Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right.

631, November 18th. This is a meeting of the Englewood Planning and Zoning Commission. I hear an echo. No?

All right.

We'll get that worked out. Calling us to order. Can we please do a roll call?

All right. Ms. Austin?

Here.

Mr. Adams is absent. Ms. Hupka? Here. Mr. Montiel?

Here.

Mr. Ruttle?

Here.

Thank you. Mr. Kaplan?

Here.

Mr. Martinez? Present. Mr. Renson?

Here.

Mr. Haggerty?

Here.

Ms. Asario? Here. Forum is present.

Thank you, Nancy. First item on the agenda is approval of minutes from the October 21st, 2025 meeting. I hope everybody got a chance to review that very long minute. that were attached there. Can I get a motion to approve?

I'll move to approve.

Second. I'm sorry, I didn't catch the second.

Amy.

Amy. Amy.

Okay, thank you.

I'm used to having you down here as well.

I knew it was further away.

All right. Ms. Austin?

Yes.

Ms. Hupka?

Yes.

Mr. Montiel?

Aye.

Mr. Ruttle?

Aye.

Mr. Kaplan? Aye.

Mr. Martinez?

Aye.

Mr. Renson?

Yes.

And Mr. Haggerty?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you, everybody.

Do we have anybody signed up for the public forum? We do not.

I'm sorry. We do not have anyone online.

Great.

Moving right on to the study session.

I'll hand it over to staff. I will. There we go.

All right. So this is, we're bringing back the non-residential, non-conforming uses in residential zone districts, also known as non-conforming uses. So just to kind of a recap of where this has gone so far. So in the summer, we had three neighborhood night meetings, as well as we attended the Inglewood Block Party to get public input on this. We also met one-on-one with the property and business owners affected about this, as well as a study session here in July, and then a city council study session in August, and then a historic preservation study session in September. SO JUST A REFRESHER FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS IT FOR WHAT THESE ARE. SO THESE ARE PROPERTIES THAT HAVE COMMERCIAL BUSINESSES ON THEM THAT ARE LOCATED IN RESIDENTIAL ZONE DISTRICTS. SO THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN, THEIR USES ON THEIR PROPERTY HAVE NOW BECOME PROHIBITED. SO THIS COULD EITHER HAPPEN THROUGH REZONINGS, IT COULD HAPPEN THROUGH ANNEXATIONS, CHANGES TO THE CODE, THINGS OF THAT NATURE. BUT ESSENTIALLY IT BOILS DOWN TO IT WASN'T SOMETHING THAT WAS A CAUSE OF THE PROPERTY OWNER THAT COST IT. JUST REMEMBERING KIND OF WHERE THESE ARE LOCATED AND HOW MANY. SO THERE ARE CURRENTLY 14 SHOWN ON THIS LIST. THE TWO HIGHLIGHTED IN RED. ONE WAS PART OF A PUD THAT WAS RECENTLY APPROVED AND THEN THE OTHER ONE is intended to go to residential. So at the time of this passing, there'll be realistically 12 of these. So what we want to kind of talk about tonight is a couple of portions that we need a little input on for when we bring you back the revised code. SO THE FIRST ONE IS REGARDING THE ALLOWED USES ON THE PROPERTY AND HOW TO STRUCTURE THAT. ADDITIONALLY ON THAT ONE, YOU KNOW, ARE THERE ANY SORT OF LIMITATIONS WHERE YOU WANT TO SEE THESE USES COME THROUGH A SPECIAL EXCEPTION PROCESS OR INVOLVES A HEARING? ALSO WE'LL TALK ABOUT LIMITED EXPANSIONS OF THE STRUCTURES AS WELL AS SITE IMPROVEMENTS. AND THEN AS WELL AS LARGER EXPANSIONS THAT MIGHT GO THROUGH THAT SAME SPECIAL EXCEPTION PROCESS.

ALL RIGHT.

SO THE FIRST PART IS THE LAND USE CONSIDERATIONS. SO THERE ARE REALLY KIND OF TWO WAYS THAT WE SEE THAT WOULD BE BENEFICIAL TO WRITE THIS. SO THE FIRST ONE WOULD BE TYING IT TO A ZONE DISTRICT. WE KIND OF TALKED ABOUT THIS AT THE EARLIER STUDY SESSION ABOUT DOING THE MUR 3A. which is a very restrictive zone district that basically allows for some limited offices, and that's about it. Through the public outreach as well as input from this group as well as council, we heard a lot of interest in retail opportunities, restaurants, grocery stores, things kind of in that corner store nature. So taking a re-look at those zone districts, the one that kind of fits the most with those is kind of the MUB one district. So this district is also the one that has the most emphasis on pedestrian oriented uses. So that would be a thought is, you know, tied to the MUB one and then restrict out anything that could, you know, be a nuisance in a neighborhood. So just kind of use that as the base and then, you know, limit it from there. The other option, if you didn't want to go that route, would be to do a shortlist. So this would be a very specific list that says these exact uses are permitted. Kind of the benefit of doing the MUB1 is it kind of adapts with the code. So if there are other uses that down the line, become allowed, and then you'd be one, it's automatically allowed in these. That can also be the drawback, too, is that you have to think about these individual properties. The thing with the shortlist is it's very rigid and locked into those unless you come back and change this piece of code. So just kind of either of those options, the allowed uses can be the exact same. It's just kind of the way it's formatted in the code. So as far as allowed uses, most of the ones on this list are really those retail, grocery stores, restaurants, brew pubs, and then those office spaces. Things that would be prohibited, we kind of took these as things that some of these things are allowed in the MBP-1. But the majority of that prohibited use list are the things that we heard from home occupations as being things that wanted to be prohibited for home occupations. And since these are also in residential districts, that's kind of a jumping off point for these. As far as the MUB 1, these are other land uses that are allowed in the MUB 1, where if you wanted to go that route, or if you want to do the short list, we'd want some input on some of these are on there because you know, like in entertainment and recreation indoor allows for things like yoga studios and dance studios, but it also allows for hookah lounges. So are that something where, you know, if we allowed for indoor entertainment, maybe we want to, know do a little more refining in the prohibited list um same thing with like animal care and sales this is already a non-conforming uh business currently on one of these properties so is that one we want to look at allowing or putting on that prohibited use list um so that's kind of it for these land use considerations um i kind of want to save going through the uses themselves until the end because i think that'll be a kind of a longer discussion but does anyone have any input on these two options at this point?

My initial input, I think it's been problematic in previous uses of short lists that things evolve and change over time, and we're stuck with something that was very much written in a time and place that might not be applicable in the future. So I really like and would advocate for the MUB1 use list. Any other thoughts? NEW SPEAKER. NEW SPEAKER. NEW SPEAKER. NEW SPEAKER.

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Yeah, I would just say it's not so much a difficulty of, you know, rewriting it. It's the same level of difficulty as changing the use table. It's just that, you know, when it's tied to the MUB1, you're talking about a much larger area. So you're kind of considering all of that. Whereas on this list, you kind of have to, you know, something specific has to be an issue to these properties for that to probably come back up to take a relook at that list. Same thing that kind of, you know, of how it got to where it kind of is today, you know, until an issue came up with one of these properties that, you know, really kind of pushed the subject as far as, you know, getting it in the light to kind of talk about kind of the same issue with that.

I have questions.

Okay, go ahead, Colin.

Yeah, I guess just kind of confirming how it actually worked with it. be then zoned as MUB1, or would it just be a non-conforming use within the existing zoning with these allowed uses?

Yeah, so it would be something to the effect of non-conforming uses are allowed to change to another non-conforming use that's allowed within the MUB1 district, except for whichever ones you don't want.

Okay. Um, so it would still stay in the zoning. So it could theoretically at some point, like one of these other ones go back to a residential zoning if they didn't have the continued use of the other rules that they have. Okay. And then the second for brew pubs, um, can that, does that allow for actual brewing then on site?

It does. It's just a very limited number of barrels.

Okay.

So whenever you think of like the breweries where they have like a restaurant as kind of a primary focus of it, and then there's a brewery attached to it, that's more of the brew pub.

Yeah, question. Now, do we have to do, what is it, 12 properties?

There are 12 of them.

Does it have to be all 12 in your bill? Can we exclude, here's my point, is I think it would be easier to do MUB1 in nearly every place that is located along a main thoroughfare. I mean, most all of them. But there's three, two that are really residential houses that really don't have a rich history of doing any business there. Really, I didn't find any business licensing on record. I didn't see any yellow pages. And of course, the Fox Street warehouse is more in line with our new comp plan that's not out yet for housing. So I would say we'd have to use the short list if we keep those properties that are very inside the neighborhood. The other ones are along Bellevue or right there on Hampton. That makes sense. But something so inside the neighborhood, I would either want, if you want to do MUB 1, it would exclude the Logan Street, the Fox Street, and the... What was the third one it used to those South Washington, the the workshop and storage, I just think that that would be problematic. And it would make our job easier. Because then yeah, we're not deciding Oh, well, this place would be good for medical office, but this other place wouldn't we have to somewhat be fair. So anyway, can we do something like that?

Since there's only 12 of these, I'd, I'd recommend doing the same for all 12 of them so if if it's if it's a lack of comfort for doing the mub1 on you know three of them i'd probably choose the other i'd choose the other shortlist option um you know i would say keep them all on the same because this is already a very very specific to a you know a small group of properties so breaking them out into even smaller groups probably wouldn't be the route i would recommend The other thing, you know, that we talked about, and I mentioned it on a previous slide, but is doing, you know, when you change to a specific, you know, use or, you know, maybe it's based on the size of the structure coming through that special exception process. So I don't know if that would quell any of those nerves as far as, you know, you're you know like the large warehouse you know probably goes through a special exception if they want to open up into a restaurant just because the size of it right but if you're one of these smaller properties and you wanted to do that that you know wouldn't be an issue Again, so either one, we can do the exact same way of regulating it. It's just the way this is going to be formatted in the code. So we can have the same uses allowed on either one. It's just the formatting.

And on MU1B1, we're just going to do, if we change to MUB1, is it just that property? It's not like the whole side of the block?

Correct. Just that property. And again, this is not a rezoning, right? This is just where

We're just referencing that use list.

The use list associated with MUB1, they're still all going to be zoned R. It's just what's allowed.

And we're only talking about these 12 specific properties. Correct.

I don't think the chicken coop is there. Is it anymore at 4,800?

Yeah, the house is there. I walk by it every day, but I don't ever hear chickens.

Are there chickens there or not?

So the list of the 14 that are there are the ones that are still currently registered as legal nonconforming uses. So for a while, that was us sending out a letter to them and saying, are you still doing this thing? And then they sent a letter back that says, yes. That stopped a couple years back, but all of these were registered at one point or another as legal non-conforming uses.

Just a quick question. Do you think that having these allowing all this to continue and go into the district, are we setting any precedent that would be not a good thing to do about the uses or no? Because this is specific to these properties.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we'll kind of Kind of spoiling the lead as far as the last portion of this, but as far as nonconformities in general, there's kind of a perception around nonconformities that eventually they go away, right? Either through the property getting better value by being conforming or by limiting expansions and use types, things of that nature. So this is kind of... It's not necessarily... like allowing other uses for nonconformities is kind of a unique, a unique thing where it allows, you know, these business owners that have invested a lot of money into their properties, the opportunity to do, you know, more things on their property and be more marketable.

Okay. And we don't know what's in the future. Anyway, there could be all sorts of other things that happen down the road. So thank you.

And I think the most optimistic view is that these things would, um, morph into things that are really community serving, really desired in the neighborhood. Um, I'd take a wine bar on my block.

Anybody else?

OK. Well, we'll keep going, and then we can circle back once we've all had a chance to digest. All right, so we talked about the uses. So the next one is expansions and site improvements. Through hearing, it seems like there is room for expansions on some of these. So our thought would be to do a limited expansion. So what we thought was 500 square feet and less than 10% in height. The reason for these is 500 square feet is generally about the amount of space you need if you wanted to include a bathroom on a property. So we need about 500 square feet to do that. So if they were converting to a use where they needed to include a bathroom, they could kind of do that as a use by right. Same thing with the 10% for height. If there's ever roof work that needs to be done that changes the roof pitch, things like that, that would be allowed as a use by right, but you wouldn't be able to add a story to the building as a use by right. So that's kind of the thought on those two numbers. If there's any input on where that line is drawn, we can always talk about it. the same thing with site improvements so these are the things that are not an expansion to the structure but they are improvements on the property so you know things like an outdoor deck or seating area under 500 square feet you know that could be considered for this use by right but also you know pushing it further away from those residential neighbors Same thing with walk-up and pass-through windows, and really things that kind of engage the pedestrians when they interact with the business.

And then same thing with bicycle parking facilities.

Then getting into the special exception process, these would be for those larger expansions. So if someone wanted to do a bigger expansion to the property, that's over 500 square feet or over 10% height, they would come to a hearing with this group. Also, additionally, if there was any sort of subdivision of the building or if you wanted to do a multi-tenant space, things like that, those would also go through that special exception process. And then those larger site improvements that don't meet that use by right.

ALL RIGHT.

SO JUST KIND OF THE ORDER OF OPERATIONS FOR THESE SPECIAL EXCEPTIONS OR HOW WE KIND OF SAW IT WORKING WOULD BE THAT PLANNING ZONING COMMISSION WOULD BE THE DECIDER ON WHETHER TO GRANT THESE SPECIAL EXCEPTIONS. BEFORE THEY CAME TO PLANNING ZONING COMMISSION THEY WOULD DO A NEIGHBORHOOD MEETING WHERE THEY WOULD THERE WOULD BE A POSTING ON THE PROPERTY AS WELL AS A MAILER TO PROPERTIES OF THE 200 FEET. And then from there, you know, staff would review it and then it would come to Planning and Zoning Commission. So with that, the Planning and Zoning Commission would take input from staff. There would be a criteria for, you know, did they adequately address the concerns from neighbors? And then also an opportunity for Planning and Zoning Commission to put any additional conditions on an approval. So as far as the special exception process, this would sort of allow those larger expansions on the property. AS WELL AS THE ABILITY TO ADD CONDITIONS FOR THESE APPROVALS. THINGS IT WOULD NOT ALLOW WOULD BE ANY USE THAT'S CURRENTLY PROHIBITED. THOSE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BE CONSIDERED FOR THIS SPECIAL EXCEPTION. IT WOULDN'T ALLOW ANY SORT OF RESIDENTIAL ADDITIONS TO THE PROPERTY. SO EVEN THOUGH IT'S IN AN R1, YOU COULDN'T ADD THAT SINGLE FAMILY UNIT TO THE PROPERTY. IT WOULDN'T ALLOW FOR STRUCTURES CLOSER TO NEIGHBORING RESIDENTIAL. And then no height increases above what's allowed by the base zone district.

All right. Any comments on that one before I move on?

It looks like this says what the special exception process does not allow is new non-residential buildings. It doesn't say new residential. Is that correct? Is this correct or is what you said correct?

Yeah, so no new residential.

Okay, so with the non is the typo.

Too many double negatives.

That would preclude like a live workspace, multi-use.

Yeah, and this one, you know, we kind of brought it up at multiple of these study sessions, and that one seemed to, you know, have more concerns to it than a lot of the other uses. So that's why we included as prohibited on this. You know, if that's something you all want to discuss, we can edit that. But that's why it ended up where it was. We had that one come up from one of the property owners. They were interested in adding a residential unit, kind of what you're talking about.

Not necessarily live work where they're connected to each other, but, you know, an apartment above a retail space, something like that, yeah. I mean, to me, that's a desirable outcome of these types of small businesses and supporting neighborhood character. I wouldn't want to necessarily preclude, especially because it's in a special exception process. I mean, it has to be reviewed by neighbors. People get public input and this body. I wouldn't automatically want to rule out additional residential spaces, especially, you know, we're talking about adding ADUs and missing middle type housing typology, like Why would we exclude it in these areas? Or on these properties?

Yeah, I'd be more concerned that they're going to level it for a circle K, you know. So I don't have a problem with that. But then again, when we look at the option one and option two, option one, the MU, is an administrative review to begin with. And the other one, option two, they would come to planning and zoning regardless, right? I mean, the expansion part is the only reason planning and zoning would even talk to them at this point.

So we could, I mean, if it was something where it's very easy to write.

I

I agree with what Aaron said as far as I think that's too restrictive to just say it's not allowed through the special exception process. And sorry, can you go back to the does allow, does not allow? Yeah. So the next bullet there, I had a question about that one as well. So this would not allow structures closer to residential uses than they already are even if there is room to do so without having an issue with the sort of minimum setbacks or other requirements. I think that, again, given that this is already the special exception process, to me feels overly restrictive. It's kind of like a luck of the draw on where your existing property is on the lot, whether or not you would then be allowed to expand or not. And so I feel like maybe moving closer to residential uses is one of the things that triggers the special exception process. But I don't think it should automatically be not allowed, because otherwise some of these properties may be completely excluded from being able to use this process at all.

OK. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I agree.

Folks could still come back for a variance or something, though, couldn't they, even if it was excluded? Or no?

I would think that this would keep them from applying for a variance, but I don't. I mean, maybe.

This seems like a dead end here.

Yeah, I mean, this may have to say you could get closer than you already are so long as you're not violating the setbacks of the district. You're allowed to get to five feet. That's as close as you can get. And if you're already at five feet, I'm sorry. you're going to have to find a different direction to go. But if you're at 7 feet, maybe you could get the extra 2. Or if you're at 10 feet, you could get to 5. And then that would... The last thing that we want to do is require these folks to go through multiple sets of public hearings. So that may be a question we could talk to our city attorney's office. Likely, yeah, it would require variance if they're getting within the setbacks. But again, we're looking at kind of... rewriting these 12 lots with some really special exception that they can do some things that a lot of other folks wouldn't be able to only for the simple fact that they're the only 12 13 13 14 but two of them are kind of gone that still managed to exist out of a time prior to zoning 80 years ago so they're kind of these lucky folks that

just made it long enough and now we're gonna kind of work on making it a little bit easier yeah a quick question on the the 10 percent um is that 10 above whatever the current zoning is or just saying 10 of the existing height existing height of the building so if it's 20 feet they could go two feet

Yeah, and like I mentioned, it's not necessarily to allow you to add a floor to the structure or things like that. It just comes up sometimes where you have to redo a roof and it ends up needing an extra couple inches or two for something. So it really is to kind of cover those bases where routine maintenance isn't bogged down by this.

Would they be allowed to, if the zoning that they're in Allowed for a higher, like another floor or anything like that? Would they be allowed to do that?

Yeah, so that would go through the special exception. Okay.

So it's basically, if you want to go beyond the 10%, you have to go through more of a process versus essentially an administrative approval.

Right, yeah. So, yeah, and kind of the thought was right. If you're doing a real expansion to your structure where you're you are planning on adding a story or adding things like that to your property, you probably need to go through that special exception because that could have a big impact on neighboring properties. But if you're doing a minor improvement to the roof or things like that, that probably isn't as big of a deal.

What the hard part for us was setting thresholds of what do we think someone could be able to do administratively and not really disturb everyone around them. that's a lot of what we listen to in public comment from listening to neighbors is we really like this but there's got to be a line somewhere where we get involved and so a lot of what will is done is kind of set those lines of you know you can do this small expansion the bathroom thing came out so that if somebody wanted to convert to like a restaurant that may require more restroom space because you have more occupants inside we don't want them to have to eat up that interior space just to get there So we get 500 square feet. I know that's more than you need for bathrooms, but maybe hallways, things like that. So he tried to be really cognizant of like really, he was really thoughtful in writing these rules and working on these rules to think like if we're administering them, what are the hangups going to be? What can somebody do really easily? And then what would cross that line? line and say the public needs to be involved at least everybody surrounding this individual that's going to be the most impacted and so that's where a lot of these like what requires that special exception are ones that we feel like okay if you do this yeah we need to include the neighbors and this if you do this and once we get the drafts out you'll really see where those lines are drawn right now we're just trying to figure out what kind of draft you want to see we've got two different ways we can do things on a lot of these and so we're trying to sort through that What do you all?

I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into what separates the administrative approval by the special exceptions. It seems like everything here is pushing things to be what we would want in our community and not a circle K or something like that. It's focused on pedestrian-friendly, bike-friendly, while also allowing these property owners to do some things that I think the neighborhoods would really like. So I really appreciate how you set that up. If this all seems efficient to administer, and I'm very much in support of that, I think And correct me if I'm wrong, if anybody else has any thoughts, I think really what we just go back to is option one or option two of MU B1 or a short list of uses to approve. Does anybody have any other thoughts about that? I do.

I need to say something. I wish Victoria was here tonight, because I'd like you guys to take something back to legal, something that I've thought about. And it's grocery stores, which sound really neat. And see, you're more of an optimist. You're like, it's going to be a wine bar. Everybody, I'm the cynic who says, who plans for the worst thing that's going to happen. So I don't know if not allowing beer, wine, and tobacco sales is tenable. And the reason I say that is because ever since Colorado allowed grocery stores to sell beer and wine and liquor, judges have been more likely to hear cases about people, small businesses, who've been denied. And the special thing about Englewood is that we already have beer, wine, and tobacco sales within two blocks of a grade school. And we already have those things right up next to residential areas. So Englewood might find themselves in litigation if somebody bought, say, the ice cream store because they thought that they could have a full-use grocery store and then found out, no, you can only sell fruit and bread. and they can sue for i think it's it's a fair use law well there's dr victoria about it but angle would may not be able to sustain that we may lose so you need to consider that um i think we would lose because there's some keep in mind that we're setting a precedent here has anybody else in the state done this you said spokane was your example we've done this a lot in colorado So I'm just, I'm not trying to rain on the parade, but I'm being realistic. And that's why I'm very covetous. I have a lot of covetousness about those three properties. Because I worry that we would lose control about what happens to some of this based on if somebody were to, or at the very least, we might have to tie up our legal people trying to fight this. So food for thought, I would rather do MU But if it were not for those three properties.

I really appreciate what you've been doing here, too, because, oh, well, I just went through a bylaws process with an organization. It's the same sort of thing. What you're doing is trying to build a structure around something that will make it go forward and be useful. And I also think you're to be commended because I think you're just trying to build in enough flexibility. So if you need to go from a flat roof to a slightly pitched roof, it'll be fine. You can do that without. TRIGGERING ALL SORTS OF THINGS AND THAT SORT OF THING. SO I'M MORE ON THE OPTIMIST SIDE, BUT I APPRECIATE YOUR COMMENTS. BECAUSE I HAVEN'T REALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THINGS LIKE THAT. BUT I'M COMFORTABLE WITH WHAT WE HAVE HERE.

NEW SPEAKER All right. I DO HAVE ONE MORE PART BEFORE WE CIRCLE BACK THAT WE DID WANT TO TALK ABOUT. SO THIS IS KIND OF THE OVERARCHING WAY THESE REGULATIONS CAN BE WRITTEN. So one is to have an existing commercial structure regulations. This is kind of more similar to like what Spokane did, which would be a new section of code that these properties would fit into. So, you know, like I mentioned before, with nonconformities, there's kind of this air around them that eventually they go away. You know, but a lot of times these properties end up as kind of cornerstones of their neighborhoods that kind of have an identity to them. So putting them in an existing commercial structures would kind of take away that non-conformity status to them, which would allow things like, you know, if the building burns down, they could rebuild it. Things of that nature that kind of become a little more grounded and a little easier for when they go for, you know, all their financing and things like that. The other option would be to keep it as the nonconforming use regulations. Again, for either one of these, we can write the regulations pretty much the same. It's just more about formatting. This one has a little bit of a perception to it, too. But as far as the nonconforming use regulations, we could have all the same things in there. If the group was not comfortable going with option one, we would recommend including some portions in that section about the structure burning down, those kinds of things where maybe there's an option for them to apply for permits or a special exception to rebuild within a certain threshold of time. But anyone have any comments on either of those options?

I mean, it seems like a new section in code for 12 properties is kind of a lot. Yeah, I mean, I guess I just need to understand a little bit more of the pros and cons of each, but go ahead and question Brenda.

Well, I'll just tell you this. The reason we're doing this is because you all told me that you were getting a lot of calls from real estate agents that you didn't like. And why else? Because, see, what are we bringing to the people here? Are we bringing them more safety? Are we bringing them a lot of revenue. I'm afraid that we're doing this to make the planning department, their job easier. And there really isn't a good reason to do this at all in my mind. I'm sorry. Wine bars and grocery stores are nice until they're not ice cream stores anymore. They are a circle K because a big corporation comes by, Sue's Englewood, and now we've got sales that we didn't expect to have. I'm really not for either one of these options. I don't think we should do this. I'm sorry. Unless you can just do the nine properties. You take those three off and I would be great. But I just don't think we need a medical office on Fox Street. We really need to encourage that man to sell that property. And I don't think we need to reward him by you know, making it easier to do nothing with the property that he's done for 30 years. I just haven't convinced me that this is necessary. That's what I should say.

Well, I can assure you that we're not doing this to make our jobs easier. This is actually, this request has come from council members to take a look at this because the business owners and property owners of these locations aren't able to really invest in their property. So they've started asking Hey, can you all change the code to update this?

So we were asked to look at two properties, though, the ice cream store and the place on that's for sale right now. It's not all 12.

Right. But we can't pick two out of 12. We have to look at everybody that's affected. We can't just pick and choose winners and losers and say these two and those two. We have to look at all nonconforming properties, which is why we bring them all to you.

I have a question about. It's kind of off of this, but I just want to make sure. If any of these were designated historical, would it change or affect anything that?

If they went through a historic designation process, it would change how they would be able to do any kind of exterior work or expand, because they would have to go through the Historic Preservation Commission first. But none of them are designated, though almost all of them just by age are already eligible. I don't know if they meet all the other factors, but most of these are some of our older buildings.

I think I'm pretty much where Aaron said around To me, option two just seems cleaner. And I agree with the sort of specific changes. I certainly wouldn't want a situation where somebody is unable to rebuild and continue their business if that was what they wanted to do after a disaster. SO I WOULD SAY GO WITH THE OPTION THAT'S THE SMALLEST LIFT, AND IF THAT'S JUST MAKING SOME TWEAKS IN THE EXISTING NONCONFORMING REGULATIONS, THEN I'D BE COMFORTABLE WITH THAT.

NEW SPEAKER WHAT DOES STAFF SEE AS THE BENEFIT TO OPTION 1?

NEW SPEAKER I THINK THE MAIN BENEFIT, I THINK, FOR OPTION 1, AND BRIAN, FEEL FREE TO JUMP IN IF I MISS ANYTHING, BUT I THINK THE BENEFIT OF THIS ONE IS THAT like I said, nonconformities do carry a connotation with them of temporariness. So allowing them the reassurance that they're this existing commercial structure. And then you can also have more pinpointed regulations in there, like this is what lighting is for these existing structures, and this is what this is. And we can do that too if we keep it on this nonconforming status. It just gets a little more wonky. You know, but either way, like I said, at the end of the day, the regulations can be the same. It's just, you know, do we want to call them existing commercial structures and they're in this other kind of category or we want to kind of treat in the same way that we treat, you know, quadplexes and single family districts that have a legal nonconforming status.

And some of these are very much the form of a single family home, right? That then we would be designating a commercial structure.

I'd say they're kind of like 50-50 split between ones that seemed like they were built as a residential structure that just happened to be commercial now, and then the other half where they were clearly built with a commercial intent.

The other pro for option one is looking far out in the future, because that's what we do, is saying if this were to go well and anybody ever decided that they wanted to look at commercial buildings on other corners like red rather it have it be like a new allowed use option one is set up to where we could just carry that over we already have the regulations in place we know what they do if we do it in the non-conformity section then we're gonna have to just redo this whole life if so if it chooses to move forward in a different route later on ten years but oh that's the other reason And to be completely honest, we've kind of given rough drafts of both sections, so writing it is not really the issue. On our end, we've tried to work through different scenarios ourselves to try to figure out better solutions, but we're kind of hung up in saying, well, here's our two stalemates, where do we go? And let's talk to TNZ about which direction.

My take was, just reading through it, my gut reaction was the existing non-conforming use read EASIER TO ME. I DON'T REALLY HAVE A GREAT JUSTIFICATION FOR ONE OR THE OTHER. I THINK BRENDA'S COMMENTS ARE VERY SENSIBLE ABOUT IT'S GOOD UNTIL IT'S NOT. SO I THINK THAT'S VALID. I LIVE CLOSE TO God Save the Cream. I'm glad it's an ice cream store and not a defunct grocery store that was never open. But what that shows to me is the lack of permanence of any of these things. You can't guarantee what's going to be there. Would it be great if God Save the Cream served ice cream outside and had a patio to sit on? Yeah, because I live four blocks away. But if I live right next to them, I don't know if I'd be psyched about that. I think it's easy to make decisions for people that YOU KNOW, IF NONE OF US LIVE NEXT TO THOSE BUSINESSES, IT'S A LITTLE EASIER TO BE LIKE, OH, WE CAN JUST LET THEM EXPAND. ALL THESE BUSINESSES MOVED INTO THESE PROPERTIES AT THEIR OWN RISK, RIGHT? I SAID THIS WHEN WE HAD THE DEVELOPER TRYING TO CHANGE, YOU KNOW, RESIDENTIAL ZONING INTO CONSTRUCTION STORAGE. HE DIDN'T HAVE TO BUY THAT PROPERTY AND WE BENT OVER AND LET THEM DO WHAT THEY WANT. SO RATHER THAN LETTING THE LAWS OF YOU KNOW, BUSINESS DICTATE WHETHER OR NOT THIS GUY SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT THAT PROPERTY, WE GAVE HIM THE KEYS TO EXPAND HIS BUSINESS. HE'S NEVER GOING TO GIVE THAT UP UNTIL IT'S, YOU KNOW, WE'RE ALL DEAD PROBABLY, RIGHT? SO I'M NOT SUPER PSYCHED ABOUT MAKING IT TOO EASY FOR COMMERCIAL BUSINESSES TO COME IN AS THEY ROLL OVER. I THINK THERE'S JUST SOME RISK THERE. THE OTHER THING I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT WAS THE LAND USE CONSIDERATIONS. SO WITH MUB 1, There's a handful of things that are allowed in MUB1s, and please correct me if I'm wrong, because I may misread it. But there's certain things that, if it's in an MUB1, sure, I'm not trying to change that. But I think there's, let's see, there was animal care. I don't think I would love to live next to, like, a dog kennel if it decided to replace God Save the Cream, and suddenly there's, you know, barking dogs in there, and then they expand 10 feet closer. YOU COULD REALLY WRECK SOMEBODY'S LIFESTYLE AND PROPERTY VALUE THAT LIVES WITHIN A FEW BLOCKS. I HAVE ENOUGH BARKING DOGS NEAR MY HOUSE ALREADY THAT ARE NOT WELL TRAINED. SO I THINK THERE'S RISK OF CERTAIN THIS IS KIND OF WHERE I GO BACK TO THAT LIST OF TIGHTEN IT UP AND MAKE SURE THAT YOU CAN'T HAVE YOU KNOW, YOU CAN ALWAYS ADD TO IT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO IT. BUT IF YOU LEAVE IT TOO OPEN ENDED OR LEAVE IT TIED TO MEV ONE, IT FEELS LIKE IT COULD BE FINE UNTIL IT'S NOT. YOU KNOW, ADDITIONALLY, YOU KNOW, I'M I'm all for people to have, you know, small bakeries, art studios, whatever. But if you live next to someone who's, like, you know, producing metal crafts and they're using a grinder for four hours a day, you're going to want to jump off a bridge. It's going to drive you insane. So, like, you can't just, like, I think it's too broad of a blanket when it's an ice cream store today and it's, you know, an auto shop tomorrow or, you know, whatever.

So I just think there's some risk in being too broad stroke with this.

Thank you.

Before we come back to these land uses, is there any, so it sounds like maybe we're kind of leaning towards the non-conforming regulations.

Quick question on the non-conforming. Is there any issue, I know you said there's kind of a stigma, but is there actually an issue for getting a loan if you're in a non-conforming use?

The biggest part that's always a concern that we hear, not from just these, but any sort of legal non-conforming use, so also those residential ones, is what happens if the building burns down. So things that are outside their control that could dramatically change the property value overnight. I think if we're comfortable adding in something that allows them to apply for a special exception or a building permit to rebuild If something was to happen, I think that would go a long way for fixing a lot of that.

But I think he means like when you go to get a mortgage, sometimes a non-conforming basement is a problem. But does NCUs, will they fight that battle of difficulty getting a mortgage, right? Is that kind of what you were asking? Yeah. Yeah, we're not talking about fire and all that.

Right, but that is the concern of the people that are giving out these loans is what happens if the structure burns down and then suddenly the property value is quartered overnight.

They do a zoning letter. The banks rely on existing use being non-conforming but allowed. It's back to Will's point of if something dramatic happens.

So the physical non-conforming isn't necessarily the issue. The label isn't the issue. It's the other kind of consequences associated. And if we can address those, then it helps.

So Brian's comments actually changed my mind, at least, on kind of the pros and cons here of options one and two. I think... I think it would address some of these concerns about a corner retail establishment could become a 7-Eleven if you actually did have sort of a comprehensive set of regulations that applied specifically to these commercial structures and residential areas. I support eventually liberalizing the availability of this kind of neighborhood serving retail. And I think if we can sort of do the work of deciding where we think the lines are that we support and don't support, both from a land use perspective, but then also just kind of the facade regulations and the height and all the things that we're talking about as well, then I think it puts us in a good place to to have drawn those lines for these properties and then say, and in the future, if there are other businesses that are going to fit within that same model, we're OK with more of that. So I think we can kind of address some of those concerns about what happens when it changes into a different kind of business. AND ALSO POTENTIALLY LEAVE OPEN THE OPTION FOR MORE OF THEM IN THE FUTURE IF THAT IS WHAT, YOU KNOW, KIND OF NEIGHBORHOODS AND, YOU KNOW, PEOPLE IN ANGLE WOULD WANT TO SEE. SO I THINK THERE'S A BENEFIT IN THAT WAY TO OPTION 1.

SO, YEAH, BRIAN'S COMMENTS CHANGED MY MIND THERE.

NEW SPEAKER HAD ONE MORE QUICK QUESTION ON THE ACTUAL IF WE went to the list of allowed uses. So I just realized one of these is a dog kennel. And I think when we had said dog kennels, probably not one we would want to allow everywhere. Would that mean that this location would no longer be able to have the dog kennel or because, yeah.

Yeah. It would be the same legal non-conforming use that it is currently today. Because it's just, if they ever converted to, you know, They converted to a grocery store. They wouldn't be able to convert back to animal care.

I KNOW I COMMENTED THIS BEFORE, BUT TO TAKE MY OPINION OUT OF IT, CAN YOU GUYS SHARE SOME OF YOUR THOUGHTS ON HOW YOU ENVISION THE IDEA OF THE EXPANSION, YOU KNOW, THE 500 SQUARE FEET, YOU'VE DONE SOME LEG WORK TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS THAT REASONABLE THRESHOLD WITH THE OUTDOOR OR OTHER EXPANSIONS, YOU KNOW, PATIOS, ET CETERA. Again, if it's an ice cream shop, maybe no big deal. But again, maybe you're a quiet neighbor and even that constant chatter is bothersome. So how do you guys come up with that idea? Where do you see the sort of gray areas of risk with communities that are nearby these places if things like that are allowed to happen? And I think it's mainly from a perspective of if you're in a quote unquote nice, quiet residential neighborhood that has a commercial business, but it's not outdoor with 20 or 30 people chatting. They're not doing anything bad, but you maybe didn't sign up to live right next to that. And I don't want to be a nimbyist in that regard, but what's your thought process there? Help us understand why you don't think that would become an issue.

Yeah, I mean, and I appreciate the concern. That's kind of why we kept these to these more limited expansions. You know, a lot of the things are kind of meant to be that more pedestrian approach. oriented. And so that's why it's kind of like, yeah, like seating outside those kind of things. But yeah, I mean, as far as the way we kind of saw it is, you know, with a lot of these, so like the outdoor seating, you know, you really want to, we want to kind of get it to where it kind of pushes these businesses to put those closer towards the street and away from those neighbors' houses and things like that. You know, also things, you know, like lighting and noise. you know, there's definitely some sort of, you know, there's like the nuisance cases and things where we can set a number where, you know, not over this lumens of, you know, light pollution or this level of noise. I mean, there is always, yeah, the concern of, you know, people sitting outside and being loud. But, you know, we could try to regulate some of that as best we can.

And some of the square footages, especially for outdoor spaces, come from You know, if you were to allow patio seating along a sidewalk, you know, we generally have 35- to 50-foot lots. We're trying to think of just this number that can encompass all that. But that's also something we can easily say, okay, this all requires this special exception because that's going to be something that may, you know, cause an issue with the neighbors or there would be concerns. Part of the outdoor seating areas where they want to say that they require – screening that would require a six-foot fence or a landscape screening. We can build the regulations however we need to to ensure that we've thought about trying to mitigate as many of these negative factors as we can. I know I'm a planner. We do this all the time. We're not going to catch everything. We can try as best we can. Somebody's going to come up with something somewhere down the line that's going to say, oof, we didn't think of that. You know, some of this allows for some of that flexibility. Some of it just says, no, we'll have to go back and revisit these regs for that. But no, we're trying to think of things that might, and if you all feel like the outdoor areas require the special exception, we're more than happy to change that and say, okay, well, this would require it. Or if you set a threshold on, you know, a 2,500 square foot or a larger like restaurant or, group of our food service industry that would require a special exception more than happy to do that more not tied to any of these we just try to set some what we felt were more common sense thresholds just based on our zoning is already written.

I just I just wanted to support your comments I think that especially like, like you said, the outdoor seating and things like that, or dog or something like dog runs and things like that. I think that, yeah, you sign up for a single family residence or neighborhood for the most part, and you don't want to have, you know, all of a sudden become commercial.

So I support that.

Is this considered spot zoning?

none of this would change the zone district so it would just be you know different allowances for these non-conforming properties it wouldn't be changing any zone districts it wouldn't be considered fair in an arbitrary treatment of one property over another well there's 12 of these but also no i mean there's an existing condition on these properties we're just changing the flexibility for those

even though the existing condition is kind of questionable, i.e. once sold a chicken at Logan.

Sure. I mean, like I said, you know, Back whenever Code Next went through, there was similar allowances that were given to residential nonconforming uses. So if you have a fourplex in a single family zone district neighborhood, you can expand up to the same square footage that a single family house would be able to go to, whereas that wasn't allowed before. A lot of this is kind of that similar nature where you're allowing for expansions Just in a limited nature.

Is it like an overlay network then? Is this an overlay? No.

Sorry?

Not a zoning overlay.

No, the zoning doesn't change.

No.

I really appreciate the focus here on the form of these buildings and the context of the neighborhoods in which they sit rather than trying to micromanage this use or that use. I mean, you've got to do some of that. I think what we want are uses and buildings that fit into the existing fabric of the neighborhood. And I think that's, for me, that's the most important and would love to see some great uses come out of that. But yeah, we don't want to circle, okay, we don't want to drive through, right? We'll take a walk up, but not a drive, you know, that kind of thing.

I just want to make a comment about the 4100 South Logan where it says keeping chickens. So that property is on a corner. It was a 100-foot lot that was subdivided. They built a single-family home with an ADU on it. So I believe that's 4110 South Logan now. And at 4100, which is still on the corner, where they were keeping chickens was a vacant lot. THAT CHICKEN COOP AND EVERYTHING WAS TORN DOWN WHEN THEY BUILT THE NEW HOME. SO THAT KEEPING CHICKENS HAS NOT BEEN THERE FOR AT LEAST FOUR YEARS.

NEW SPEAKER IS THERE ANY

If you look at the picture that we have here at 4100, you will be able to see the roof of the new building there.

You sure you're not talking about the black room next door?

Yes. It's part of that lot.

Okay, that's there. Okay, yeah.

The chicken coop was on the interior lot of that property. Okay.

Do we have, I mean, so there's also nuisance laws and things like that. So, you know, for noises and things like that, there's no restriction on times for things being open in commercial areas or anything like that?

I mean, you know, as far as either of these, we could always add those types of restraints to it.

I'm curious.

LET'S SAY THAT THIS GOES INTO EFFECT MORE OR LESS AS WRITTEN, YOU CAN DO A 490 SQUARE FOOT ADDITION WITH NO OVER OVERSIGHT. YOU GUYS WIN THE LOTTERY, YOU BOTH RETIRE, TURNOVER IN THE CITY STAFF AND THEN A FEW YEARS LATER THE SAME OWNER DECIDES I'M GOING TO ADD ANOTHER 490 SQUARE FOOT ADDITION BECAUSE EVERYONE FORGOT THAT THEY ALREADY DID THAT. IS THERE ANY WAY TO PREVENT PEOPLE FROM JUST DOING THIS WATERFALL OF GRADUALLY growing and growing and growing. Obviously, eventually they run out of land use or coverage. I know this is devil's advocate question, but just curious.

Yeah, I mean, there's probably ways we could add, you know, I will say there's kind of a similar question that comes up a lot with, and again, going back to the residential non-conforming uses where if you have a, if you're encroaching into a setback, you're allowed to expand that encroachment up to 50%. So if you're, you know, if you know 21 of your feet of your property is encroaching into the setback you're going to go 10 more feet um and then you know could 10 years down the road you come back and do 15 feet you could i mean at some point though it kind of becomes uh you know like the you know the want to do that probably isn't as much as much there you know you might at that point just want to apply for a special exception and do your entire construction project all in one phase.

Sure. I guess a similar version would be owner one adds 500 square feet. They run their business for a few years, sell it. Owner two moves in, doesn't even know about the old expansion, and now wants to expand 500 square feet, and then so on and so forth. I mean, maybe this is a non-problem, but it feels like it could sort of trickle if the goal is to sort of have these limitations on size.

Yeah. I mean, if it would make it simpler, we could always add a time threshold in there for those 500-square-foot expansions where it's no more than one of these in a five- or ten-year period or something like that to kind of put a limitation on it.

And the great thing about our permit tracking system is all we do is, when the permit comes in, it's tied to an address. And we click on that address, and it shows us every permit that's ever come in. And it goes back to historical records that we have to go dig through paperwork to find. So we have the information. If that were to occur, if you set it at just you get one, and then you're done, and then everything else is a special exception, then it would be on a staff to make sure, OK, this one's been done. And we could set up some kind of tracking matrix that I highly doubt that all 12 of these would come in and everybody would want to change. Some have already said they might. Others have said, eh, we're good. We don't necessarily want to do anything different than what we are right now. But we like the options that this would give us down the road if our business were to leave.

Excuse me, Chair. I just wanted to remind you that Stephen's online if you wanted to check in.

Stephen. That's all right. I've been listening. I second everything you guys are talking about. Well, good.

Thanks, Stephen. Does anybody have any further questions about the topics at hand? And then I would like to get to where you kind of bottom line for us. Ask us what input you want from us.

I just have one last question on adding on 500 square feet, 500. So on all of these properties, are you saying that they could potentially fill the entire area?

There would still be, you know, setbacks and things like that to kind of restrict them. So the same thing that would be for any other property in these zone districts. You know, we kind of heard there was some about the, we had that kind of in the special exceptions where you can't expand closer to the residential structure, but, you know, we'll revise that to maybe where that's part of a special exception process. So where, you know, if the property currently is 15 feet away from a residential structure, um property line maybe they could go up to five but through a special exception so only up to the setbacks but they could cover more land than what would be allowable as a single family residence the lock coverage ratio would still be the r1 Yeah, I can't remember if we...

I don't know that we included them, but we could point back to, you know, whatever the coverage allowance is for the district that you're in, that's where you're kept.

The height requirements, the setbacks, like I assume, all of those things, bulk plane would still be R1 because still that's the underlying zoning.

there are a lot of these properties sorry my internet's down on my laptop i can't search um yeah i there are a lot of these properties that exceed right a lot coverage allowances already so we'd probably want to set a number that gives them the opportunity maybe to do it once and then you're done and then there would be no chance to get bigger um unless you know they were to seek the variance route which really hard because then you're asking one group if you can vary it and then the next group could just say no

um so these are older buildings too yeah but we can always look at that if that's what makes y'all comfortable um we can we can add that in to ensure that they don't get bigger than a certain percentage of the lot all right other questions no i think that is another point in favor of thinking about a more comprehensive set of regulations right because i think My thought is that across all of these properties, you could potentially have a lot coverage bulk plane setback regulation that is not MUB 1 and also is not R1, but kind of finds the balance for these properties. And I think, to me, that approach, deciding for these commercial properties in residential areas, what do we think the right setbacks and lot coverage requirements should be, would make more sense than you can expand once and then you're done, which again, it's very dependent on how big you're. So if you're already 20% over what the underlying zoning would allow, you can expand once and then you're done. If you're under and then when you expand, you hit that lot coverage, then you can't expand again, which To me, that just doesn't make sense. I think we should decide what the right answers are and have a code that applies to these properties.

And just to be clear for everybody, that was in reference to the two options regarding regulations, existing commercial or non-conforming use regulations. Yeah, well, if you wouldn't mind, let's maybe go back through sort of the options presented that you

Um, so the first that we were hoping to get input on is which of these, uh, do we want to do an MUB one list where then we prohibit out the things that we don't, don't like that are allowed in the MUB one, or do we want to do a short list where it's, you know, hyper specific to these properties?

And let's maybe do a straw poll real quick about how, how people are feeling on option one or option two on land use consideration. I mean, you can just kind of go down.

Yeah, I like the MUB1 option as opposed to the short list.

Flip your coin, Colin. I'm passing right now because I want to hear what others have to think about it. So, yeah, I'm going to pass now. Sure.

Noah? Yeah, I think I'm in favor of the MUB 1 list, and I think I actually would probably even back off a little on some of the things that were listed as potentially prohibited pulling out. In particular, the thing that comes to mind for me is I wouldn't want to say definitively that if you have retail that you can't. So to the point that Brenda was making earlier, I don't know. If you have a grocery store and you sell some alcohol there or something, I'm OK with that. I wouldn't necessarily want a liquor store on the corner. But I think there should be ways to not just flatly prohibit it. I'd love to be able to walk down the corner and buy a six-pack and go home. That'd be great. So I am not necessarily opposed to just a more holistic retail being allowed.

Yeah, I'm in that same camp as well about maybe some of these uses listed like consignment shops, retail, and sale.

Some of these I think might be overly constrictive. So yeah, same. Brenda.

I had to pick a poison, MUB1.

I thought that the material, though, said that it would be low impact uses. Did we define that in MUB1?

I always say that was my own term for that. Mainly, whenever I said that, it's mainly the uses where things you think of like an industrial district, where there's going to be a lot of noise and potential for nuisances. The goal was to kind of refine the list to have as many of the zero to low nuisance uses and restrict all the ones that are higher nuisance cases or higher potential for nuisances.

For the record, I don't mind a bodega on the corner either, but I don't want this to be a political disaster for this board or anyone on council if they vote for it and then something bad happens. So that's why I said what I said, but I will go with option one if I had to.

And just also, you know, this tonight is just a study session, so we'll come back with the ordinance. So if there are uses after tonight, you come back and you go, you know what, that was a bad one to keep on the list or restrict. We'll have another crack at it during that phase of this. But it's good to know which ones we're all waiting on.

Yeah, we flush it out a little bit more and we see how it feels. Yeah. David. I'm still on option two. I feel like it sort of aligns better with that sort of unique code section for these 12 properties. And like you said, we have time to refine that list. I'm not saying that I wouldn't be OK with some of the land uses that are not currently allowed. But I feel like we could dial it in and make sure everyone's happy with it and still edit it over time without being fully tied to the MEV-1.

Michelle? I would second that. I'm also in favor of option two. I think that this just seems really broad with option one about what could happen, and I'm not really totally comfortable with that at this point. Amy? Amy?

I'm leaning towards option one and I've lived within a block of a liquor store and a wildly or two wildly popular restaurants. And so I feel like I'm ultimate. I mean, I'm very familiar with like with the downside, but there's so many really cool upsides. And if we go to that would have more, I think that it, that it, um, brings part some other issues that we haven't talked about. So if we do go down that road, I'll just make my notes and we can take those issues up then.

Thanks, Amy.

And back to you, Carl.

I don't think my vote actually matters. I think we were at the number one, I think, one out. But I actually, I think, would go with an option two. Also, just because I think the limitations on

putting exactly what we want as opposed to MUB1 and then with restrictions so I think just saying what we want is the way I'd go but it doesn't hurt my feelings and again I think my hesitancy for a short list is just it's what we it seems very subjective it feels very frozen in time and I know they can be edited over time but lots of stuff gets stuck in code and it stays there and that's my aversion Stephen sorry Stephen what are you feeling

Option two. I wanted to ask the gentleman that's giving the talk here, what other cities besides Spokane is good to benchmark on? Because I think it would be good, at least I would like to study a little bit more what else other cities have done on this aspect.

That's the biggest one that we've tailored most of our research after. There are some other cities that have done corner store regulations. We'll have to get that information out to you all.

on who's kind of- Okay, I would appreciate that.

Alrighty. That's some input.

Yeah. It seemed pretty easily split. I got a five, four on that, but I appreciate it. Okay, so do we want to take some time to do a lot of uses now, or would you rather do those after we kind of go- Oh, dig into the allowable or prohibited uses?

Yeah.

Yeah, you want us to do this now? Are you going to go back to council with this and get a do a study group with them first?

Yeah, so our plan was to come back with the ordinance for y'all and then it would go to the public hearing and readings with council.

I mean, if we can keep it short, let's talk a little bit about uses.

Yeah. And I mean, more specifically, if you kind of want to tell us where to put these five. These five? And mainly, these we kind of picked out because they're, like I said, there's kind of some wonkiness to some of these. Like for instance, like entertainment and recreation. I would assume that most of you would be on board for dance and yoga studios being allowed to use, but probably not hookah lounges, maybe. Same thing with animal care. This one, like I said, it was illegal not performing use on a property. Sounds like, you know, as kind of assumed, they probably, these would be prohibited. Does animal care stink from boarding? It's kind of all encompassing of animal-related uses. Same thing with personal services, other. There's some in there that have become more flexible in the last couple of years, like tattoos and body piercings, where is that a use that you wanted to allow on these properties or prohibit? And then those larger breweries, distilleries, wineries. And then you made a good point about the manufacturing. And do you want these potentially noisier uses? But maybe something like a small bakery is something that's fine. That one, to be honest, most of the time for bakeries, we'd consider them food and beverage services. But that's the straight definition from the code. So a little odd on that one.

So on the animal boarding, I think

Yeah, it's important to recognize that whatever we do doesn't change anything for the existing property. It's just could other businesses change to that? Looking at the current table for MUB 1, it does actually talk about boarding separately. So MUB 1 permits Limited animal care, which is under 2,000, I guess that's square feet? OK. With no boarding. And then it permits small, which is 2,000 to 10,000 or limited boarding. But then when you get to general, which is more than 10,000 or boarding, that isn't permitted by right in MUB 1. So I think. you can, if we're tying it to MUB1, then there is a delineation already that includes whether or not boarding is the primary thing. I mean, I take limited boarding to mean like if you had a vet's office, sometimes an animal might stay overnight. But it's not the primary thing that they're doing, right? But yeah, a border like on Quincy, would not be permitted in MUB 1 by right.

So I think that looks pretty good to me. I would be concerned with having a pet training facility next to my house. So I think the concern I had, the reason I'm sort of against the option one we talked about before is there's too many things that are still allowed in MEB 1 that seem like nuisance businesses that you would still have to customize the list if we all agreed on that, which is why I vote for the short list because it seems like there's already so many gray areas of things that are allowed in MEB 1 that probably shouldn't be allowed at these businesses.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm confused about. If we are going to sit here and make a list, then we want option two.

That was what we were asking you guys for. It's really about, there's kind of two parts to the question, right? It's, do you want the list to kind of be fluid with the MEB one? The other part of that too, though, is which one's easier to read a chart where it shows all the uses and it says except for A, B, C, and D? Or is it easier to read a list that has potentially where it says retail, except for this kind of retail, and then restaurant, except for ones with drive-thrus, and then that kind of stuff? So at the end of the day, like I said, the list can be the exact same uses. It's just which one do you feel like is a better format to achieve the goals?

Can you clarify one thing for me? If we allow, whether it's MUB1 or a special list, would these uses, as they're defined, would they preclude the nuisance codes that would apply to R1 districts?

So the way the nonconformity would work is really like, you know, kind of these exceptions to it right like these these pieces to it i mean there we can certainly also add you know portions to it but there is like you know lighting standards and you know noise standards and things like that that you know pertain to those districts that would still be right so the concern of the grinder running all day or dogs barking all day it would the nuisance code would still apply you call in a code violation or you know Yeah, I mean, I will say as far as like animal care, you know, I think for a lot of these things, they have they have to have outdoor spaces, you know, for for the animals. So, you know, if I was going to put that on one of the two lists, I'd probably put it on the prohibited one. But, you know.

certainly if you guys have a... See, this is what makes me crazy about doing all 12, is that along Bellevue, we have those doctor's offices, and that would be fine for animal care, but that wouldn't be fine for some of the other locations. It's very location-specific in these 12. I'm agreeing with MUB1 because we're going to include low-impact and existing noise ordinances instead of trying to come up with every conceivable kind of business that could be there, from mattress company to cell phone sales. I mean, we could go on and on all night. I don't think we're ready to do that yet. Maybe when you come back with more feedback from council and we have more direction on whether or not we're going with option one or two, what do you all think?

I think we are given the direction. I think it comes back to us before it goes to council, I think is what you said, right?

That was the plan, unless you guys would like us to take it back to council for another study session with them. Our plan was to have the ordinance presented to you guys, but we'd rather us do a study session with them as well we can.

I think you should. I'm sorry. I think you should. I don't feel like council has enough information just to say, yeah, do whatever plundering zoning says.

They never do that anyway.

No, but I think it's our responsibility to kind of draft what we think. Yeah.

I don't want to advocate our response. We have, we have, we all have perspectives and experience and expertise that we can apply here that without just taking it back.

Um, I hope we're not agreed.

I hear what you're saying, Brendan. The list could be long, but because the list can always be edited, if it's a list that's tied just to these 12, we can always edit it and add to it if we come up with some reason to do it. But it feels, just tying it to MEB 1, I don't know, still feels a little arbitrary. And it feels like we still need to edit down the MEB 1 list and relying on things like noise ordinances is a bit of a risk, because then you could say, well, you know what? You can open your metal shop, but don't be too noisy. And then it's like, well, am I going to be too noisy? Maybe my neighbors are deaf. Maybe they don't care. Maybe they do care. Maybe someone is really bothered but doesn't understand how to get a hold of the city to complain about it. So I think there's a lot of gray areas of allowing things that obviously shouldn't be there. I think that we could probably mostly objectively agree on that we could spend time on a list There's lists of allowed uses in codes already that we could use as a starting point and probably cover the vast majority of questions.

I wanted to say, I think my recommendation would be tie the list to MUB1 and take the opportunity to look at the MUB1 list and see if there's any changes that we would want to make. Overall. So I'm looking at it right now, and personal service other has a whole bunch of very specific categories in it where we've made a decision about is allowed, is not allowed. But then you made this point about entertainment and recreation indoor. It doesn't have that same delineation, right? So we could... in MUB1 treat hookah lounges different than yoga studios. You know, like under food and beverage service in MUB1, a restaurant that is takeout and delivery only would not be allowed, which is confusing to me why that would be considered, you know, more uh potentially impactful than a restaurant where people eat there yeah i mean i think i think well on that one i would assume that it's it goes back to the walkability goals of it right you don't want a place where people can't come in to the sure but if it's i mean if you know take out like you you know walk up to a place get your food you know um so i don't know i like i i think again the you know, maybe the opportunity here is to kind of think about MUB1, and do we like what we have now, and kind of in the same, or as part of the same process, you know, just decide if there's any changes that need to happen there.

Okay.

Are we allowed to ask for your guys' opinion on these two? Just, is that even acceptable?

Yeah, I mean... Full disclarity, the reason we have two options is because we disagreed on it. So I had recommended the MUB1. Brian had done the shortlist. Like I said, at the end of the day, they can both be the same list of uses. It really comes down to how you read. I feel like I read more of all these except these. Whereas I can see both sides to it. So that's why no strong feelings, really, one way or the other. But yeah.

And obviously, we're on the fence also. Is there an option to edit MUB1 with this process?

I would think we'd do that somewhere on a different window.

Different, okay. And that's fine, just again, kind of confirming what?

We hadn't looked at that. And then the one thing I was going to point out, what Noah was talking about, When we did the revisions of Title 16, part of the process was to shorten our list by saying, okay, we allow these 15 different businesses in the same districts, and they're the same category of indoor recreation. Let's just call it indoor recreation. Instead of making these distinctions between pool hall, billiard hall, I'll just look at them, arcade, small theater, billiard hall, hookah lounge, dancing, yoga studios. If they were all allowed in the same districts, what was the point of making that distinction? Because then if somebody comes in that's different and doesn't fit into one of those categories, we're stuck. And that works really great in those bigger commercial districts. To me, and that's to me, it doesn't translate as well in this perspective, because now we're looking at these 12 lots that are a little bit smaller. They're a lot more nuanced than commercial districts. So to me, that's why I thought shortlist. I SEE BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN. AND THAT'S WHY YOU GUYS HAVE THE REALLY DIFFICULT JOB.

NEW SPEAKER I THINK THE OTHER CONCERN YOU MENTIONED ABOUT EVERYTHING IS ALLOWED EXCEPT FOR THESE IS WHAT ALLOWS SOME CLEVER PERSON TO COME UP WITH SOME WEIRD NICHE BUSINESS. AGAIN, I KNOW WE'RE SPLITTING HAIRS HERE. THAT EXCEPTION IS WHERE THE GRAY AREA CREATES A PROBLEM AND THEN THEY DO HAVE A BUSINESS AND ALL OF A SUDDEN BRENDA IS SUING THE CITY OR SOMETHING. I DON'T KNOW.

ALL RIGHT.

SO IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS ONE MAYBE NEEDS SOME MORE REFINING AND WE'LL MAYBE DO A STUDY SESSION WITH COUNCIL BEFORE WE BRING IT BACK TO YOU ON THIS ONE. SO WE'LL GO AHEAD AND MOVE ON AND WE'LL WE GOT A LOT OF GOOD INPUT AND SO WE'LL KIND OF REFINE IT AND MAKE IT A LITTLE MORE CLEAR WHAT THOSE TWO OPTIONS even kind of look like in the code sections as well. So as far as the expansions, so it sounded like, from what I understood, there should be maybe in the special exception process, we allow for some residential. And then there are also potentially for some sort of lot coverage. For these that's above what's in those residential districts Maybe include some sort of limitation on the number of expansions you can do on that 500 just to kind of clear up that loophole Also heard about some time constraints maybe for the businesses And then also allowing for Them to get closer to residential properties through the special exception miss anything on that section

I think was, did you say the outdoor would also go to special exception? Because I think we kind of went back and forth on that one.

Yeah, would you guys rather us, I mean, we could also, you know, right now, the way this is written is, you know, you got to be at least 10 feet away. We could also look at, you know, pushing that even further, or even making it where, like, it has to be to the side of the building, that kind of thing. Or would you guys rather them all be, or leave it kind of where it's at?

I mean, I would propose keeping it as simple as possible. Again, knowing that these are 12 sites.

So are you saying you would allow the expansion of the 500 square feet without any sort of exemption for outdoor? The normal required setbacks.

Yeah. So anything outside the norm would have to come for the exception, but Yeah, and I like it.

I mean, there's fencing or landscaping, screening. Yeah.

Okay. Did you have noise as a...

So it'll probably fall back into the noise regulations, but we can make sure to have a clear piece of it that says follow the noise regulations for your base district, something like that.

Thank you.

I don't want to open a whole new can of worms, but one thing I didn't notice before was I would actually not include new off-street parking, even under the special exceptions. I would put that under the not available. Because again, the whole point of this is to focus on businesses that serve the neighborhood and are walkable and all that. And I don't think we should be adding parking in neighborhoods.

What about I hear you on that too. And we kind of talked about it as well. And that was kind of why we put in the special exception is to limit it. There is also sometimes though, where you like, you'll have like an alley where like you could do like head in parking on that alley or things like that. Something you'd want to consider or just a straight.

And that goes to special exception, right? Any of those would have to... Yeah, I was advocating to take it out of the special exception process.

One of the things that I'm not totally clear on, and this goes to the outdoor seating too, is when you're talking about sidewalk sales and outdoor seating, you're talking about being in the right-of-way. An alley would be in the right-of-way. But you're talking about if the property has room in the back for that.

So there's already city processes for businesses to... apply for expansions into the right-of-way for outdoor seating and things like that. Our thought is that if you wanted to do those things, those would just get handled through that process rather than this one. So that way you're not going to two different hearings for the same thing.

Yeah, I think I would still, you know, obviously I don't speak for the whole commission, but for myself, I think even your example of alley parking, I would say no, because if I lived next to one of these businesses, I wouldn't want them to put four or five parking spaces on the alley behind the house. It could be employee parking, it could be one stall.

But that parking on the alley off of the side of the house would then not be parking in front of everybody else's house.

There you go.

Sure, that's true. But again, my thought, at least, was that if you don't allow that, then we don't expand the demand for vehicle space in these neighborhoods.

I agree with you in theory. I think it's pretty prohibitive. And it's going to come to a special exception process And that's where we get to weigh in on, does this change fit the neighborhood? Does it serve the neighborhood in the ways we're expecting? So I mean, I'm all for shrinking that list of what we will never allow.

Anybody else on that?

I think the special exception process and the use-by-right stuff is generally pretty good, including the thoughts that we shared.

All right, last piece.

Would you guys, I think I kind of got it on the first round, but if we could just verify which one of these two you guys want.

I don't think I ever spoke up because I was right in the middle of these two. I like the idea of if additional properties were to be included, having an existing framework for that. um as option one being more beneficial to that um but then again we're like coming up with the same thing right it's just the format we're putting it in yeah and it is and so or the nomenclature we're using yeah and i think you know what brian brought up of you know

There are some properties out there that have removed their non-conforming status over the years. If this does really well and some of those properties show interest in going back to a commercial use, option one, it takes less work to edit that through this process to get those allowed. Whereas option two is, very specific to these 12, and there's not really ways to purposefully create nonconformities, right? We generally try to avoid that at all costs.

I'm for option one.

Other thoughts?

One. I'm still on two. I think we're on two.

Well, the other thing option one allows us to do is get a lot more specific with regulations. Option two points back to here's what's allowed already. Option one can say things like this is what's allowed, but if you do the one that I think of as lighting, the way I had been a preliminary draft of option one said, you know, if you do outdoor lighting, no taller than six feet. If you go above six feet, it goes special exception. Like, it can really help spell out, like, those defined lines. To me, it helps spell it out a lot better and a lot clearer to say, you know, part of what we do is to set the expectation of the development community and the public and say, here's what's allowed here, and that's it. And then the next step is this, and then the next step is no. So to me, option one did that a lot clearer, which is why If you can't tell, that's the one that I wrote. Will did the non-conforming. So we play devil's advocate with ourselves sometimes.

So wait, Michelle, are you still Team Brian?

Better way to do it. Jump and shit. I'm not going to hold it against anybody if they don't pick mine.

Trust me. I like the concept of one for a future world that we're living in. Do you want to just get on the...

Go down the list, or down the line, and then...

Anybody else feel strongly option two? Michelle? Steven? No, I'm sticking with one. Okay.

All right. Well, I think that's it, unless there's any parting thoughts.

I appreciate all the input, though. It was very helpful, and we made a lot of progress on it, so I appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks. Will and Brian, this was really thoughtful work and well presented. Thank you.

Just real quick, what schedule? What was the plan for next steps?

So it sounds like we'll do another study session with council. We'll kind of make it clear on what these two use options go, and then we'll have the refined pieces of what you told us tonight. And then from there, we'll come back to you guys with an ordinance and a hearing.

Great. And then we weren't doing council.

We already have a study session scheduled for February 23rd with council. So we kind of plan ahead. That's what we do. So we had already tried to schedule a study session, but if we needed to, we could switch it to a public hearing with them if we, because we have enough time between now and then we could get through the public hearing. Planning is only commissioned, but if the desire is for us to go to council, get a little bit more input, fine tune it a little bit more before we come back. I'm more than happy to do that. We've got plenty of stuff going on amendment-wise with state laws that we still need to address. So thank you.

Just remember how we went all that work into Code Next, and then we'd be surprised because council completely changed it. Remember that? That was the only reason. It's part of the job. That's why I thought, I'll just go back to study session.

All right. Thank you. Thanks, Will. staff's choice I don't have anything that I know of no we have a PUD that's been submitted and we're reviewing that working our way through it so it'll be coming up in the next few months okay cool no attorneys this evening we'll go down the line with commissioners choice let's start online with Steven Mr. Ruttle

Nope, I'm good. Thank you.

All right, Amy. I don't have anything. Thank you. Nope.

I'm good.

Nah, nothing for me.

Good.

I'm good as well.

I was really counting on you, Eric, for something. All right, that brings us to adjournment.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.