Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call this meeting to order. This is City of Elko Planning Commission regular meeting agenda. It's 530. It's Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. The agenda for this meeting of the Elko City Planning Commission has been properly posted for this date and time in accordance with NRS requirements. I'll start with the roll call. Carlos Nunes.

Michael Ivers. Stephen Beck. Eric Camps.

Mercedes Mendiz. And I'm Jeff Dowling, your chairman. Looks like John Lemmich will be absent tonight. Will you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and thanks for joining me in my favorite part of the night Comments by the general public. Pursuant to NRS 241, this time is devoted to comments by the public, if any, and discussion of those comments. No action may be taken upon a matter raised under this item on the agenda until the matter itself has been specifically included on a successive agenda and identified as an item for possible action. As a reminder, action will not be taken. Would anybody like to come up to the podium? Okay, seeing none, let's move right ahead. Approval of minutes, April 7, 2026, regular meeting for possible action.

I'd recommend that we approve the minutes as they stand.

Okay, do we have a second? Second. Take a vote. Aye aye aye aye aye aye aye motion carries. New business a public hearing 1 review consideration of possible action on variance number 1 dash 26 filed by Paul. Owner of cowboy Joe roasting company on behalf of the Pamela Caldwell family trust. To allow for a variance from Elko city code 3 dash 2 dash 1 7 B 3 D. to allow a parking lot to be arranged or designed to necessitate backing a vehicle into a public street within a light industrial zoning district and matters related thereto. For possible action, the subject property is located on the east corner of the intersection of River Street and South 12th Street, 1246 River Street, APN 001630010. The proposed use of the property will be a drive-through coffee shop. Okay, do any commissioners need to sit this item out? Presentation by the applicant.

She is not on right now.

Well, if you're going to, you got to come to the mic so they can record it.

Okay.

Any public comment on this item or questions? Okay. There will be another time for public comment on this item, just to let everybody know. Moving right along, city staff, planning, Ms. Laughlin?

Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, thank you for this tonight. I do want to go over a couple of key points in my staff memo. Staff is unfortunately recommending denial on this, and it's kind of important for us to go through some key elements on how staff got to that determination to recommend denial. And there will be also some comments from engineering as Sarah had quite a few comments as well. So looking at this property, it is zoned light industrial. It is surrounded by light industrial and industrial commercial surrounding it. There are multiple buildings on the property and The structure here in the front is what is being proposed to be a drive-through coffee shop, which is a principal permitted use within the Light Industrial Zoning District. That building has sat vacant for over 10 years, and as you know, in our city code, any property that has sat vacant for over one year or has had a change in its use or occupancy group, then it is required to be brought up to current code. So we've been working with the applicant on a variety of those issues. I don't see a lot in the go-to.

Where is this 12th and River?

CHRISTIE WOODARD- 12th and River. 12th and River. So let me just keep going through my staff report, and then we'll see if we can get Lana connected here. So the property has sat vacant. It has lost its legal non-conforming status, and therefore it has to be brought up to current code. It is at the intersection of 12th and River. And being a drive-through coffee location, we do anticipate a significant increase in traffic into that area as well as that intersection. The master plan land use does call out the area to be industrial general. It does meet objective number four, seven, and eight of our master plan. and therefore we do believe that the variance is in conformance with the land use component of our master plan. Transportation, the proposed variance is not in conformance with the transportation component, and we'll talk about a few of those things as it does conflict with some of the goals and objectives of the master plan in that. The property is not located within redevelopment areas, so that consideration in that plan was not required. Under the Light Industrial Zoning District, we do have a minimum lot area, lot width, side yard setback, building height. It does meet all of the requirements there. The properties here in the back, as you can see, there's an existing mobile home and existing sheds. Those are still occupied. Those have never been not occupied, so therefore those still remain legal non-conforming within the Light Industrial Zoning District. The variance is asking for a section of our code from the traffic access, parking, and loading regulations. And that section of our code reads that points of access, driveways, and parking spaces except for single-family dwelling residences or two-family dwellings, those driveways and parking spaces, the location and design shall include a paved turning area that allows vehicles to turn around and travel into a public street. They do not allow back-end movement into the public street in commercial properties and industrial properties. The only time that that is allowed is in the residential single family or two double family, two family dwelling units. So looking at, we have quite a few different comments under the development department and public works department, as well as the engineering department. that all relate to that. And it really talks about the distance to the intersection. 12th Street is a minor arterial roadway. is a high arterial roadway classification and those classifications are based on traffic counts. So we do anticipate that there will be a lot of traffic taking a right-hand turn or a left-hand turn from 12th Street to come into River Street to attend or frequent this coffee shop. And therefore, these paved parking spaces that would have back out movement are not in conformance with our code. We also have concern about the sidewalk here that is being installed. You can see where it says proposed five foot sidewalk. That is behind all of these proposed parking spaces, which means that all of these cars would also be backing out over the sidewalk to access River Street. The application does state that it is for employees only, that they will have pickup opportunity to pick up a coffee, but the business is not going to be for a dine-in, nor is it going to be for, at this time, outdoor dining or anything of that nature. It's just going to be a drive-through, or you can walk in and pick up your coffee. That is the proposed use today. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't be allowed in the future to do dining. They can do indoor dining. They can do outdoor dining. Um, they have a 1 acre parcel. They could do a lot with that parcel. So that was another concern of of staff was currently right now. He, it states in the requirement that he would be required the 4. parking spaces, one for each employee on the largest shift. And he's providing five parking spaces plus one handicap van accessible. So we are providing excess parking spaces more than what just employees are. And that would be for if somebody wanted to walk up and pick up their coffee. The one thing that our city code requires with a variance is keep in mind there's six sections to that variance and they have to meet all six. If they don't meet one, they don't meet the other, then the variance cannot be approved. So they have to meet all six items in our code. And the one of those six that staff was struggling to see that they were meeting was the hardship because there there is a very large parcel it's an anchor in size there is a currently there is a dirt road that comes around and and accesses these buildings in the back. There is a power line here between this power pole here. There's a transformer or something of that nature where this square is and there's a power pole here. But that is their service power line. It's not a a main transmission line. It's their service to their property. And staff does believe we have measured out between pole to pole that even under that power line, there could be enough room to put the four required parking spaces plus handicap access aisle plus have a drive coming in where this existing drive is that would come in and access those parking stalls if they were directional this way. That way, the handicap access aisle could be adjacent to the sidewalk here. They would then, if there was somebody in a van, accessible van, exit the van, have the access aisle hit the sidewalk and come straight up, the accessible route would be on public sidewalk, going directly to the front door. So after we measured that, we looked at those options, plus there's a lot of room throughout the property, right? It does get costly the further you go back into the property, because what our code requires for stormwater pollution and such is that it has to be a paved driveway to the parking spaces that are required to also be paved. That being either asphalt or concrete or some type of hard surface. So the application goes through the requirements, the special circumstances, extraordinary situation, and practical difficulties. It goes through Does this create a prejudice to other properties in the vicinity that have to provide their parking on their property and not allow backup movement? Does it substantially impair the effect of natural resources? No, it does not. Does it affect the change of land use or the zoning classification? No, it doesn't change the zoning classification. The zoning is line industrial. But the intent or the purpose of the zoning ordinance under the parking regulations is really for public safety. And we are concerned with that back-end movement. That's why it's in the code that it's not allowed in the commercial and industrial. So we do have 11 findings listed in our staff report, and staff does recommend that this item be denied based on those findings. The key point being that pedestrian and vehicular safety would be a concern, and the hardship has not been proven.

Okay, thanks, Kathy. Moving right along. Development?

I do see Lana online, so if you'd like to go back to the applicant. Or you can go through all of staff and then go back to the applicant.

Yeah. We'll go through engineering, Michigan.

Good evening. So yeah, as Kathy mentioned, we looked into this one a bit deeper with it being adjacent to the 12th and River Street intersection. And the way the engineering goes about this is looking at a functional area of the intersection. So there's some guidelines from the Federal Highway Administration Looking at not only the physical intersection area, but the upstream and downstream functional area so that that section is essentially calculated based off of your street types and speed limits so looking at that it gives a functional area up downstream on River Street a hundred feet if we look at a 25 mile an hour speed zone on 12th, and 175 feet if we look at a 35 mile an hour speed limit on 12th. It's right at the kind of where it changes. I believe it is 25 there, but looked at both and kind of.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN, Isn't it a dead end right there?

CHRIS JERRAMSEN, No, it really doesn't.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN, Yeah, if you hold that picture for, so I requested one.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN, It comes right here to.

CHRIS JERRAMSEN, Right, but it doesn't.

So this is really looking at a movement coming from vehicles from 12th Street onto River Street or crossing 12th Street on River Street.

Well, I have a question. My 3D visual part of my brain isn't working, but show me where the people are going to be backing up. I mean, why do you have to back up?

Well, it already has existing 45-degree parking if you zoom in right there. That's been there for as long as I was a kid.

Let me pull up this plan. So here's one stall. Here's a second stall. Here's the handicapped stall with the access aisle, and then three more parking.

Can you go to the other picture, the real one?

Yeah.

But my question, I guess what I think

Zoom in a little bit if you could. Okay. Perfect.

It lasted. It worked all those years and now it's new standards. Is that what we're Sarah? Is that what you're saying? Is it's the new standards? It doesn't work. Is it because it's going to be a busier joint?

I don't know if there are new standards from when this was approved, but I do know that a lot of the concern with staff is that it would be a busier, and with its change of use, I believe is the correct term.

So, Kathy, you got the pointer on a car. Sorry to interrupt, but now is that the problem? You don't want that car to back up?

This is on street parking right here that has been in the past, right? The, with the change of use and the loss of everything that it was grandfathered in for, the requirement is, is the required parking for this use has to be on its property, right? We have a proposal right now that we are supporting a vacation of 10 feet of the right of way. So this property line will move 10 feet into River Street, which is half of a parking stall. right? A parking stall is 20 feet deep. So the parking stall, even if this property line moves to this 10 foot where the front of this car is, the parking stall is still onto their property, right? And if you look back at this plan that I just closed out, the sidewalk is right here. This white area right here is the proposed sidewalk, right? This is this This hatched area is the area that we are proposing to vacate to the property owner, which is excess right-of-way of River Street. So this is what is vacated. That, if you look back at this, is this area right here. It's between the property line and where it's located. been developed as the street, right? So he would be required to put in this curb guttering stock and the parking. And the parking has to be on his property in order to comply with our parking requirement that it can't be on street as it was previously. It has to be on his property. Bye.