some development. I believe the last house built there was 2018. So it's not like all development stopped at one point. There's still been houses built. These just haven't been parceled out and sold, but we haven't found any reason why that may have stopped.

Okay. So we would never be having this conversation if whoever was developing that would have finished their job and had money or whatever, we wouldn't be here.

For whatever reason, if it would have continued at that time.

Thank you.

Chair, I'd add, too, on the Riverview Drive, the records show that the utility subs were placed in 96. So those stretches, those houses were all built 96 or newer based on utility stub extensions along that stretch.

Ms. Hufford, for the benefit of the public, Do you, can you share what the rationale Waterways Parks and Urban Forestry gave to vote unanimously to remove the wells from excess land?

Yeah, their primary reason was not wanting to impact the green space and to keep the wellfield safe with the housing that's already built around the wellfields. Concerns about building, you know, potentially 20 more houses. If it was that significant of a concern, we would probably be looking at removing some of the existing houses if it was causing that much risk of pollution and contamination to our wellfields. And the dirt report that was brought up earlier, you guys have heard the soils. Many of our engineers and developers, there's a lot of soil work that goes on on developments, so they will work on that, do engineering reports, and make sure the ground's ready to be built on. It happens on every project, engineer reports and everything, and a lot of dirt work often.

Commissioner Kennedy. The slide you have up, that's showing the distance from the wellheads that we have right now. That's not showing where the aquifer is.

Not showing where they are?

Not showing where the aquifer is.

No, this just shows the wellheads and the buffers from the wellheads.

Okay.

Thank you. Mr. Grisham? Thank you, Chair. I have a couple questions. First of all, I've been over and looked at those parcels, and it doesn't look to me as though there is any maintenance being done on any of them ever. And I was wondering if you could touch a little bit on your benefits list. It said that we could potentially save staff time on maintenance. What sort of stuff is being done there on the regular?

Talking with utilities, they do have a lot of issues, especially in these two areas with things being dumped. So they do have to go out there repeatedly and clean things up like that. Individuals going back in there. There's cleanup and stuff that has to happen. There are stretches along the road. I couldn't tell you if it's 10, 15, 30 feet back that is mowed. I'm not sure how regular, but they're... You can't see it in the map, but when I was out there, I noticed there's a little area that is mowed to keep sight lines and everything open. So there is maintenance that does go on out there. So it could be a tremendous savings. I'm not sure. But where there is savings, it can redirect staff in working on some of the things that we're not able to.

The other. Question if I may, are there, like some of the things that you brought up, those are just like what ifs, there's no definite plan for this once it's declared excess land, because that would still have to go through council.

Right, if council would declare these excess, then we would have another work session with council where we would get your guys' input on what you want to see developed in the area. And then we would also work with the neighborhood. There are some trails that they would like to see remain, different things like that. So we would work with them as we work on this.

One last one. Is there, I know there's a lot of the concern that I've heard is that, you know, once we start gobbling into it, the well area, you know, what's to stop this from continuing? And I think, you know, there's value to that concern. I don't think that we would given, you know, the parameters of the situation. But like, what would be the obstacles to, you know doing some sort of conservation easement or something on the rest of the well field excluding those parcels like before we jumped ahead and did the parcels

We would need to review it to see what can be done with it being our wells, if it would be like a utility easement, conservation, if some other option. So I think we'd need to start with our legal. We could wait to do that. I would recommend surveying it all at once because we do contract that out. I don't know how much of a savings it would be doing it all at once, but I'm sure there would be savings sent them out Instead of doing one little piece and then maybe figuring out, oh, as we do this one, we realize we need this. For me, it would make sense to do it all at once. And if council directs us to put some sort of conservation or something on it, we would move that way regardless if we build or not.

Actually, one more, if that's okay. Okay. It seems to me that this is something that, you know, if we did this and then council approved it, would it be at our next meeting or would it be two meetings from then?

We'll bring it back at your next meeting September 8th.

Okay. So at that point, it's declared excess land and then people can look at bidding on it or requesting information on it, whatever. But we're probably not looking at any construction until next spring at the earliest. Would you say that's probably accurate?

Yeah, we would still have to do the survey, plat, all of that stuff. So there's still quite a few steps that it will take before we get to the selling off or anything with building with the lots.

Thank you. Chair, if I could add on that. Council would have to approve every individual sale and use, so council would have full discretion on every project that comes forward looking to buy individual lots. So there would be lots of other decisions by council to be made.

Ms. Hufford, waterways and parks, urban forestry had the benefit of hearing this presentation, correct, by you?

Yes. It was a little more detailed, being they hadn't heard it before.

They heard it. Okay.

Thank you.

I thought it was all platted with laterals in already.

The laterals are there. The lots are not platted out. So if you look at the one up top, that blue line, we just put that in. The blue line on the one to the left, that has been platted to that degree, just not broke out in lots. So we still have a lot more work to do to make the individual. Thank you. Yeah.

I have one more question because I noticed the pattern and all the public comments. Were these blue circles always considered part of the well fields or were they considered something different by the city of Eau Claire?

I couldn't speak to the history. I don't know if this whole area, even the houses that were built up in the corner there were considered well fields. At one time, the one over here, it was already plotted out to be built on, so I would guess it wasn't considered part of the wellfields, but it is abutted to it. So I honestly couldn't answer that.

I have one question. One of the concerns has been the trails and the use of the property for quiet recreation. Would there be a consideration, and I'm not sure if there are any trails per se that go through either of these two parcels, but would there be consideration for easements or something of that sort if there was a trail that or an access to the walking areas or biking areas that people have expressed that they do back there?

Yeah, we will work with the neighborhoods on access back there. You can see where one's been made up at the top there right before the curb. You see that line going back? That might be the access road. But if you go out there, you can see little trails where people put in. We might not be able to do every one, but we'll definitely look at access points here.

I call those volunteer trails. Yep. So is that an actual, do you know if that's an actual access road used by the city or is that just

That one I'm not 100% sure, but they do have some access roads back through there and everything.

Yeah, it does look like it may go back to the wells.

I'd say the one that's in there, that is the well maintenance access road. So that stays in the parking that's associated with stays. That is city utility use.

Is that gated?

Yes.

Yes.

OK.

We've got a no over here and two yeses over here. It was the other day when I was out there. I'm going to take the two yeses.

Last week when I was out there, it has a gate that says no access. Can you get around the gate? Yeah, it's not like it's fenced on down. It's just the gate block and the drive to try to keep vehicles from back there.

And I was hoping it was zoomed in, but if you do zoom in, you could probably...

see some of the trails if you would zoom in on the map, but that's not close enough to show it.

I would add on this one, this is a great shot. That little strip of land on the south of the blue highlighted area, that is also owned by the city. It's about 10 feet wide, 15 feet wide. It's unbuildable, unusable, can't even serve as a road access. It's a perfect built-in lot easement for trail access to be maintained, because that little strip is city parcel and it can't be used for anything else.

The one right below the blue box.

Right. Gotcha. Right on the very bottom. Right at the T intersection.

Yep.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? Seeing none.

Before I go, I would add one more thing. We do have a bunch of little lots where we might be able to get one, maybe two units. This is one of the few where we're going to be able to put numerous units up to probably about 20. Once we lay out the lots, we'll know better. But most of ours are going to be just one or two here and there. So I just wanted to share that with you guys.

So moved.

Second. Okay.

Yeah, I'm... I think in the long run, putting housing on these is not a bad idea. I think that given that there's nobody raring to go on it and we have a lot of neighborhood concern, I don't think it's a terrible idea to take a lot of that neighborhood concern into account when working on our order of operations in terms of potentially preserving the field. having a plan and maybe that's done simultaneously with the excess land declaration or whatever but I think I'd rather be slower and more deliberate with this and reduce consternation from neighbors than just sort of going full speed ahead. So I guess once I'm done talking, I'm gonna move to separate this off of the Park Ridge parcel. Yeah, I guess the term is reserve my right to act procedurally.

Yeah, you guys can do each of them individually. And Park Ridge, you had already approved at a previous meeting when Aaron had presented.

But my recollection is that it's still gone back to Parks and Waterways and Forestry because it was adjacent to a park. Is that correct?

Because it was across the road. The actual ordinance is they have to abut to go to Parks and Waterways unless you all request it.

Yeah.

So reserving my right to act procedurally, I would like to divide the question so that the Lawrence and East Riverview parcels will be discussed and voted on separately from the Park Ridge parcel. Is that your motion? That is my motion. I need a second.

I'll second that.

Mr. Boston seconded it.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Are you okay with that?

I want to say that's a different motion.

Okay, I'll second it. All right.

Commissioner Wolf.

I'm gonna make the next few minutes of parliamentary procedure really hard on you, Mel.

Enjoy the challenge, that's okay.

Can I just make a comment? Yes, you can. I just very much respect the vote from Waterways Parks Urban Forestry after having heard everything that we heard tonight and they vote unanimously to remove this parcel. That speaks loudly to me, so I'll be supporting Commissioner Brewster's motion.

I do. Yes. So if we table this or do whatever and go this way, what happens in five years? I mean, when we're looking for land to develop again and now the houses are $150,000 more. I mean, is this the wells or is this the housing development? And I think that's the question that everyone wants to answer. But I feel like we've already, the city already wanted this to be development many years ago and it just fizzled out. If this was adjacent to an industrial park, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I know we wouldn't be, everyone would be okay with developing it. I understand it's green space. I live in this airport neighborhood. I'm not someone who has no idea what this is. I use this property. My children use this property. And I mean, if a neighborhood association wants to purchase it, why can't they, right? Everyone has the right to purchase it if the city wants to remove it. And I think we're... It's just there's a lot of people who don't want to see a house built next to their house. They think that someone is going to take over that whole well field. If the city develops that whole well field, we have an issue, and that's a lot bigger than this planning commission is because this is where we get our water. And the 20 houses here or 20 houses across a quarter of a mile, I think it's the issue is there's enough people saying, not in my backyard. and it's in my backyard and I approve it. We're just sitting here trying to stop growth and economic growth and the city screams affordable housing all the time. Here's a position and some people know some people and feel bad for them, so here's where we're at. I mean, like I said, if those were Airport or something else we won't be having this conversation. So it's There's no conversation of of taking over the well fields These were lots that have already been there and I think we're gonna keep if we keep talking about this. I Mean we're we're putting the current I just it's it's frustrating to see We in one hand we want to do some great but in our hand we don't want to do it So we just stop And just because there's trees behind it. So that's all I have to say on this topic. And we'll go from there.

I'm looking at this map with these circles around the wells, 500 feet and 1,000 feet. The 1,000-foot circle isn't something the city came up with. I suspect it came from the DNR as a recommended buffer for safety. Am I correct on that?

I did them just to put some distances on there. There are various different, like we have a Wellhead Protection Act. The state does.

Do you know how big the Wellhead Protection Area is from a well?

From the well, off the top of my head, no. But I could pull you a map to show that.

Because my suspicion is that these lots are all outside of that wellhead protection area. And that wellhead protection area is based upon the DNR well protection people and review of soils and everything about the wells and the well field and the safety of the wells. So the development of these lots isn't going to have an effect on well safety for us.

Right. With both the state and city ordinance, residential does not have a specific distance. They're more worried about industrial, commercial, stuff like that that would be more apt to contaminate it. So they support residential in these types of areas within certain distance of the landfill.

So I think most of the people saying no, this is a bunch of . And I see these as residential development areas that were set up to be developed a number of years ago and it just kind of fizzled out because of after the 2008 recession and a lot of construction stopped and they just never got built on. And I think it's an opportunity for the city to then get this development then going again and provide some low-cost lots for some development, which would help get some affordable housing, which is a big city issue for us. So, yeah, that's my two cents worth.

Chair Brewster.

Thank you, Chair. This isn't an attempt to just bury this and keep it from being worked on. I do think that doing development on those spaces makes a lot of sense in terms of roads that already exist, you know, sewers that already exist, areas that are already in the zone of one of our fire stations. I mean, it's infill, for all the reasons that, in general, infill is good. And I just think that there are things that we can do to provide What's the word I'm looking for? To just provide peace of mind, I guess, to the neighbors. You know, perhaps some of the spots could be, or some of the lots could be sold at market rate, and we use that for, you know, remediation of buckthorn or actually improving the nature area inside the wells. There's lots more things. I understand that the first step is the excess land declaration, but I think I would like to see some sort of conservation thing put on that either at the same time or preferably first. whether or not or or at least like in the same meeting you know kind of thing so um i would like to separate these so we can um you know get the pine ridge uh parcel on the city's list of for sale parcels and get that work done you know as as we As was discussed earlier, the likelihood that anything would happen on this this year anyway is fairly low, so it's not like a rush to get it done in February so somebody can start building in April kind of thing. We have a little bit of time. I do understand that the steps take time to do, but I think we have enough time to do this in a way that respects the input of our city commissions and neighbors, while at the same time allowing us to do infill. So that's why I wanna separate it.

Wasn't Pine Ridge already done at our last meeting? Isn't that what Billy's talked about? I guess I don't want to get confused here.

I'd comment. Park Ridge was approved by plan commission, so it doesn't need to go to a vote again. Plan commission did make the approval on that. Council sent it back, but the plan commission does not need to vote on it a second time. It was already approved in the last meeting. It went to Waterways and Parks, and then council will be able to then weigh in on it at their next meeting.

But either way, if we want to do a different thing with the wells, parcels, and hydro, we need to separate it.

No, you don't need to take any action on Park Ridge. That's all ready to go to council. Lawrence and Riverview are the only two that this body hasn't weighed in on. So these are the only two that you need to take action on as far as a recommendation.

And you can't separate those.

I thought, look. Maybe my recollection is incorrect. I thought there was a third parcel that we approved, and these two we sent back to Parks and Water. That is my recollection.

There were four parcels total. Vine was approved by you guys and council. Park Ridge was approved by you guys. Council wanted it to go back to waterways and parks. And then you guys sent these two back to waterways and parks.

OK. All right.

That was my guess.

My guess might be it's in .

Well in that case I withdraw my motion to separate as it's not necessary and I would instead. Yes.

And I would not want to

like vote no on this, because my understanding is if we vote no on something, it can't be brought up for a year, so I would move that we table this.

Sorry, do you have a motion?

No. I withdrew that motion. Like I said, there's .

Well, you withdrew the motion for your.

I withdrew the motion to separate.

Yes.

And I instead put in a motion to table

And I seconded your first motion.

Yes.

The first motion was sat down, so the table is now, so we need a second.

Yes. We need a second for the table.

Just to clarify, you're talking about postponement, not a tabling. Tabling is simply moving something to the end of an existing agenda. So you would be talking about postponing. However, this is a recommendation body. You've taken separate action, and this is a body that can't postpone something indefinitely. That is counsel's decision to make. So it's either recommendation for against from this body, and then counsel will make final decision from there.

OK. When, which council meeting would this go to?

The next available would be Monday, the September 8th. Okay.

So, we have a new motion.

No, we don't. I withdraw that.

Yes.

Yes, and I do plan to vote no, and I just wanted to say that.

I have just one quick question that's very quick.

LDO for development, they're still going to have to follow the tree ordinance, correct? Correct. So they're not getting rid of every single tree in that and clear-cutting that property?

Correct. They would still be held to the tree. They would still be held to the mitigation policy.

Well, whoever develops it. So that is something to think. Anything else?

Can we just clarify what a yes and no vote means one more time? Sorry. Okay.

A yes vote would be you recommend declaring these two parcels excess land. A no vote would mean you do not recommend it.

Are we all set? Okay. I will call the roll. I will start with Commissioner Holston. Aye. Commissioner Gettinger.

No.

Commissioner Brewster.

No.

Aye.

No.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. 63.

63?

Yep.

Thank you.

Okay, now we have item 10, recommendation of city council site plan, SB 2609, approve the site plan for project located on northwest corner of Skyfront over in International Drive.

Okay, the final... The final agenda item here for you tonight is a site plan that's forced to come back to Planning Commission because the General Development Plan specifies that. Otherwise, it would be approved by staff. This is kind of a higher end type of contractor type shop envisioned by the property owner. It's in the corner of Sky Park Boulevard and Continental Drive, International Drive. This is the layout of the property. It meets all the LDO standards. The look of the property, again, kind of a higher end look for contractors to have their office space and a shop space as well that's climate controlled. Floor plan shows how you can get some vehicles in there for their different pickup trucks or cargo vans and other storage for materials for the job. Pretty basic conditions here, just additional requirements that are needed as plans are developed with the lighting plans. They do have a little bit different exterior cladding requirements for that particular business park. So to add some masonry to the front and the applicant will do that, just speaking with them. And they have confirmed that the civil engineer site plan is actually the correct plan rather than the architects that showed a gravel driveway. They don't intend to do that. And just to make that sidewalk connection to the street from the front door and signs follow the code. And then also for our new landscaping letter of credit to ensure survivability once those materials are planted. Any questions of staff?

Access will be off of International or off of Sky Park? Sky Park. Okay, gotcha. I saw that little brown. Yeah, that is not meant to be. Okay, whatever. Wherever it is. Okay, that answers my question.

I don't know where it went. It disappeared. There's a ghost in there.

So moved. I'll second. Chair, chair.

I just want to say that I always do the moving really fast because otherwise people just stare and look at each other. It's not that I actually agree with everything, but it's worth just getting it off the table to the point of discussion. So yeah, anyway, that's why I do that.

I have one question quick and more for clerical because I was confused at the beginning of the staff report is the project name correct it says only Americas on our report

Ooh, that would be an error from the last agenda. So I apologize for that.

Because it has everything else as this, but it says only this.

Is that on the agenda?

Yeah, it's on our paperwork we received. So that's why I was just confused. I just had it out. Yeah, that's an error. Okay. Thank you.

We can still proceed. And, okay, anything else? Okay. Do we have a motion? Yes, sir. So let's go with Commissioner Yedder.

Yes. Commissioner Brewster.

Aye. Commissioner Reid.

Aye. Commissioner Holt. Aye.

Commissioner Zarek.

Aye.

Commissioner Vos. Aye. Commissioner Levin.

Aye.

Commissioner Holt. Aye. Commissioner Woods. Aye. And our last item on the agenda is future agenda items and comments.

Yeah, just quickly, we have that special plan commission meeting. We did query you and we had a quorum for that. So that will just be one item, a final plat for that Linden Hills that you saw earlier. And that should be a relatively quick meeting. That's actually on a consent agenda usually. So pretty quick meeting coming up on the 14th. And then the comprehensive plan kickoff meeting. You're invited to the community kickoff. That will be with our consultants in town. During the day before and during the, so Monday the 21st and the 22nd, we're gonna be doing a lot of stakeholder meetings with the neighborhoods, the environmental groups, business leaders, so on and so forth, builders, developers. So that will be going on during the day. We've asked all the boards, committees, and commissions to send their chair. You have two representatives that will be, you're already on the committee, Josh and Aaron, but we've asked them as liaisons to go to this meeting. Oh, I'm sorry. Aaron's on it from council. It's getting late. Yeah. So we'll have our committee meeting on that Monday, and then that evening we'll have the other boards, committees and chairs of whether it's the Housing Opportunities Commission and so on, go to this, learn more about the process, then bring in homework assignment back to their committees. We think this is an efficient way, tell their members to look at the existing plan, the policies and goals and things, get information back to us in November. and then we'll be able to fold that into our assessment process. So that's the game plan for including them at this earlier stage of the process. Any questions about the community kickoff?

Just that meeting is spelled wrong. Meeting is spelled wrong? On the sign.

Oh, I see. Yes, yes.

So the special plan commission meeting was the within the plan.

We don't know how to spell.

anything else that's it so we have completed our agenda and this meeting is adjourned