City Council - Regular Meeting

we will jump right into agenda item number one, public comment on agenda related items. If you have something you'd like to say about any of the agenda, you may do so at this time. And you'll also have, I guess if you are an applicant for one of these items, you will have an opportunity to speak once that item comes available as well. So this time we'll open up public comment on agenda related items.

Is the new zoning ordinance on that? Can I make a statement about that?

Yeah, it's item number 10. Yes, ma'am, you can do it at this time.

Okay, my name is Michelle Haynes. Address is 335 West Main, Gallatin. I have been in the real estate business for over 50 years in Gallatin. I've done about everything you can think of when it comes to property in the city of Gallatin. And I'm up here mostly because I was at your last meeting and I saw everybody searching for questions that had to do with change of use. I put a few statistics together in my own business. I have 50 small businesses that rent from me. My spaces are generally around 1,500 square feet. Some of them are freestanding buildings. Some of them are not. My stability is about 6.7 years. I try to keep my rents down. I've got about $13 a square feet, which is way under what most of them are. I give all my leasees the ability to build out the way they want to build out. I feel that it ensures business viability by not renting to the same use. In fact, with the exception of automotive, 100% of my businesses would have not been in compliance over the past 10 years. Never has a business moved out and another business of a like kind moved in. It just doesn't happen. It's not good business for the small business. It's not good business for if you have a strip center. It's just not good. I put some questions into what I use for a search engine and I searched what other cities are doing, what we're doing, and how it affects change of views. And this is a very restrictive document. I would hope y'all all would look at it really with a critical eye. It puts a lot of responsibility on the codes department. They're going to have to hire new people. I would love to see somebody answer the question, which I probably could have dropped all this information in, but how many businesses license do we have in the city of Gallatin? How many small business licenses will this change of use clause affect? I think it would be outstanding from what you would find out, because small businesses just don't change. And I'm going to give you just a couple of examples. Had a young lady, her dream of opening a dance studio, she took a Pilates studio and changed it to a dance studio, which would have been a change of use. She did really well. She needed double the space. She moved to another part of the center, which happened to be a mail order business. A dance studio to a mail order business would have been a change of views. She has doubled her size, done a fantastic business for the neighborhood, because all those little kids, someone can walk to where she has her dance studio. But that wouldn't have been able to happen. that is a woman-owned business. By the way, I'd say close to 50% of who I rent to are women-owned business. My business is strictly a woman-owned business. There are two of us. Also in that same center is a coffee shop, Black Elm. They moved into a real estate office. That would have been a change of use. They would not be compliant. They decided to double their space and put a bakery next to it. So when the comic book store decided to retire, they doubled their space. change of use. There's that clause again. Somehow we need to protect the small businesses. And I'm not really sure how you could do it. I've given Mayor Brown some suggestions, some suggestions what other cities have done and how they've done it and what clauses they put in there. But if this was to pass right now, it would be absolutely devastating to small business in this city. And small business is our backbone. These are the people that spend their life savings in there to create their dreams, to make Gallatin their home. And it's just not right for it to be so restrictive against small business. And if you've got any questions, I'll be glad to answer them now or any other time.

Mary Ann, did you get her name and address? Okay. The only question I have, and normally we can't, we have to let you speak and not her, but do you mind giving your comments to staff or have you?

I have not. I have sent them.

You did? Okay.

I did send them to the mayor, and we have had some discussion about it. I heard y'all grappling with all these questions last week, like, oh, if it's a restaurant and they put a drive-through, is that a change of use? I mean, all these questions need to be answered, and you were told, yes, it would be a change of use. And I heard several of you say, well, nobody's contacted me. Well, nobody knows about it. I don't know how you're going to get the information out there. Sorry about that.

Okay.

But the small businesses I know don't know about it. Okay. And maybe don't have a good spokesman either. So I'm speaking as a landlord for the small businesses. I apologize.

Thank you.

Too passionate.

That's okay. Thank you so much. Anyone else wishing to speak on agenda-related items? All right. Seeing none, we will close the public comment and we'll move to item number two, 1429, Southwater Accessory Structure. Brad.

Good evening, Commissioners. Brad Hickman, Staff Planner. The owner and applicant requests approval of a site plan to construct a 30 by 40 by 14 post frame structure with alternative architecture metal siding on one acre zoned R15 medium density residential located at 1429 South Water Avenue. You can see the property here. It's near the bridge on the way out of town on South Water. This is the proposed area. The property has plenty of available lot coverage for it. That did include some elevations, although I don't have a specific color. The home is a yellow siding home. And looking at the map, there is a similar red metal-sided building about four lots up.

Thanks, Brian. Engineering, do you have anything to add?

We just need to know the increase in pervious area. If it's greater than 800, they'll be subject to the stormwater ordinance.

Okay, thank you. Is there an applicant present this evening? Yes, please come forward. If y'all wish, please state your name and address.

Katie Delling, 660 Coles Ferry Road.

I'm assuming you got the comments from staff. Yes. Do you understand the comments? Do you have any questions about the comments?

I guess the question about the stormwater?

Yes.

We're not sure what that means.

So we can get with you after this tomorrow maybe, but there's a specific permit, an infill permit, and it's basically just water quality. That's a modified trench drain. It'll be something similar to that.

So ultimately, to add some to that, anytime you add over 800 square feet, anything over 800 square feet of impervious surface, which is roofs or pavement or anything like that, they want you to follow a set of guidelines that offsets that. And so that can be through the form of added landscaping, through a various number of items. But staff would be happy to meet with y'all, see how I can address that. Yep. But as far as the formal process you're going through to get approval for this, right now in our current code, our current code states that the accessory structure has to match what the home is and doesn't allow for the architecture as submitted. And so it has to come to our body to approve. The fact that there is similar structures close by that are metal siding doesn't We've done a handful of these, more than a handful, over the past year or so. And as long as there's something close by that matches it, it usually seems favorable. So I don't personally have any other questions. This seems very straightforward. Does the commission have any other questions or comments? Yeah, this seems very straightforward. If y'all don't have any other questions, we'll see y'all back in a couple weeks.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, we'll move to item number three. Item number three is the Bowman, Massey, and Mayberry Comprehensive Plan Amendment.

Yes. Good evening. Kimberly Attlee, staff planner. The owner-applicant is requesting approval of a Comprehensive Plan Amendment. It's located south of Highway 31 east and west of Bright's Lane. It's Massey-Mayberry property, a total of $255. 0.32 acres. The comprehensive plan amendment is to amend the planned Gallatin community character map and the sub area designated maps. And I'll show you, that's Massey's and there's Mayberry's. Changing the community character area from rural character area to a general urban character area. And then also we'll expand the number four Gallatin Gateway Industrial Center. So here's what it currently is, an existing character. And then you'll see at the very top, right, that's where it's going to be added on. That's the character part, existing subarea. Number four, what we will be changing, we'll be adding it up to the very top.

Okay.

And this is similar to the Gregory that we just finished. Okay.

Thank you, Kimberly. Does engineering have anything to add?

We don't have any comments. Okay.

Is there a representative for the applicant present? Okay, seeing none. Any questions from the commission? I mean, this seems very straightforward. We've already described it from wrong.

Yes, sir. Go ahead. It's a redundant question. I just want to make sure I understand. Will it include or exclude Bright's Lane?

I don't think it can. I don't think it can.

Because we didn't annex. Yeah, well, the character areas kind of go with land. You're not going to develop Bright's Lane in the same way you would land. So not really.

Okay. Very good. Thank you. I think it would fall in line with the property that was just annexed. I think so. Yeah.

And then it will turn into a rezone to IR.

Or an establishment of zoning, which would be industrial?

That's correct.

Okay. But this has to come first?

That is correct.

Okay. And this goes all the way through to council?

Correct.

Okay. Awesome. It was communicated there. Yeah. That was the intent. Yeah. Okay. I don't have any other questions. So I guess we'll see this back in a couple weeks. Next, we've got item number four, the Savannah Marketplace Cottages, amended PMDP and FMDP. Okay.

Great. The owner applicant are requesting approval for amended PMDP, FMDP for the Savannah Marketplace Cottages. This is located south of Nashville Pike and west of Gordon Crossing. There's 87 single family lots and zoned MU. Just changed so that's why it's color changed. The purpose of the adjustment is the layout to reduce the number from 96 units to 87 to accommodate a two car garage and also to reduce the off street parking. which they'll talk a little bit more about. There is a concern with the limited parking that is available for a condensed area like this, so designated off-street parking has been reduced from 66 to 37 off-street. And the landscaping, we do need a couple of things here. Landscaping needs to be all on the south side, Hendersonville area, needs to be 30 foot. And there needs to be a berm. So we're looking for that as well. Elevations. Elevations we're looking for is the three foot all the way around the building, which I have spoke with the applicant. And they are aware of that. And they are also aware that they need to put the 70% brick around the perimeter of the development. They're going to be working on that. These single-family homes, they will be sprinkled because of the density so close. Let's see what else. Yeah, we do want to make sure that there is a connection with the sidewalks, make sure that they are connecting, and the crosswalks. So that is a safety hazard that we need to make sure that's put on here. Staff is concerned with the aesthetics of the two-car garage in the front. They have changed it from one single to two-car garage, so it will be for any two-car garage. The aesthetics of it, also the reducing of the open space and limited parking for the density of homes that are going to be in the area. Also, they will need to do a traffic impact study.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Engineering?

Yeah, we have a couple of things on this. One is the updated traffic impact study. We will need that. It will need to be submitted and approved before the voting meeting. Otherwise, it cannot go to the voting meeting. and then second is there are three access points to public right away that's perfect right there uh... you've got to to the north to national pike and then one to the east to gordon crossing uh... one of those will need to be a private street right now they're just access easements to accommodate the sub regs and fall in line with the sub regs it'll need to be a private street internal to the cottages and then also one of those access points to public right-of-way will need to be a private street okay so you're saying it's already an access easement it'll need to be replatted to be a private street okay okay anything else that's it all right is there an applicant present this evening

By the way, I put this picture on here. This is the PMDP that was approved. Outlined in red were the additional parking of the 66 parks. That's what this is about.

Okay.

Awesome.

Hey, Wes McGill, civil engineer on the project. We're in agreement with most of the staff comments. There's a few that we'd like to discuss that Kimberly brought up. I think from an engineering perspective, we spoke before, and we're good with the designation of the private street all the way out to Gordon Crossing. I think that's going to be our plan there. Okay. The connectivity was also brought up with the sidewalks, and we do intend to meet everything that was shown on the PMDP and approved with that. as well as the architecture. I know there was parking was discussed pretty heavily during our PMDP process and talks with the builder. They felt that it would be best to provide more parking. So that was why the change to the two car garage. So we went from one car and one driveway parking space to two car garage and two driveway parking spaces. which increased our total parking by about 128 spaces or 124 spaces total. And then we still have the 33 overflow. And then I was talking with Kimberly beforehand and we're happy to look at adding some additional parallel spaces and spaces that will allow it. And that's the reason for the change there.

Okay. Anything else to add at this time?

The open space technically was reduced by 2,000 feet roughly, but it was because we removed a parking lot. So I don't know if it was technically open space, but it was the parking lot that was removed out of it.

Okay. That helps. Are you all going to update the traffic study? Yes. Okay. Which, I mean, this should be going from the previous use to this. This should be the reduction in trips.

Correct. From 96 homes to 87 homes. Okay.

But even before that?

Yes.

This was a commercial zone property? Yeah. Okay. Any questions right off the bat from commission? Go ahead, Mayor. I was just going to ask about the driveway links.

How long are the driveways? The driveways are 20 feet, and where there's a five-foot sidewalk, we have 25 feet from the edge of the driveway.

From the inside side of the sidewalk to the garage is 20 feet.

Like back a sidewalk?

Back a sidewalk to the garage is 20 feet, yes. Is that our code, the 20 feet?

How long are those big trucks that everybody comes in and can't park in their driveway? We hear about it all the time. They're about 20 feet. They can't block the sidewalks.

Yeah, so my wife drives an Expedition, and I had to measure it before it went into my garage, and it was about 18 1⁄2 feet.

I mean, that does stress me out because it seems like everybody that wants to purchase a home like this then wants to purchase a dually. And then all of a sudden, they can't park it anywhere but the street. And then all the neighbors are mad. Yes. And there's nowhere to park. And it doesn't give access for emergency vehicles. And it just, everything snowballs.

And we will sign no parking on the street except in designated areas.

And that will be included in the HOA restrictions as well? Yes. I mean, going from... You've obviously... My opinion is the parking... I don't think there's a parking concern on this. I mean, going from a one-car garage to a single-car driveway, I almost feel like you're going to have more issues with parking that way than you are with how it's currently drawn. And if I'm a buyer, I would rather have the larger garage and the larger structure than smaller structure and... less space. I can appreciate the fact that y'all kept the parking lot on the southeast corner of the project. I appreciate the context on the removal of the open space, but you had a parking lot there that was included within the open space. You're also reducing units. I mean, I think this is obviously just my opinion, but I think this is a much better project than the previous one. Anyone else have anything to add? I mean, it sounds like y'all got traffic study update, but outside of that, I mean, y'all agree to the landscape comments? Okay. Any other questions or comments?

It clearly reduces the number of units. It reduces traffic. And like you said, I have in two spaces, it's going to reduce the potential for on-street parking. My only question, help me to understand the code. Did we have something in our code about what percentage of the frontage of the face of the building can be garage versus not in the code? Well, then that answers my question. It's not in the code. And the new code, we will have that. Right.

Okay. If y'all don't have anything else, see you back in a couple weeks. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to move to item number five. This is McCain Station Memory Care Facility, amended PMDP and FMDP.

Good evening, commissioners. Charlie Peary, staff planner. The owner applicant is requesting approval of an amended preliminary master development plan and final master development plan for McCain Station memory care facility. This is on a 3.3-acre lot, zone PGC, plan general commercial, located north of State Route 386 and east of Big Station Camp Boulevard. This is lot number three of the McCain Station master development plan that runs parallel to 386. The applicant is proposing to have a memory care facility on this lot. Staff had quite a bit of comments about the landscaping on this site. The PGC zoning district has extra landscaping requirements. There is not a lot of landscaping on this site. So staff would like to see the perimeter landscaping that is required around the parking lots over here. And then a little more added on to this northern side as well. The courtyard that is posed over here into the middle of the site doesn't really have any landscaping, so staff like to see something in there just to make it look nicer. The street trees will need to be extended along Sweetbriar Way up until the TVA easement. Planning staff is aware that there is an easement there that may pose some, there may have an impact on how well they can landscape this site, so we will work with the applicant to have any alternatives available, if there is any. This is the architecture for the site. It's comprised mainly of the brick and stone, which meets the requirement in the zoning ordinance, 70% brick and stone. And the colors, being of an earth tone, are consistent with the McCain Station Master Development Plan. And then staff had one other note here, and that was on the lighting plan, which was not put in this one. The foot candles exceed the one foot candle limit on this northern boundary here, so there will need to be some. some sort of measure to reduce the lighting over there. And lastly, staff would like to see the access be completed all the way down the Sweetbriar Way, because this one strip of access over here is more than 150 feet, and that would require a turnaround in the fire code.

Thank you. OK. Thanks, Charlie. Engineering, you have anything to add?

We will not see an ECP for this, so this will act as the construction documents. We have a lot of stormwater site EPSC-type comments, but all can be handled with the applicant. Other than that, it will be subject to the Big Station Camp TID contribution.

Okay. Awesome. Is there a member from the African President?

West McGill, civil engineer. We're in agreement with all the staff comments. I would like to discuss the landscaping and the lighting on the north end of the site there. Because that's a shared access drive, we can't plant along the property line there. We'd also like to light the entire shared access drive instead of half of it, if that's something that we can work out with staff. And then, like you said, the TVAE has been, so we'll work with staff to come up with a landscape plan that everybody's happy with. And the courtyard, that's part of their programming for the memory care that's going to be kind of thought out in more detail with whatever programming they decide to go with on this one. And so since it's not seen from the right-of-way at all or from anywhere outside of the building, we felt it would be best to just leave it blank for now, but they will end up having some sort of landscaping, but probably not any type of, it's going to be turf, not any type of grass or anything like that. So probably all potted landscaping.

Any questions from the commission?

No.

My only question was the access along the bottom side. Will it tie back into?

Yes, and we'll do it to binder. So it will be temporary. The temporary part will be a binder.

Okay. Sounds good. This seems pretty straightforward. Did you mention this would have to vote on whether or not it's major or minor? Yes. Okay. But this was a use that was allowed in the previous PMDP?

Yeah, the original McCain station showed assisted living, I believe, on a different lot.

Okay.

But it is allowed in the zoning, so there's no real issue.

Okay. I mean, my opinion is that this is a minor amendment. So whenever we discuss that, we can follow that in the voting meeting. Okay. I don't have any other comments. Appreciate it. Anyone else? All right. See you back in a few weeks. Thank you. Next, we've got number six, resubdivision of lot three, McCain Station, commercial phase two, lots one through three.

The owner and applicant is requesting approval of a final plat for the resubdivision of lot three of the McCain Station commercial phase two on 11.41 acres, zoned as PGC, planned general commercial, located north of State Route 386 and east of Big Station Camp Boulevard. staff had a bunch of comments on this final plat as well. A couple minor cleanup things to go through first. The certificates need to have the word regional removed from them. So it's Gallatin Municipal Planning Commission instead of municipal regional. The note about Boyd and vacating recent plats needs to be added to this. And then lastly, there is no identified easements or utilities, except for the TVA one on this plat. So we would like to see those added and shown as well.

OK. Thanks, Charlie. Engineering? We don't have any major comments on this. Just some cleaned up items. OK.

Thank you. Applicant present?

Ms. McGill, civil engineer. We're in agreement with staff comments.

Okay. I'll make sure you put the note that vacates everything else as note number two. That's a pretty recent comment I received. So just helping you out there. Appreciate it. That's all I have. You're welcome, Brian. Anyone else? All right. See you back in a few weeks. Thank you. Next, we've got item number seven, Hidden Creek Commons preliminary plot. Brad.

The owner and applicant request approval of preliminary plot for Hidden Creek Commons consisting of four commercial lots and infrastructure on 8.72 acres on PGC, Planned General Commercial District, located east of Big Station Camp Boulevard and south of Springdale Lane. See the property here. Uh, staff had some minor cleanup, but we did have comments on maybe a little difficult to see, but there's an unbuildable lot five strip here at the top. And we have made suggestions that that just make that open space. And, um, this preliminary plat is showing cross access easements, uh, that don't align. So we had questions around alignment or while they're, why they are on a preliminary plat when we don't have a specific commercial enterprise yet.

Thanks, Brian. Engineering?

We're asking for a small amount of dedication on the northern corner, I guess. Northwest corner, maybe. Southwest corner. I apologize. Whether that is gonna be right away or just an access easement, we're thinking that it could just be the sidewalk from the full build out of Big Station Camp Boulevard, but we've tasked them with that measurement. What's the dedication for? For the sidewalk? We're thinking it's just going to be the sidewalk, but there will be a total of, what, six lanes? Six lanes at that corner, plus grass strip, plus sidewalk. There's 100 foot right away there now, so we're thinking that it's going to just be the sidewalk. So if it is just a sidewalk, it can be an access easement. If it's more than that, it'll likely need to be right away.

Okay. Is that handled through this? Would that be handled through this plat or through the site plan process?

This plat, I believe. Yeah.

Okay. So we already know exactly what the design is for that location. Okay. All right. Is there an applicant present?

West McGill, civil engineer. Mitchell, I guess on the... Is that just because of the turn lane going into Springdale?

That's right.

Okay. Yeah, so we'll probably end up just putting an access easement there and changing Lot 5 to an open space is something that we can do as well. The only other comment that we had some issues with is the removal of the future ride-in, ride-outs. What we'd agreed to in the FMDP was for... as these parcels develop out, that we do a traffic study to see if those are warranted. And so we just wanted to keep them on the plot there as future or potential ones. And then the shared access easement is there across lots two and three, is there for... So lot four and lot one can access that full access drive there, and we have it strategically placed based off of potential users coming in there.

Okay, so y'all are already working through the site plan process, or at least initial stages. Initial stages, yes. That makes sense. Any questions from the commission? This seems very straightforward. I mean, it's preliminary plot. It sounds like y'all are working with engineering to address their comments. So I don't have any comments. John. Steve.

Mayor.

Good. Okay. See you back in a few weeks. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have number eight, crossings at Hidden Creek infrastructure final plot. Charlie. Charlie.

The owner and applicant is requesting approval of a final plat for the crossings at Hidden Creek Infrastructure on 14 plus or minus acres zoned MRO, Multiple Residential and Office District, and PGC Plan General Commercial located west of Big Station Camp Boulevard and south of Long Hollow Pike. So this is the final plat version of this infrastructure plat that we saw last month, which was the preliminary one. This final plat is basically a copy and paste and showing the Bison Trail extension that will one day go to Greenleaf Boulevard. Staff had minor comments on this one, again, to remove the words regional from the certificates. And had one other comment on here. I did not add it again. Staff had minor comments.

Okay. Engineering? Minor comments from us as well.

Okay. Is there a member from the applicant present? Land analysis, civil engineer, the project. Yeah, no comments on staff's comments there.

So we'll get those addressed.

Yeah, it seems pretty in line with what we've seen previously. So I don't have any comments. Anyone else from the commission? Charlie?

It was to show the applicable stub outs for the development when necessary.

Okay. Thank you. See you back in a few weeks. Next, item number nine, East Broadway Retail Shell, amended PMDP and revised FMDP.

The owner and applicant requests approval of an amended preliminary master development plan and revised final master development plan for East Broadway Retail Shell to expand the approved parking lot and change the ditch pond to underground detention system on one point nine three six acres owned in new mixed-use district located north of east broadway and south of east albert gallatin avenue you see the property here i've included the currently approved f m d p and fuel focus your attention in this area this is the part that has changed you can see that The applicant wants to include more parking here. That additional parking is also stemming from more food or food service allowed in the multi-tenant building. So the portion of the property where you'll see the underground water detention that they are proposing as well.

Okay.

Engineering. Yeah, several stormwater comments related to the underground detention, but we'll work them out.

Okay, awesome. Is there an applicant present this evening?

Brian Muller, civil engineer.

Okay. Do you have anything to add or have any questions for staff?

Yeah, there was a comment on the kind of northern connection to those apartments again that we had removed last year, so I just wanted to touch base. Okay.

Yeah, I... I don't remember. I'm sorry. I mean, the only thing I remember specifically that we discussed was a sidewalk connection, and we ended up voting to not include it. So I don't... Is that what we voted? Yeah.

Oh, and the problem was the grade transition. Yeah, there's about a two-foot... With the ADA compliant, it was going to be a massive ramp.

Correct.

So, I mean, I... If the only thing that's changing... is the going from a dry detention pond to an underground system, everything else is staying the same. I'm inclined to vote in kind with what we did previously.

Is that a staff comment, is to add the pedestrian connection? It is. This is going back a year or so. Memory is kind of foggy. If you have a pedestrian connection, does it have to be ADA compliant?

If it's the only connection from those apartments, likely, yes. It would be a good idea.

But it's not the only connection, because they have sidewalk connectivity along Albert Gallatin to East Broadway to the store.

See, I would be in favor of the pedestrian connection, but I'm not in favor of making it a massive handicap ramp, because I remember looking at the topo on that, and it was going to be a long... handicap ramp.

I think even a switchback, um, the area that we're showing now, it's about two feet of elevation difference. Oh, it's not significant. It was like 12 feet.

No, it's not that much.

Oh, well then what's the problem? Two feet is a six foot ramp. Well, no, it's eight percent.

You need probably 20 or so feet.

It's a lot. There's no existing sidewalk connection from those apartments currently, so we'd just be tying in to the landscape.

That was the other thing is there wasn't sidewalk coming from the apartments along the parking lot. And I think one of the things that I brought up was you potentially have a life safety issue or pedestrian safety issue because you're walking into the back of the building, not the front.

Oh, it's not a hill I would die on. I just thought it was a good idea for you all to have the pedestrian access because these retail shops, you've got... Because I think the closest sidewalk was what?

up towards one of the other buildings there wouldn't even sidewalk in the parking lot yeah that would that's the tail end of the parking lot that that little notch out that you see there but is there sidewalk in the parking lot there's not yeah so i i mean unless the apartment is like on board with adding sidewalk on their site which i highly doubt they are I don't.

That would be the ideal situation, is that the apartment complex makes that connection, and then you have pedestrian access directly from the apartments to this retail area. But that is not something we could require of the existing apartments, is it?

Well, in that case, no.

Okay. Is that your only comment? Yep. Any other questions from the commission? Steve? All right, seeing none, see you back in a few weeks. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next we'll go to Item 10, ZOCO, Gallatin Zoning Ordinance, Zoning Code Update Adoption.

Yes, so over the last couple of weeks since we had our meeting in May, we have received additional comments from a couple different groups. We've met with a couple different people. We've received some more comments from this board and spent more time on this. So include it in your packet. were either comments we received and then not a response to, even if it was not to change anything, or things that we did see needed to be changed. Some of those could be as small as typos. Some are bigger procedural fixes. Some are after further discussions with people where we think maybe changes would be most appropriate. We can talk about any of these items if you want to, or if there's additional items you want to bring up, we can talk about those. Most of the highlighted ones are ones that we wanted feedback on. And it includes non-conforming portion that we've talked about a couple of different times. And we've brainstormed on that a little bit more. So however you guys want to approach this, but the highlighted sections were the ones we wanted to get some direct feedback. So I can go through those. one at a time or however you want it that you see fit.

Okay. Uh, I noticed the, uh, was that it? Yes. Okay. Engineering. Do you have anything to add? Okay. I noticed we have the consultant here again. I didn't know if y'all wanted to open with anything before we got into the discussion. I was just going to jump straight into the spreadsheet and just go down the list so that we can get y'all answers. Before I do that, is there anything from the Commission that you would add?

I was just going to say, since Ms. Haynes spoke at the beginning and she's here, maybe we should start off talking about the change of use pieces. I think she stepped out. Oh, she's gone, I guess.

She's gone.

Because, Jillian, I wanted you to touch that because I feel like what she's thinking is change of use isn't always change of use.

Yes. I'm happy to respond to that. Please. So I can speak to what we do today and I don't think that's changing dramatically to the new code because we're going off of the state law language and that's what's in our current code. We added it in the current code in like 2017 for those of you that were here and a lot of that language was carried over to this code. It's not clear like the change of use formula is not clear in the new code and we've already talked about kind of trying to clean that up in The new code to make it even more clear because it's kind of vague right now the way we do it today is if there's two different kinds of Business licenses that we see so a lot of this is triggered when there's a new business license coming in or someone wants to come in And fill a tenant space you have multi tenant sites. So your strip centers and then you have single tenant site so your standalone buildings and Someone comes in and they want to be a tenant in a multi-tenant building, there's no side improvements for them to do. They are just one tenant in one space in a larger complex. They just, as long as that use is allowed, we can sign off on the business license, they can talk to COS, they can go about their way.

And the build out is the build out that they work with on the owner.

We're not making them do anything because that's not, they can't. It's when it comes to single buildings. So someone has a singular building on a site and they want to change the use from one use to the next use, that's when we look at it and it could trigger improvements. those improvements are usually landscaping and buffer yards maybe parking you're restriping you're making sure your ada parking spaces are up to code maybe a sidewalk addition depending on where you are in the city and then maybe storm water improvements although i don't think we see those as much because usually the sites that are doing this have a lot of concrete on on them already and any kind of reduction is an improvement on storm water so I think the ones you guys see the most are probably landscaping. I feel like those are the big ones we're talking about. Now, we're not having anybody come in here and take their standalone building and suddenly have to brick the building. That's not a thing that we're making anybody do. They can use that building. I don't know what kind of code and building code improvements they have to do. That's between them and the codes department. That's not what we dictate. We're looking at the site itself. This usually does not apply to properties on the square. So the properties on the square are all touching each other. It's almost like a very large multi-tenant situation. None of them have buffer yard requirements. The sidewalks are there. They're not going to have storm water. They don't have parking. So those types of buildings, just we don't do change of use site plans for them. There's nothing for us to really look at, even though they have uses coming in and out all the time. When it comes to the change of use requests that we do get, they would have to sometimes work with an engineer, like we would look at it, see what needs to be improved. If they can meet current code, they can come to our office, work with us administratively, bring it up to code. If they can't, those are the ones that you guys see. That's how we do it now. I feel like we don't see too many anymore. And now it's when you go from like one use category in our current code to a different one. So an office is different from a restaurant. Those are two different uses in the code. But if like, if you had like a law office, go to a consulting office, that wouldn't trigger anything. That's an office use. Those are all in the same category. So we do very often see business licenses for change of business from one type of office to another, from one type of restaurant to another, from one type of retail to another. That's very common.

Well, I was just going to use an example she gave just for clarity purposes because she mentioned, and of course she was talking within the Strip Center, but say a Pilates business were a freestanding business and it switched to a dance studio. That's not a change of views.

No, I wouldn't count that as a change of views.

Yes, sir? Just to get context... Is a good example of this situation what we looked at about a year ago down near where Randy's Record Shop used to be, and there was a building there, single standalone building, and that change of use triggered quite a bit of stormwater and stuff back along Town Creek and some other changes. Is that what you're talking about here?

So that's a standalone building on a property that would need improvements, mostly buffer yards. I think that was part of the discussion. Not too much stormwater because it's a lot of pavement already.

But what was the situation there? It was retail and it was changing to... I can't remember what it changed to.

The only reason I bring that up is I remember that the changes it triggered were...

I know we dealt with it down here with the North Lake Auto Mall, the small building that was the mattress store, and we dealt with it with the building that was behind the funeral home. Yes. Not Johnson.

Anderson. The doggy dick here, right here, catty-cornered from the donut shop. was also one.

Yeah, Aggies. They did a change of view site.

It's really advantageous to the landlord to have multi-tenant building.

In that case, yes, that is a better scenario.

I can speak to the building you were talking about down in the corner. It was a staffing agency. It was a staffing agency at one point, but it had been vacant for 30 months. So that's another condition that triggers a change of use. If you haven't had anything in there for 30 months, then it's a change of use regardless of what's going in.

How many months? 30. There's a limit. You're saying there's a 30-month limit?

So they're saying if it's vacant for 30 months, there's been no activity, that can trigger needing to bring the site up to improvements, regardless of what goes in there.

And I think the purpose of that is to have something in place to remove old grandfathered instances that never change.

Is the 30 months the same in the new code as well for that?

Yes, that's in the new codes.

So in the, which I forwarded them to you, Mr. Rose, you probably haven't had a chance to look at them, but one of the suggestions that she had, and I thought was a good one, is for very small properties, because obviously if it's a standalone, very small property, That rent threshold is going to take years to probably pay for some significant improvement. And, you know, the thing that I got very frustrated with when we were talking about that one building, which it looks beautiful. I mean, I will say it absolutely looks beautiful.

They did come in and they kind of almost, I know they knew to do it, but they kind of said, okay, we're doing it now. And they just told, like...

But I'm talking about the one behind Anderson.

Yes, that's, yes.

Yeah, that was such a small building and... I'm sure that the cost of their improvement, and when I was looking at that property when we were having that and I was bothered by what we were acquiring of them, I also looked at that as that's probably not what that property's highest and best use will be long term. There's some other buildings, particularly in the downtown area, that I can see that some owner has some and they just want to get a tenant in there. But at some point, it's probably going to transition to some other redevelopment vision. Would be my guess. Now, I hope the front building doesn't. But that's just kind of a building that could become something different. And then it would be to me, appropriate to a larger building with more opportunities for that kind of thing. So that was one of the things she suggested, like exclude a property under 1,500 square feet or something like that.

I got a question about, it wasn't the Randy's Records building. It's the one that's still there now.

Yeah, that one's gone.

All right, it was retail, then it went to staffing, then it went back to retail. Why was it allowed to go from retail to staffing and then back to retail?

So I don't remember all the history with it. I know there used to be multiple buildings on there. So at one point it was a multi-tenant situation. And also things go in and don't get business licenses anymore. sometimes we don't know that something has gone in and we only know because they get a business license.

Did the staffing agency get a license?

I don't think so. And I think that one was odd. Cause it was right when it ran around COVID and it was, yeah, I know we've done all that research, but that was part of it.

My main question is obviously with the, with the existing code, we have the change of use site plan process. is that process carrying over to with the new code?

So the vagueness of the language is we're talking about trying to clean that up and make it more clear. Change of use site plans are in the current code.

Yes.

Yes. And then the non-conforming section of that code is also in the code. So they kind of go together like that. Right now we want to add language to the new one to make that process clear. Okay. And when... that should happen. And right now we would interpret it the same way that we're doing it without adding some specific language saying otherwise.

Okay. So obviously with the current way we do this, like the main thing you're looking at is site nonconformities.

Yes.

With this new code, obviously there's a fair amount of updates to the actual architectural look and feel of the building. Are architectural features of the building going to be included in the nonconformities? Yes. if they change their use.

I don't understand how we could do that without that being so substantially burdensome, like financially burdensome to bring the building up to current state.

I feel like where the architectural... Yeah, to bring the buildings up to current code, I feel like that would... That would need to be sequestered to only when they wanted to redevelop the whole site.

Yeah. Even now, with the current code, we have a 70% brick stone requirement, and I'm not telling a standalone business that their building that isn't made of brick needs to be made of brick when they come and do a change of use, and that's technically a code. I just don't see financially how you could make somebody do that, but that's my interpretation.

I'll ask a question which will naturally invite the... city attorney's office to step in. I know that an ordinance, a code should be written with as little ambiguity as possible, but I'm hearing what the mayor said about small businesses. How much subjectivity should we write in and leave it to the discretion of the planning commission to determine if something triggers, you know, a change of use triggers certain things? Is that a bad idea?

Some level of subjectivity is inevitable. You can't write a document that's going to come up with every scenario. So I don't think it's necessarily wrong to try to leave some level of subjectivity. Now, if you know before you write it down, we want A to always equal A and B to always equal B, go ahead and write that down. But there is a little space there where it might make sense on parcel A but not parcel B. it is fine in most circumstances, at least subjectivity. There's going to be issues where it's very dependent on what we're trying to do, on how much subjectivity is appropriate.

But I do think that this is an area where... You gave me the answer I needed, and that is it needs some wiggle room.

Yeah. Do we have different classifications for retail?

So the only... There's a couple that branch out. You have general retail sales, and then auto sales are a different category. And I think there's one or two other ones that are outside of that, but most retail things fall under one category.

And what those other one or two are?

We also expanded the use list. The new code does have an expanded useless where we thought we had holes. Yes. And some of those more retail things do break out in the new code a little bit.

Another suggestion in what she had sent was evaluating based on impact like some, I'm just throwing this out there for consideration and brainstorming and thought triggering. Similar intensity would give some allowances too. So maybe you could do something with that with the smaller properties, combine those two parameters.

I mean, the way we looked at it was you kind of have four, like, because you guys talked about last time doing it based on even the categories in the new code. So you have a handful of different categories. You have community uses, commercial uses, office uses, industrial uses, ag uses, lodging uses, and then there's smaller uses within those. Um, you kind of have four different types of changes on a property and that's on the last page of the chart. Um, on, I had it on page 21 dash 10. So you have sites that already conform to code, but they're changing within their use category. You have sites that do not conform to code and they're changing within their use category. Then you have sites that do conform with code and they're changing outside of their use category. And then sites that do not conform with code and are changing outside of their use category. Those are kind of the four scenarios that you see. And so what we were talking about internally, because our current code also doesn't say if you're changing use of a property, you're going from this use to this use, you need to come in and do a change of use site plan. Which we used to do a lot more of them before the non-conforming stuff became kind of a big thing that we did. Versus just like something from staff that says, yes, your site conforms with code and you are permitted use and you can go on your merry way. Um, that's kind of what we were talking about. Cause like some sites, maybe that site's only five years old and then different uses going in there. It probably has all the landscaping and site sidewalk needs that it has. We don't have to do anything to it. And so we were discussing, is there something we want to do? If we look at a site, it does conform with code and they change the use of the property because do we really need to waste our time looking at a site plan where they don't need to do improvements? versus a site that is changing actual use, whether it's in the same category as it currently is or not, and then it does need site improvements. And what does that kind of site plan look like and what does that include? We've also talked about, do we have like a list of things that you have to do and you pick three of them? That came up in discussions. So you have a site and typical things we see are stormwater, landscaping, access concerns, parking, sidewalk. Each time that property changes use, they only do two of the things. We talked about that, like there's a progressive, like over time, these things could improve. That was another angle that we weren't sure how that would work, but a possibility.

Just spitballing or brainstorming here, but the different uses certainly have different impact on the area around. And it seems to me like if somebody is changing the use and increasing the impact, it needs to trigger these things and we need to make them improve their site. But if they're reducing the impact that they have on the surrounding area, maybe that could be where we have the latitude or the subjectivity to change. to waive some of the changes. I don't want a reduction in intensity of use to trigger, as you said, architectural features. That would be a real problem. But could we actually grade the uses, give it a number grade from 1 to 10 of intensity? And if it goes down in use, it might...

Yeah, I feel like we'd need like a section that would describe what that means and how you would interpret intensity. Is that just traffic? Is that visibility? Is that foot traffic? So that's what we would have to look at.

It goes from an intensity use of seven down to five will be a lot more lenient and subjective and have latitude.

Does that make sense? I mean, is that something that's been done?

I've never seen it done, but... I've never seen it done, but I've actually not seen a community get so wrapped up in the nonconforming provision before. But it's okay to. It's definitely okay to. Tell me what that question was again, Julian.

The question was that if we could maybe put a scale of intensity of use, and if it's a reduction in intensity, wouldn't it be a lot more forgiving than if it's an increase?

It would take a good bit of work to do that, to know whether a food service drive-through is more intensive than a general retail sales. It would take a massive amount. What we try to do on the parking issue is really we try to minimize the differences between different services. different uses based on the number of cars that might be generated. That's an impact. Um, I don't know how engineering wise, the engineers may know, uh, engineering wise, is it how much stormwater can, can get dealt with on that side or is, I don't know what, what it does. I don't know how the stormwater ends up being changed by the use. Maybe it doesn't.

Well, I mean, normally you're, you would trigger stormwater based on redevelopment, not just a change of use.

Right, it would just be the added impervious. It wouldn't be the use. That was a bad example then. Traffic, certainly, you could quantify that.

Well, I mean, if one use changes from another and you actually have parking requirements on site that have to meet that use, then that would... I mean, if you have another use that moves in that requires double the amount of parking, if you can't park the facility, then... Yeah, but you could also quantify daily trips for a given use.

Yeah.

That example that we were talking about down there next to Randy's record shop, I didn't think that they did any redevelopment of the parking lot, but I thought, yeah, it triggered stormwater requirements for water quality.

That's the water I was talking about.

Yeah, next to the creek. But I didn't think they were changing any of the...

impervious surfaces plus that may be a floodplain revision that is a different animal right there yeah and you and you want you'd always want the floodplain thing to get taken care of i think yeah kind of regardless of intensity if it's something that the job decided that the floodplain needs to be changed then it it probably ought to always get triggered

I will say, I think that 30-month inactivity, we need to hold to that. That's the only way you'd fix nonconformities.

Does this, I mean, obviously the first highlight on here is about nonconformities. Does this help you answer?

So I guess I need to know, do you guys want us to continue to do it the way that we're doing it, as I described, or do you want me to find ways that can ease it in cases where it's appropriate?

You mentioned in here, obviously, your highlight says most of this section is in the current code and follows state law. So we're not deviating from state law requirements. Currently, what happens is if they come through with a change of view site plan, it comes to y'all's department. Y'all determine if they meet the requirements or if they agree to the requirements. If it's one of those things where they're not, it's coming to us for review, which I think should remain. At that point, that's where the subjectivity comes in. That's my opinion, but I mean, they're either going to be asking for a waiver from providing X amount of landscaping or providing X amount of parking or... Like, the deal over here with the doggy daycare, they had... It was a non-conforming use because they had parking spaces backing out into the street. Well, it's functioned like that forever. And if you removed them, they had no parking. So I... That's a unique case, which is something that we have to collectively decide should it be allowed or should it not.

You know, like on landscaping, I don't know what change of use should actually change the landscaping. It seems like who cares what the landscaping is relative to the number of cars that pull in there, the number of people used to build or anything. So it may be, like, which ones do you want to enforce as opposed to just trying to enforce all of them?

I mean, I don't necessarily think there's anything broken with the way we're currently doing. Unless I'm missing something.

Why don't we table that piece and go through?

Yeah, okay.

Jillian, I had just one other thought. We may want to try to... actually draft the exact way y'all approach it now.

Yeah, that's what me and Brian talked about on Friday.

If that's the way you want to keep doing it, it just needs to get drafted. Almost like a bylaw.

Okay, formal process. Yes. The next item, the highlight you have here, this is G4-57, lot buildings, site width, do we want to keep maximums discussed with consultants and PC? So this is...

Yeah, so in a couple of the zoning districts, they do have both like lot with minimums and maximums. Yeah. And we had a question about it. And I think in many cases it won't impede anybody or do anything, but it is to keep kind of think about the streetscape and keep you have from having really large properties that kind of would break that up. It's, it's partially for, that's my understanding.

It's for character and walkability. The lot size is the thing that, that creates the pedestrian scale. Okay.

I've never heard of a lot with maximum.

It's the difference in character base versus conventional.

So what if someone wants to come in and they want 150 foot lots? They would ask for a variance.

They should rezone to the zoning that goes with that.

A variance wouldn't be working then because it's not a hardship.

They should zone. If you have a large development, you can use a couple different zones in there, which we actually encourage. Then those areas should meet the intent of those zoning districts. If you want to do something larger...

The only thing I'd ask is if you're going to put a lot maximum width, make sure you just put something in there to allow some wiggle room if they have undevelopable portion of their lot. It's a drainage swell, drainage tile going through there, something where they can't do it.

I see what you're saying, though, Jillian, about them rezoning because the larger lot zones don't have a maximum.

Yes.

That's right. This only came up because it was in... a more dense district. And so to keep the character of that district, they established a lot max. Yeah.

The real the real key is somebody not trying to put a huge building on a smaller parcel. It's like pick your site, you know, in you know, in a way that it makes sense for you there. That clarified it for me. Yeah.

And I guess I didn't... Yeah, because there's a difference. On this sheet, we have a lot max and we have a building width max within this actual zone. Whereas in other zones, you don't have that max. I think there was one other, maybe it was a commercial.

Yeah, you get into the more of the commercial and denser ones, they have more of those types of restrictions.

So I think that came up also on one of the commercial, and I can't remember exactly what page it's on, but I want to say that there was a max in one of the commercial districts. So why, like, in one of the commercial, I can't remember. Hold on, maybe I have it. Okay, so like CD4C. We've got a lot, and this is on 4-82. We have a lot such building site width. We have a 100-foot minimum, 300-foot max. And then for all permitted building types, 50-foot minimum, 100-foot max for the width. So what if someone wanted to put a larger building?

Is that on the large commercial building that has that max?

It says this is neighborhood, corridor, character district.

CD4C.

But what building type is... That would be the largest commercial district, correct? It is, yes. So, I mean, our largest commercial district should encourage, like, big box stores and things like that, correct?

So this is the... A big box store is a 300-foot max width. That's exactly what that's saying.

Oh, and then all other permitted... Okay, large-scale commercial, 300-foot max. I guess my... I guess my dumb question is, do most big box stores fit within that category?

Most do. Most do.

It's like an academy.

It seems like, say it again.

It's like an academy sports.

Yeah, it ought to. It ought to, yeah. They're different wits. you know, dicks may build this wit somewhere and this other wit somewhere else. So I, I, I don't know. I'm not expert in what they might bring. Um, but I think that 300, what's the width of the target?

So we, so we did measure that cause it came up. It's lower on the chart. We propose probably removing that for CD for C because things like what we measured lows and it was bigger than 300.

It is definitely that.

so we did that's on it's one of the last that's on this chart like at the very bottom on the first page uh 4-82 because that question came up that's where we that's one of the ones we looked at maximum okay if you want to remove it that's probably the one to do it in so for example yeah go ahead um we've got a project before us right now it's next to the chandler park apartments

That's a huge building.

That is, but that's broken up into building sites.

Well, it's all connected, but I'm assuming each building is... Oh, each tenant?

Each building site is treated just like a lot. Oh, okay.

It's not, yeah.

No single building should be more than 300 feet. I think that...

But that's what we're getting at. Yeah, something like Lowe's. The Target's more than 300 foot wide.

I wanted to talk about Target. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yes. In Fairview that we just finished working on, the developer was there that develops Targets everywhere, okay, and had been looking at some sites. He asked that we increase it up to 300, wasn't it? No, I think it was four. Four. Okay. So you may want to get it bigger. It just depends on... really what you want to do in that district. The reason we do that district is because everybody can't be a cute little shop. You know, you need your big box stuff for taxes and for the type of retailers that they are and all that. So we can, that's easy enough to change if we just figure out what the biggest use you might get is.

Julian, I mean, what would be your recommendation? Remove it or increase it to a point to where it's...

So the way we've been looking at it is we've been kind of looking at CD4C, which is a lot of National Pike, to kind of pull back on some of those form-based restrictions. And then other districts where we know some redevelopment is coming to be a little pickier with it. So what we have right now on here is CD4C, take them off. But things like CD4, CD4A, CD5, where we're trying to do a little bit more, keep them.

Okay, that's fine. Does everyone else agree?

Okay. I'm sorry, this is a dumb question. I've got to go back to square one. Are we talking about the building or are we talking about the lot?

So here's what this is. Are you on 4-82? Yeah. So the top line is the lot. So they have it split up. It's the lot slash building site width. So... in commercial development like this, you're going to have a massive parcel, but then everything's going to be broken out into like actual building sites.

Hey John, turn to page 23-7, all the way in the back in the definitions.

Oh.

Exactly.

Diagram at the top of that page. Definition of a building site. Might help explain it a little bit.

A building site's essentially an unrecorded lot that you put when somebody wants to develop a huge parcel. It says, I want to put my building here, and then it ends up getting regulated as if it were a lot. Going back to the building type versus lot, this is just a lot width. If you put a large commercial building on it, That's the lot width you can do it. Otherwise, it's a different width of the lot. It's not the building itself.

The obvious one that I can think of is I know we've had sites where I'm pretty sure it was the site over there next to Chandler that Home Depot was potentially looking at. Home Depot wouldn't fit that category. They're over 300 feet.

A gymnasium, like a big gym or something. Yeah. or indoor sports facility that could potentially be in a development like that.

So your recommendation is to remove it out of CD4C, keep it, and everything else?

That's how we have it.

So we have a minimum but not a max?

Yes.

Okay. I'm good with that. And that's under what classification?

CD4C, which is?

That's your National Pike Corridor.

Yes.

CD4C, that's 482, Article 4. Okay. So the 300-foot max would go away? Okay.

I was going to add to that in article eight where building types are explained and they have specific standards. So like if you go to page eight dash 17, um, That explains the large scale commercial building type, and there are specific standards that go with that. But on the right side, you'll see building size and massing, and there's the height and the width. So in this case, a large scale commercial, we're saying it's per the district width. But there are some building types where we do have building width standards.

Yes. So you kind of doubled down, like even though the district would be X, you still classify a height and a width with the actual building type. Okay.

So like on page eight dash 13, for example, a live work building, we say it can be between 18 to 36 feet wide. Okay.

That makes sense. Does that take care of that, Jillian?

I think so.

Okay. I will move to the next one. Front and secondary front principal building setback maximums. No room for parking at 20 feet in CD4. Discuss with PC. This is 4-58.

That's where it comes up.

Was this my comment?

I don't think you were the only person that brought it up. couple of these were, we got duplicate requests. So we do have a couple of districts, mostly like your CD4, your CD4C, where there was a maximum front setback. So that would be on the principal and secondary sides, which would restrict the parking in front of the buildings. So right now we have it amended potentially that CD4C again, your Nashville Pike, You change it from, I think it's 30 feet maximum setback for the building. So that requires the building to be closer to the street to allow one row, like an aisle, and then two rows of parking versus like a large parking lot. So changing that from 30 feet maximum to a 90 foot maximum to give them room for the buffer yard, row of parking, aisle, row of parking, sidewalk of the building. We got feedback that not having any parking in front of those areas was really a negative thing. to get users. We still kept the maximum setback in CD4, which is along your south water, up onto Bly, areas that we're likely going to see some redevelopment. And we thought that was more appropriate to keep Limiting parking in front of those areas. That's where this came from. Do you want to keep that or do you want to allow parking in front of those buildings?

What is the max? 20 feet?

The buildings could not be more than 20 feet from their property line.

One other thing. The concept of building site comes in here again. The front setback when you have a what everybody has, which is a drive aisle going through there, an internal drive, your front setback is measured from that internal drive. It's not measured from the highway.

Yeah, but if you have 20-foot max, ultimately where my comment generated, I understand you could look at it from the actual property line, but if you're measuring it from the... From the drive aisle in the internal drive? Yeah. If it's 20 foot max, that's a parking space.

Yes.

So you basically have no parking at your front door. Unless you're making people park across the drive aisle.

And that's what happens. That's exactly what happens. They step across the drive aisle and there's the parking.

Okay. So ultimately what you're trying to... What you're trying to achieve there is like where Double Dogs and Dose Bros and everything's at. You have an internal drive and then sidewalk, so you have no parking in front of the building. You have parking out in the parking lot in the designated parking areas. If that's what we're trying to achieve... I may change my tone on my answer.

The reason that it's set up that way is that if you've got a Walmart site, they've come in, they typically do their Walmart, they do the parking. there's never any possibility later for you to end up turning that into another kind of development without having that exact thing happening. A lot of these places are getting redeveloped by infilling parking lots. And so the idea would be you'd do it parking now right across the internal drive.

All your parking there.

And then later, you can end up infilling right there and face another street in. And there's a lot of development being done now. You see some over at, if you've been down like Green Hills, there's a lot of commercial parking now. I mean, commercial development now where they're doing shops on those internal drives on both sides of them. And that was done back when they redeveloped Green Hills. But it's kind of a common thing to do.

Yeah.

So it's kind of forward thinking about the evolution of the site.

Where, and this is something I may have missed, but where in the code do we define the front setback and the yard principal frontage? Because my first thought was that whenever I saw a front setback, that's from the property line.

The front setback is defined. It's in the definitions. Okay.

Front setback is from the frontage road or the internal drive, not from the property line, right?

That's right. That's correct. What? I think that the big thing that a lot of cities are trying to do is to improve their corridor sprawl development so that when redevelopment happens, it ends up not being just the same thing that's been happening because it's like a model that people don't particularly love. And then the more retail you have going internet as opposed to people coming to big stores, the less and less retail you're going to have on the ground. And you're going to need to be able to redevelop that. That's the idea.

OK. After reading this definition, ultimately what I'm hearing is that anyone that wants to develop commercial property and have a parking lot in the front of the building, they have their property line, and then they need to establish a building site on that property. That's right. And if they don't establish the building site, then they have to meet, then the front setback is the property line.

That's right.

Is that your interpretation? Okay. Okay. If we're establishing building sites on...

When you're talking about building sites, you're talking about footprint?

Well, it's not just footprint. Well, technically, yes. Ultimately, you're...

It's a lot that's not recorded.

It's an imaginary line that's around the building. That front of the building basically is saying that the site has to be 20 feet from the internal street. The other assumption here is that the result is you want to be able to see the building and not have a row, a sea of parking in front of the building.

Yeah. It's promoting green space in front of the building.

Well, like the setbacks in four C or short anyway. So it's not really in the way we wrote it originally. I think it had a zero setback. Maybe I think we may have gotten the 20 feet as, as we went through. Yeah. What is potentially promoting in front of the building though is a, um,

I'm trying to think how to explain this. Well, it's not paved. Tree wells. I mean, they could choose to pave it if they wanted to, but ultimately, if I were to develop a property like that, it would promote tree wells, landscape gardens, things like that. Sidewalk.

You have to have the sidewalks anyway on each side of it.

You potentially end up with pockets of patio space for the retail spaces, things like that.

Yeah, but just not cars.

Correct. I like it. So no change.

I have a quick question.

Yeah.

Like ADA, how would that work?

So you would still, basically you'd have your ADA spaces across the drive aisle and you'd have a crosswalk with an ADA ramp, which I mean, we're seeing.

Yeah.

Now, like if you go to like dose pros or double dogs or all those strips, like all the parking is across. It makes for a much, I guess, more aesthetically pleasing,

attractive building. And it makes the sort of the whole thing work more for the pedestrian. It's again, it comes back to that as opposed to having, you know, the massive parking lot and that you have your building, you know, like every Lowe's, if you think about it has an internal drive going right by the middle of it and the parking starts right across from it. That's already the way it's done. So,

Okay.

And that's how the developers that we talked to, like that's how they've done it in other places is the drive building, drive aisle, parking on its own deal.

And we're talking about all commercial, but this does allow for residential as well. In some of the districts, yes. Well, CD4 in particular.

Yeah, CD4 is a mixed use.

CD4 requires actual lots too. It's not just building sites on big parcels. I guess no change.

I like it. Forgive me, this might be way too forward thinking, but I just got back from Europe. It seems like nobody owns a car over there, but a lot of people use a car over there. With the advent of autonomous vehicles and, of course, what we see in Uber and all that is that People basically just get a car to get where they're going, and then they pop out. This puts them dropping it off right at the door without dropping them off and having to walk between cars to get to the door. I like that. All right, next highlight.

So this one, the one on the next page we already talked to our consultants about, it was a flag lock question. The next one, okay. This came up from previous comments. So automotive cleaning, that used to be a part of automotive repair. Those were all out in the same district. Right now, they're shown in CD4, which is your MRO, MU, PGC, R6 equivalent, and CD4C, which is your Nashville Pike, your CS, your CG areas. There was a question of... Is it too intense for CD4, which in talks with our consultants, we think it might be. We think we don't necessarily want to have it in CD4. And then do we want to see a use like that allowed in industrial zonings, which we don't have right now. We don't have really any automotive uses like that allowed in industrial.

And when we're talking about automotive cleaning.

Yes, car washes. Car washes.

I mean... The vast majority of our car washes, though, are along the Nashville Pike corridor.

Yeah, so they're all mostly in PGC zoning districts. The newer ones all are. So Savannah, Windsong, Nashville Pike.

So ultimately, if we keep it out of CD4, if someone wanted to put a car wash in along the Nashville Pike corridor, and it was in industrial, would they have to rezone it to industrial zoning?

They still could. CD4C, we're saying it's still allowed in CD4C.

Okay.

where most of your bigger commercial will be.

But the CD4 allows for residential. It does.

It does. Okay. That almost makes sense. That was a little too intense.

Try to remember just between CD4 and CD4C. CD4C is a hybrid auto plus walkable service. CD4 is supposed to be a true walkable environment. To have a car wash plugged in in the middle of that streetscape, it just doesn't work. To me, it's more, let's get it out of CD4, put it in CD4C where it belongs, or light industrial.

Do you want to see it in light industrial?

The light industrial? You mean someone's going to put a car wash out on Airport Road? I doubt it.

I'm not saying that they will.

I'm okay with the use being allowed. I don't see anyone using it. Maybe.

They're going to put them in 4Cs. I think that's where they're going to end up.

Where they all are right now.

It's allowed in 4C, not in CD4. The question is, do we allow it in light of nostril? I'm fine with that. That's a less... intensive use than most of the industrial uses that are going to be in there anyways.

Mostly the aesthetic of it and how big a space it takes. Yeah.

Well, I could also see, I mean, you could throw like a detail shop. It's going to be an auto cleaning shop. Is it not?

So detail... That probably would be auto cleaning.

Now that is something I would definitely see in light industrial because of the industrial use and the industrial warehousing of being able to utilize the inside of the warehouse to actually detail the cars. I would definitely be on board with having it as an allowed use in light industrial.

Do we have a definite definition of light industrial now? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Y'all needed one of those. We keep finding places that don't have light industrial definitions.

I would not put it in that. Just in Tennessee. Live work district.

Oh, the SD live. Yeah. Yeah. I would not put it there.

I don't think it's allowed in that one. Any other comments on that? Okay. Next, Jillian.

So I know Tanner's not here, but the question came up of should we also consider solar panels as principal uses on property and not just accessory uses on property?

I mean, I think he had mentioned the last time we met that it being, I think he was even open to it being a principal use, but with conditions.

Yes.

I mean. I'm sorry, bring me up to speed.

What's the difference between a principal use? Solar panels.

Solar panels, so like a solar field. Oh, okay. Basically, that being the only use on the property.

We have nothing about solar in our current code. Nothing. So this one, it's shown as an accessory use. So someone can have solar panels with some conditions for screening and things like that. We don't have it as a principal use standalone on a site right now. Oh, and we need to allow... We want to consider that.

But don't we have to provide... An area for every use? No. Not as a principal use?

Not, no.

I mean, I don't think it should be allowed in every use or every district, but I definitely think that it being... principal use should be allowed in appropriate districts.

Well, it's got to go in certain districts. If somebody came into this town and said, I want to build a solar, not a solar farm, but a principal use, where would you tell them it could go? industrial i don't think they could do it i mean oh i thought you had to make an accommodation for every use i mean the classic example is an adult entertainment nobody wants it but it has to be allowed so we put it in industrial that's a little different because that's first amendment free speech issues that okay solar panels wouldn't implement okay um

I mean, I'm assuming most people's initial inclination is to allow it in industrial zones. That would probably be the initial. But the majority of the solar panel farms that I'm seeing are all in ag.

Yes.

Which, I mean, because depending on how you go about it, like you can actually still farm the property. But then there's a question as to whether or not that's a principal use.

I mean, so I don't think anyone's ever approached us about a solar farm. Now, solar panels, yes. Want them on their house, want them on their property, yes.

I could see someone in the next 15, 20 years asking, hey, I want to put a solar farm and I want to sell this renewable energy to... the industrial complexes on the east side of town.

And I'm not saying that's not something that we'd see in the future. I'm not saying that at all, but like maybe you don't need to do it with this necessarily, unless you're prepared to do that. So I feel like that's a, that's a good amount of research.

I mentioned last time too, that, that just keep in mind that one of your biggest, um, citizen inputs was the trying to save what little ag land there is still so that's a that's that's a thing in in some people's minds and the importance of green space yeah that did come up a lot i saw something interesting over in england they had solar panels in floodplain not floodways but that in this floodplain and then sheep all under the solar price so yeah So if they're trying to energize industry, it seems like putting them in an industrial place is the place that it makes sense to do it. And I don't know where else you could really, what other district you could put it in, other than ag, if you, you know. And do we even have anything zoned ag still? I guess we have some.

Sure.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Currently, yes.

There's an equivalent. A lot of Long Hollow is ag.

Which is all being rezoned with the new code.

To an equivalent to ag.

Yeah. But I don't... My initial thought is, yes, it should be allowed principal use, but I don't know the district and I don't even know the conditions. I mean, in industrial zoning, I don't even know if you would have conditions.

Like, you would obviously have... We'd probably have, like, distances from residential prop. Like, you'd probably have some stuff like that. And there's conditions for the accessory ones. We'd probably look at that and see what they are and if we'd want to apply them to a principal.

Might even want to have city council be... deal with it as a special, really special exception. That's true.

Do you have the answer you need, I guess, for now? We can look at it. Is it just industrial or is it industrial and light industrial?

I would think both. I think what you have now is heavy industrial and light industrial. Heavy industrial meaning really industrial.

We'll look at it.

Okay, all right.

The next one that came up was gas pumps and gas stations are currently required in the third layer. So that is essentially behind the building.

Behind the building?

Yes. And is that a thing you want to keep?

So this was a comment I provided. I've seen this done, but I have not seen one done in my opinion, effectively. And when I mean effectively, like aesthetically. Because the one that I can think of off the top of my head is South Hartman Drive in Lebanon in front of the Home Depot. I think it's a twice daily. What they did is Lebanon required them to have the fuel pumps on the other side of the building away from South Hartman. South Hartman is the main corridor. So what you have is you have a fuel station that has a front facade, front of the building, the entrance to the store is on the back, and then there's pumps. So, I mean, people still access the store, but in my opinion what happens is the front of the store lacks an aesthetically pleasing facade, and it ends up not being maintained, in my opinion.

Because everybody was using the back as the front.

Yes. And so you end up with this weird, like, okay, do you put parking in the front? Do you not? Like, I don't know. When I thought of this comment, I also thought of the parcels remaining in town that a fuel station would go or could go. I don't know the viability of having the fuels in the third layer because they're either at a corner lot. Let's take Long Hollow Pike and Greenlee where they connect. You have two corner lots there. We actually have seen a site plan for a fuel station on one of those. So because you have two frontages and two streets that are requiring you to adhere to a layer system of first, second, third, you end up with like this kind of diamond-shaped lot with your fuel pumps. The other site I can think of is right there in front of or next to the Ford dealership along Nashville Pike. You've got a fuel station that's come in. They've done it to where it's actually the fuel pumps are on the side. They're not on the front, but on the side. But they would still be within a second layer. If the fuel pumps were in the back of the store, like I don't know. I don't know what that would look like. I just don't know what that would look like. From a front, like you would, most fuel stations, their front is like what people walk through. And so now you have a double-fronted building that people aren't accessing. I just...

I got a question. I used to own the store across from Sherwin-Williams. Are you telling me now if we built one, the Vermont would be behind the building? Yes. Based on this code? A logistical nightmare, especially for tankers coming in and out. And that's something that needs to be considered. There's a ton of money. It probably takes $3 to $5 million to do a new convenience store with today's standard, if not more. And you're fixing to add a whole bunch more to it.

So my comment to staff was... Like instead of in the third layer, could we enhance the landscaping along the frontage?

in between in between the street and i'm trying to put it on the bill i'm in agreement with you on that problem aesthetically i understand what they're doing and it would look great if the pumps were behind the building but i can tell you that in a i'm contracting type business and my guys pull trailers 18 foot trailers when they're going down the street and they're looking for fuel they're scouting out how accessible is this how can i turn in and you go into a blind situation, go into behind the building, you can get yourself into trouble real quick pulling a large trailer. Try pulling an RV camper, pulling into a gas station that you don't know how much access you have. I don't think it's worth it. Aesthetically, it's nice, but I don't think it's worth the functionality tradeoff.

I agree 100%, and you're looking at the minimum now is an acre lot for a convenience store. You're potentially adding half or double to what you would need for tankers to get in and out.

I would... And if you showed me a site that was done right, I may change my mind.

Yeah, I mean, there have been sites done right. I'm not sure the functionality aspect of them has been totally thought through. Yeah. I know as far as getting the vehicles in and out, it's all been thought through. But the idea is you would, like on a corner, you'd have buildings on both corners. You still wouldn't see it. the, the, you know, the, the, um, gas pumps are back here behind that corner, but I don't know how you get the tankers in there either. I don't, I don't know that.

Well, you won't economically.

Yeah.

I mean, it, I don't know. I think there, it, there's a strategic location for these fuel stations, convenience stores. Um, And I can think of a handful of sites that have not been developed today that likely a fuel station will go someday in the city. But if we keep this in here, then basically what we're saying is we're not going to have another fuel station developed in the city limits with this there. So I think if we're going for a more aesthetically pleasing scenario, I almost feel like enhancing the frontage between the street and the actual... So instead of having like a property line and then pavement, like you've got a 15 or 20 foot section that you've got to throw... additional landscaping in, like four board fence, like an actual like thought through landscape almost turned into a feature. I can think of down there at the Carothers Boulevard in Franklin. There's a handful of fuel stations off of that corridor. The fuel pumps are in front of the buildings. But between the street and the actual site, they've got a four-board fence and actual, like, decent landscaping along the entire corridor.

I'm in total agreement with you. It needs to be really beefed up in the screening. And the most important part of the screening is you have a lot of ambient light. Those things are so well lit. We had a recent example where a neighborhood next to it, they were going to see a lot of light from that no matter how well you shielded it down. So I think it needs to be heavily beefed up landscaping to block light emitted and stuff like that.

Well, I think they ended up changing their site to have a 40-foot landscape buffer.

They did.

That was called landscaping.

Do you have any comments?

I was just thinking if we beef up the landscaping buffer, that's what we want to try to require. If it's a site distance issue or anything like that. Like, I don't know. I'm just trying to think of how we would do that. Like if then they run into like, oh, we have, it's on a corner lot. So it's site distance issues now. So you really don't enhance it much. Um, I'm just trying to think, do we make it a bigger setback? Kind of like, I don't know. I'm just trying to think that through.

That's a good point. I guess the other thing that I just thought of as you brought that up is if you actually. require a, and maybe the corner is a little bit different, but along the frontage your landscape is beefed up. But if you actually require the 15 or 20 feet, it actually almost automatically allows them to meet the throat length requirements from the street, which is supposed to be 40 feet.

The other thing I would ask, if you did that, are you going to require Sam's Club, Costco, Walmart, Kroger to move their fuel pumps to the back when they build a new building?

I mean, that's the way it reads right now. Now, one thing is you're talking about 4C again. Versus everywhere else. Do you want to change your standards everywhere else to allow what Sam's and Costco are doing? Because it's supposed to be an exception to, it's an exception district. It covers a lot of property, but it's like intended to be, you know, let them do what they do. So, you know, but if y'all don't think there's a way to feasibly do it, I don't know how you can screen it. Cause like the pumps are like way tall.

Well, I'm not, and I'm not talking about like an opaque screening where we can't see it at all. Right. I'm just trying to provide a little something a little, even if it was like the majority of the added landscaping was like smaller, shorter shrubs. Like it's still something better than just property line, grass, pavement pumps. Yep.

And there are cities all over the place that already have beefed up public frontage landscape requirements on all of their commercial corridors. It's just a thing in a lot of places. And when you're driving through one, you know it's better than what you see many times. And so there's definitely a way to do that. I think they're set back a little bit, and then they're going to have some street trees. I think maybe... And there's some places actually in Franklin that actually have, you can tell, landscaping was an intended thing that they made them do. there's a shell station, um, at, uh, in Barry farms that I know the city just grappled with a lot. And I can't remember how landscaped it is, but they were even, you know, they even were regulating what their building could look like at that point.

Yeah. Well, that one's a pretty unique gas station. I know exactly what you're talking about. Uh, a different type of architecture. Um, but like the look and feel of the whole building is, uh, It reminds me of a lot of the fuel stations you'll see down in Florida. That one's, I think, a unique case. Those pumps are... They're right there in the front.

No question about that. past the thorns. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Put it to the front where they can empty their gas and stuff.

I'd just maybe suggest that Jillian's group sit down and try to figure out what those landscape requirements need to be and kind of move from there.

I think it's something you're going to have to get with these major convenience store chains and Wall Wallet that's coming would be a prime. They're top notch, but you're going to have to see what kind of problems it's going to cause these people if you start putting your pumps in the back.

The feedback I'm getting is that we don't want to do that.

That's what I've heard.

Okay.

I was kind of iffy until we started talking about, like, imagine if you're kind of in a rush and you drive back there and then you're... a whole bunch of trucks or RVs and a gridlock and then you're just stuck waiting for everybody else to move. I don't know.

Okay, you get the answer you need.

I have what I need.

All right, what is next? We got 10.1.

Yeah, we're looking at that one. There's some language in there that I just need to get with engineering on, so we'll get that clarified. That came from you, Tiffany. And we haven't figured out where it came from yet, so we're going to backtrack and see what it was intended to be.

We've said that neither the planning consultants nor the planning staff wrote it, so we're trying to figure out where it came from.

We're not sure where it came from, so we'll figure that out. Um, and then, so then the nonconforming section. So that was on the next page, the 21 dash 10. And then we did have a question on 21 dash 32. So your review, our review criteria to determine the limits of a minor versus a major amendment for planning commission. And if that should be kind up in some way, given any kind of more objective parameters, or if everyone is comfortable with the, uh,

I'm comfortable with what we have.

On that particular point, y'all might want to check with the city attorney because right this second, I'm not seeing that there's really a check down. It just is a declaration that it's minor or major. I just watched what y'all do. It seems like that you might want to figure out what the criteria are. It's down to, it's like making a substantial or a significant, even if it's got a subjective word in it that y'all have to deal with, it might just need those words.

I think it does use substantial. It might. Yeah. So it's your density changes, your mix of use changes.

So y'all just maybe just use those words whenever you say it's a model.

Isn't it just for existing plan developments?

Yeah, so it's when you're amending a PMDP. That's the only time it plays a part.

I agree with John.

But if you're comfortable with what it is.

I don't think it matches the current code. We didn't change it.

I don't think the system we've been operating under is broken by any means. The way I see the major matter is that council wants us to deal with small issues and not bother them with it. But if it's something that council... needs to be involved in. It's our duty to make sure it gets to them. The litmus test that we have is kind of subjective, but the concept is make sure they get a say in it and see it.

Steve, would you agree? Would you agree with John about the major, I mean, it's basically up to us to determine, okay, it's minor enough. We shouldn't I almost shouldn't bother y'all with the change.

What I'd like to see, it would be a good one on this appeals committee, some of these older properties, as long as we're improving them.

Yeah.

You know, there needs to be some exceptions made for these older properties. Now, anything new of these new guidelines that you're building, you know the guidelines. Yes. That's, that's my biggest concern. Okay.

What else do you have?

Those were my big items. Um, yeah, there's other things in here that if you have any questions about, I'm happy to answer them. Or if you see it and have, when we get it prepared for the meeting in three weeks, there's anything in here that doesn't work.

Okay, cool.

Those were the things we needed some feedback on.

Okay. Will you, did the mayor forward the individual that spoke, Michelle spoke? Yes, I have that. Okay, so did we get those comments?

Sure, yeah. And we'll look through them and see what, if there's, based on this discussion, we'll see what we can add for the non-conforming. Find a middle ground for everybody.

Since you have so much free time, can I ask one more thing of you when we come back? Yes. On this change of use, could you come up with three hypothetical challenging scenarios that you give us that... that would make us think. I mean, it doesn't have to be major, but just, and it doesn't have to be, matter of fact, it shouldn't be real accounts, real situations.

Okay.

Just give us three hypotheticals because it sounds pretty straightforward to me, but I know some people have concerns about them. Just make us think.

I can do that. Always. Happy to do it.

Okay. Um, Anything else to add? Do you have anything else to add? I don't.

Okay.

Any other questions for the consultant or staff? Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time again. I guess that being said, we'll go to item number 11, other business. Do you have any other business?

I do not have anything.

Okay. Any announcements?