Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call the April 27th, 2026 City of Gardener Planning Commission meeting to order. Please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

No one's hurt, are they? Sorry about that. Let's begin with the commissioner roll call. We'll start on my right. Commissioner Lansburg, present. Commissioner Vander Smith, present. Commissioner Sosa, present. Commissioner Berg, present. Commissioner Junan, present. Commissioner Aluchcci, present. Oh,

we have a quorum. All right. All matters listed within the consent agenda have been distributed to each member of the planning commission for study. These items are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion with no separate discussion. If separate discussion is desired, an item may be removed. enacted by one motion with no separate discussions.

Excuse me. While we pause AI, if if a separate discussion is desired, an item may be removed from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda at the request of the planning commission or the applicant. Are there any items that a member of the planning commission would like to remove from the consent agenda? Um just one small note on item four of the consent agenda condition two which is that the plat has to go to the Johnson County Board of uh commissioners and the airport that has already really been met the county in Corinvest it does not it doesn't need to go for just this final plat since they saw the preliminary.

Perfect. That that'll be on item four as we get to it. Okay. Uh hearing none or no no no others. May I have a motion? Second. Motion made by Commissioner Aluchcci. Second by Commissioner Burke.

Um got to go around and say all in favor. I'm so sorry. All in favor? I opposed. Any abstensions? The motion carries. 6 include myself. Excuse me. The motion carries 70.

We'll keep this short. We wanted to continue our opportunity for education and helping make decisions.

So I'll go ahead and get started just staff and legal counsel thought that it would be beneficial to have a discussion about deliberations and the decision making process. And so Katherine and I are going to tag team a little bit on this. Um, but we wanted to start out by saying uh what are findings of facts and why are they important in the decision-making process? Findings are conclusions that are reached as a result of an inquiry or investigation. And I'm going to get sort of off of just things related to planning commission um more broadly in terms of the findings of fact. It's more from a legal perspective. They serve as the professional datadriven basis for informed decisions derived from policy and technical assessments and directly inform the conclusions that you would draw or the recommendations that you would make. Um we need to ensure that findings are based also on long range planning documents and the code and are not just personal opinion. So the purpose is to ensure that when the decisions are made or recommendations are made that they are defensible should we end up in court. And I I don't say that because I want to jinx the commission. It's more just to be proactive and continuing to provide the commission with information to help come to rational conclusions and make informed decisions. To that end, more than one conclusion can be made. Um, we all have different interpretations of things that we hear and understand. So, I may have one interpretation and you may have another and another commission member may have another, for example. Think about the reasoning criteria. There are 10. Um, not all may apply to each application and they don't all carry the same

weight. So depending on what you find important, you may rely on one of those conditions or excuse me criterias. Um while someone else might not think that's as important. Couple of thing pitfalls that you may want to be aware of in terms of derailing the decision or conclusion includes not providing enough information or having enough discussion. what I would call um those breadcrumbs of how you got to your decision or your recommendation. Be careful again, like I said, not to mix personal opinions with facts and don't base decisions on generic statements such as a proposed development is going to increase traffic because all development is going to increase traffic to some extent. The land development code or LDC includes criteria by which most of our applications should be reviewed. We provided those in your notebooks that you can always look back at if you want to look at the particular criteria and base your recommendation on those criteria. Wanted to provide one example. This is one of the zoning review criteria and the criteria specifically says the zoning and use of properties nearby and the compatibility with potential uses in the proposed district with these zoning districts. So what you might want to think about is are the potential uses allowed in that proposed zoning district compatible with the zoning and existing or allowed uses of the property nearby? Ah, we always forget about that. Thank you. So, if you if you think that the proposed zoning is compatible with the

zoning of the surrounding properties, then you would say yes, it the zoning is compatible and therefore I'm recommending the resoning be approved. However, if you think that the proposed building types are much larger than the surroundings or that there's going to generate a larger amount of traffic based on information that we've provided from the applicant relative to a traffic study, then you may say, "No, I don't think this resoning is appropriate based on the building types are much larger and the traffic study indicated that they're going to have to do all these improvements or whatever you make your decision, but is based on that traffic study, which is interesting because I bring that up. However, we don't provide you the full traffic study. We try to give you an idea of from the executive summary. This these are the recommendations that the traffic study is making and in most cases that's a requirement that they make those road improvements.

I have a question for you on that. So on the corner of 167th and Gardner Road, there's the northwest corner of that land is for sale and I think it's it's uh zoned commercial, maybe heavy commercial, but right next to it would be zoned um there's some residential around. Yeah, we just approved the residential zoning for that a meeting or two ago. So when you look at the zoning and the compatibility of zoning side by side, is there a buffer consideration? So if somebody came in and said, "I'm going to build a gas station there on that corner because it's heavy commercial." But there's a

Yes, the buffer requirements are in our code and it's based on the use as a So for example, you mentioned a gas station and that would be a certain level if you will based on the zoning. When I say level, I mean level of of use and therefore it relates to the adjoining property that's residential is a different level. And that difference is where we find in our code the buffer requirements. Um and those buffer requirements include not only depth but types of materials andor walls and things like that. So that's one way that they may have um reduced the impact on the surrounding property.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

Well, I've got this last slide before I turn it over to Katherine in terms of some po potential findings that um examples. So, you might want to say that it conforms with the comprehensive plan, the future land use map that's found in the comprehensive plan. Just because it doesn't doesn't mean you shouldn't approve it, but you need to explain why that um you're still recommending approve it. Maybe that area of the city has changed over time and our future land use plan hasn't caught caught up with it, for example. Um, other things relate to the compatibility of potential uses and nearby property. Um, character of the neighborhood, the if it's the scale of the buildings is compatible or in with the case of plan developments or plan zoning, the proposed development plan represents an improvement over what we would have seen had they not gone the plan development route. might be because of the mixing of uses or they've design provided some design elements that make it a better project overall. So, any more questions? There's something really going on over here. Um, I was going to turn it over to Katherine now from a legal perspective. She wanted to talk just a little bit about some examples from case law as well as the appeal process. So, Okay. I don't want to mess with the mic too much. Yeah. Really? So, what happens if a decision is appealed? So, there is a table in

chapter seven or title 17 of the municipal code. It's 17.03.010. It is literally a like chart and it shows in certain scenarios like planned developments or conditional use permits or reasonzoning whatever. It's showing you the type of application and who has decision-making authority over that whether it's you guys or the governing body and then if it's ever appealed who does it go to. So there's a requirement not only with municipal decisions but also with like school boards for example where it an application or any uh administrative issue that arises within a municipality has to go through every level it can within the municipal entity. So in this case some things are your guys's final decision. You know how we make that distinction of this you this is something you're just recommending to the governing body versus this is your final say. So there are things that have to go through either just youall or the governing body as well or sometimes even the board of zoning appeals and that's also outlined in this chart. So, for example, the things that you all have final say on are like uh preliminary plats and final plats and final plans for a plan development, that kind of thing. And then things that have to be um final decisions of the governing body would be of course reszoning is kind of the biggest one, but also conditional use permits. That's another big one too. So what happens if let's say the applicant is not very happy about the decision even when it gets to the governing body level. So if something is recommended by you and it goes to the governing body the only the

next step there unless the governing body wants you guys to elaborate on your previous decision or something is that applicant has to take it to district court. That's the only time it can go to court is if it's gone through this entire process with you all or if it's something like a variance. Um that will be a board of zoning appeals thing. So once it reaches the final level within gardener that is the only time where something can be taken up to district court. So that is litigation. It has officially entered the court system. So that goes District Court, Kansas Court of Appeals, Kansas Supreme Court, all of that stuff. There are some relevant cases. There's one landmark case really, what we call a landmark case, and it happened in the 70s and it's called Golden, City of Overland Park. And that's kind of what a lot of cities base their reasonzoning elements on in their code is because in this case, the applicant wanted to reszone his property from an office building to basically CP1, planned retail. And the planning commission basically said no, they denied it. Trial court said that this was an unreasonable denial of this reasonzoning and it makes it all the way up to the Kansas Supreme Court, which for municipal things that that's kind of a big deal. And the Supreme Court sided with the applicant, which is also kind of a big deal. That's kind of rare. And they said that the planning commission has to establish this kind of eight factor framework for considering resoning. The court, Kansas court of appeals wants you all to look at elements not just with resoning but with any application you hear and state on the record what elements you are considering and

why you think this application meets those things because when if this ever were to go to court that's what they would look at is your decision- making your processing of all the elements that's in the code usually like in a city of Levvenworth case. That's another good one, but it was all the way in 1990. But they basically reaffirmed the planning commission decision because the city has considered all of these relevant factors and established it on the record. So if you do that correctly, trial court and above has uh better reasoning to back up your decision. also why it's important and this is kind of a separate presentation at some other point but you are required the city is required by the Kansas open meetings act to of course we record it but to have these meetings noticed to the public in a certain manner and then everything must be recorded and kept on record for people to go back and look at why you made this certain decision etc. So, not only does your analysis of these factors for these applications help out the city if this were to ever get litigated, but it serves a requirement, the legal requirement for the community to see what your reasoning is behind yes or no to these applications, if that makes sense. Um it's you need to be uh facing the public openly and making them aware of the decision makingaking process so in case they decide to apply they know what kind of factors they have to meet and it doesn't seem like you all are making decisions just behind closed doors. So that's why I stress sometimes when we're

in meetings where I say go and look at title 17, go look at the code factors that are in your binders because when you are looking at these applications, it of course helps sometimes if you want to hear testimony from the public, but that alone cannot be your reasoning behind making any kind of decision. You have to rely on those factors in your binder. And the reason for that is because those factors have been pretty well established throughout um case law history in Kansas and we make sure to have those factors in there so that uh you're considering the proper things when looking at these applications. So any questions?

I have a question. So um so um when we are reviewing and recommending approval for uh the wording is already comes from staff, right? So, do they before they recommend something because pretty much we're just reading off what's saying on on the recommendation. Do they do they are there double-checking to make sure there's any because we don't know,

right? So staff's role is not only to assist with the technical standpoint because they are the people who live and breathe the code. So they look through those specific like numerical requirements with certain footage and all that stuff that you would never be expected to know about that's deep within the code. So that's kind of they help out in that sense. And then also sometimes the wording, that's why there's suggested wording, whether you say if you approve, you say this. If you deny, you would say this, because it kind of just helps the meeting flow better, just to make sure that everyone's kind of following a script where we're not rambling on and losing people if they were to read a a transcript of all of this.

So when they're recommending something, they're using the wording that in the future may help with,

right? They're trying to use wording that's very clear and concise and that's they do give multiple options. So yes, they end up recommending something based on their technical review of the code, but overall, if you disagree with that or if you need more clarification about that and you need to ask the applicant things or you've heard public testimony that raises additional questions, that's what where you guys step in is to look at the technical knowledge that's been already passed along from staff and apply that to those elements because uh staff looks at those elements, but that's not their first and um that's not their initial point of review is to do the legal review and go over the actual elements of everything. They're kind of more of a technical assistance. So staff isn't they're recommending they're not telling if that makes sense. Just because it would be impossible if you guys had to go start from square one. Well, I don't remember. There were a few times that we actually had to add a few things to the

There was, you know, Yep. a few, but we we had or take away things. So, that's where you all come in is if something seems impractical or if you have a question about a traffic study or something that's you are having the perspective of the every civilian that lives here who does not have that technical knowledge that staff has. So you you all bring a different approach to the commission and that's why your discussion is very important on the record so that if a trial court or an applicant who is very frustrated with this decision goes back and looks they see well someone wanted this and someone said no and they had a long discussion about all these elements. Thank you.

Any other questions? maybe more or less a clarification versus a question. But whenever there is uh I'll just say something that we might not want to recommend or approve as an individual you know planning commissioner what I'm hearing is we we should provide a bit more color as to the reasoning why such as referencing back to the the development code and right where that particular item did not meet it.

Yes. Especially I mean for yeses and nos but especially for denials explaining why that's happening and what particular element perhaps or what factor is really weighing heavily on your denial. Not so that it just saves you guys if this were to ever be litigated, but because it informs future applicants of what you consider to be a substantial factor in anal in your analysis of their application. So that in the future maybe people don't do whatever you guys denied it for or they provide more of whatever you need you needed from that past applicant that didn't have that element and that needs to be in the motion. It could be in your discussion.

Okay. Oh yeah. It could be. So since all this is recorded, every single thing you go back and look at the full discussion. Courts have gone back and looked, especially for cities that just do transcripts, which would stink to have to be that person who types that out, but they will go back and look at the full discussion. It's not just your actual motion. So all of this is on the record. Just had another So talk about transcript, right? Mhm. So in the past used to be word for word. Commissioner Sza said this blah blah.

We don't see that anymore. So how's it play into they used to have to review a video? So the video is kept online. And so the Kansas Open Meetings Act permits video instead of transcript just for ease of access and also because cities don't want to have to have someone type out everything. Um so video meets the coma requirements

and even sometimes recording. The main thing is that you provide proper notice of the meetings and that people know when and where we're having these meetings and that this is recorded somewhere. Doesn't matter if it's video or transcript. But I just think YouTube is like an easier thing nowadays whereas back a few years ago probably it was a little more difficult to figure out an alternative other than just using a transcript. Any other questions? Okay, thank you guys.

I'm going to try to do this without any reverb anywhere, but uh item number two on the regular agenda, Aspen Place Apartments, final plat planned urban development residential located at 101 Aspen Lane. And seeing there's I'm so sorry. That's where we started.

Okay. Last month we had two items and final class. Those went to council dedication issues with that rental which actually was very useful in terms of of They were thinking about concern with the HOA because that is a separate entity that would be the HOA would have to address their restrictions and they didn't want to seen as well when there is an HOA we take this into account but when there isn't HOA then we don't have So I will also let you know that we have another rental agenda. In addition, we have a preliminary coming back in order to address those. Lastly, we do have a datmorial.

26.

Any other questions or discussion? May I quick?

So just curious. I'm scared.

Um, so a lot of things like character of the neighborhood, things like that or those elements that are actually written in the code are very well informed by public opinion. For example, HOAs can come up and say the character of our neighborhood is very familyfriendly and we don't want blah blah blah blah blah. So that plays into you factoring in those elements that are in the code. It kind of helps explain it. Uh, I don't want you all to consider public opinion as literal. Like, I feel bad for those people and I don't want their kids to be up at night all the time with this noise and I feel bad for you. So, I'm going to deny this. It has to be kind of broader than that. It needs to be the actual elements that are in code. However, you can consider people's personal opinions of, you know, if they think something would be a nuisance or if they think that something doesn't match the character of where they live, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, personal feelings do not play into it. uh public opinion is to better inform the situation, maybe past relationships with having other types of short-term rentals in the neighborhood, whatever. It kind of informs the history of the neighborhood, the character of the neighborhood, but it's not your personal um feelings about wanting to help these people out or whatever. Needs to be a little more than that. But even using maybe last meetings, HOA, the president of HOA came in identified their rules. Obviously, using that as an opinion is satisfactory. Yeah, looking at the HOA's rules can help inform you all of what the people in that neighborhood expected when they moved in and all of these things that go to the character of it, but those rules do not apply to the city,

right? So that those are a private entity since it's an HOA. So that's all well and good that he explained that, but that should not directly affect your conclusion of whether you approve or deny. Okay. Any other discussion? May I get a motion to adjurnn? I'll make that motion. Second. Motion made by Commissioner Burke, second by Commissioner Junan. All in favor? All right.