Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the 22 June, 2026 meeting of the City of Gardner Planning Commission to order. Please rise and join me for reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll begin with Commissioner Rollcall.

Commissioner Landsberg, present.

Commissioner Juneman, present. Commissioner Oluchi, present.

We have a quorum. 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 upon by one motion with no separate discussions. If a separate discussion is desired on an item, that item may be removed from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda. Are there any items a member of the commission would like to be removed from the consent agenda? Hearing none, may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved.

Second. Motion made by Commissioner Jeniman, seconded by Commissioner Eluchi. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries 4-0 in favor. Now we move to the regular agenda. The first item on the list is 624 East Dogwood Street Conditional Use Permit. Does the applicant have a presentation?

Hi, everyone. Hello. My name is Jacob Fajon, and I'm here with my wife, Priscilla Fajon, and daughter, Lydia Fajon.

If you could speak to the microphone so that we can start.

OK, yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I was saying that my name is Jacob Fajon, and I'm here with my wife, Priscilla Fajon, and my daughter, Lydia Fajon. So we are here to seek for a short-term rental permit for our property at Darkwood Street, 624 East Darkwood Street. We intend to do short-term rentals in that place, and our target is to target where we look forward to target people like line workers, construction workers, health care workers, people who just come into the city to work for some time and then go back to where they live. And we've been doing this short-term rental business since 2022. We think that it's a kind of lucrative business to give us some side money besides our regular jobs that we have. And we manage the property ourselves. We take very good care of the property. We do the mowing. We do the shoveling of the snow. And we take care of the garbage. Our subscription for garbage is by the KC Yeah, KC Disposer. So they pick up the garbage every Thursday. And we try as much as possible to keep the place as clean as possible and to keep it quiet, not to disturb any neighbors, especially during quiet time, which begins from 10 PM. And we use platforms like Airbnb, who also help us a lot to track down people who have had any history of having parties. At the unit, we don't allow parties at all. It's totally forbidden. And we have very strict rules that all guests must abide by if they decide to book the place. And if there is anything that they think they will not be able to follow as far as the rules are concerned, then they are welcome not to book. book the place, and we are very strict on that. And so far on our other Airbnbs or other short-term rental businesses that we have, they have been doing very well as far as that is concerned. The place at Dogwood Street has extra parking, so the place can hold about six to seven vehicles, so we don't have any problems with people parking on the streets or anything to disturb neighbors. So that's a little bit about the business. I don't know if That's if the information is good enough or there are any questions.

Thank you. Do any of the commissioners have any questions for the applicant?

Not at this time.

OK. Thank you. Thank you so much. Does the staff have a presentation?

Good evening, commissioners. The applicant is requesting approval of a conditional use permit for a short-term rental of a detached single-family house in the Willow Springs subdivision. There is no homeowners association for this area. This property was brought to the attention of staff by a resident asking if a conditional use permit had been approved for a short-term rental at this location. Once the question was raised, staff contacted the property owner to ask if they were operating a short-term rental and notified them of a conditional use permit required by the Gardiner Land Development Code. The property owner subsequently submitted a conditional use permit application And as part of the application process, the applicant mailed out public notification letters to the neighbors, informing them that the item would appear at the meeting tonight. In response, two letters have been submitted by neighbors speaking against approval of the permit and were included in your packets. The lot is considered a detached house, suburban building type and is 70 feet wide and 8,550 square feet in size, which is similar to the rest of the neighborhood. The house has a two car garage and the rear yard is fenced, which serves to delineate their property boundaries. The subject property was originally purchased to be used to provide furnished longer term housing for longer tenancy situations. However, the owner had difficulty finding the longer term tenants and began using it as a short term rental. Short term rentals are defined in the LDC as dwellings that are rented for less than 30 consecutive days, and they require a conditional use permit to be approved. There are five specific standards applicable to short term rentals. which are included as condition two of the staff recommendation to ensure compliance. One of these is to post the occupancy limit, which with five bedrooms is 10 people for this house. The fifth standard specifically prohibits the property from being used to solely host parties and requires it to be used as a dwelling unit. So staff believes the impact to the area in regard to traffic generation and noise will generally be similar to that of a single family house. This will still, however, be highly dependent on the individual tenants and duration of stay. Staff, therefore, recommends the approval expires after two years with an administrative review at the end of this year and 2027 to see if there were any complaints and to ensure the five standards and any other conditions are being met. Staff recommends holding the public hearing and recommending approval of the conditional use permit with the three conditions as shown on screen. The third recommended condition was added to make sure any changes from what may be approved will go back through the process for approval. Also included is the slide of the conditional use permit review criteria to refer to if we have to and staff's available for any questions.

Do any of the commissioners have questions for staff?

Not at this time. Not at this time.

Thank you. This item requires a public hearing. We'll now open the public hearing. If anyone in the audience would like to speak regarding this item, if you have not already done so, please write your name and address on the sign-in sheet at the back of the room. When you come to the podium, please state your name and address for the record. Individual speakers will have three minutes. A speaker representing a group will be allotted seven minutes. Please address your comments and any questions to the Planning Commission. Any questions raised by those speaking will be addressed at the conclusion of the public hearing. Does anyone wish to speak on this? Okay, seeing no one approaching the podium. I'm sorry.

Oh, okay.

I apologize.

Well, we live across the street from that house. And when we bought our property, this was a residential neighborhood. And we bought the house under those auspices that it was a residential neighborhood. And this is going to be a business. So if you adopt this, you're changing this from a residence to a business. I have a problem with that. And also, how does that affect the value of the property next to this house? If people want to buy my house and they discover that there's this kind of a business across the street, I don't have the exact answer to that, but I'm afraid that it would not necessarily be positive. And I also wondered how it could be that This business has already been operating for quite a while before this application for approval ever was made. How was this gentleman able to conduct this business without getting approval? I think that's a problem. And also, if you... approve this and change it i guess this would change the um not commercially it would be a rental property

I believe it still falls under our rental zoning. The usage of it is still for residential purposes. Well, it does change. It's not exactly the residence that it originally was, right? And I don't know how.

How is it possible to operate this before it was approved?

Sir, we will answer all of your questions at the end. We want you to be able to have your full time to ask your questions, and then we will if you've got others. But I'm happy to answer it. In terms of how this came to our attention, it was based on a concern or a comment, complaint by someone in the neighborhood. We are not, as a staff, actively out there looking for them using the various platforms of the VRBO or the Airbnb, primarily because you don't get full information on their location for us to be able to address it until we do receive a complaint. if that makes sense.

Does anyone else wish to speak on this item? Making sure no one's signing in again. Seeing that no one else is approaching a podium, do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

I'll motion. Second.

Motion by Commissioner Landsberg, second by Commissioner Juneman. All in favor?

Aye.

The public hearing is now closed. Does any of the commissioners have questions for anyone?

For the staff, these conditional use permits, do they typically go for two years?

The various conditional use permit applications, some of them have different time periods. Because this is a relatively newer use for us, We are proposing to limit it to two years initially. There are examples of longer terms, but we usually allow those for a cell tower, for example. That's a much longer term. As part of your consideration, you can provide a term length, if you will, and it doesn't have to be exactly what staff's recommending if you have something that you feel is more appropriate, shorter or longer.

My question, I know they have to provide information to the city. Does that include the police department? And the reason I'm asking that is in case there's an emergency, how do we get ahold of the, you know, because we want the property owner to respond. So is that a requirement? I mean, it says city, but does that include the different entities?

I think it would. We are still working our way through this in terms of having the contact information for the property owner and property manager if that's how they're operating it. And we would make that information available to emergency services.

I, in the future, I'd like to see that as part of the conditions. You know, it specifically states.

That it specifically states the police department you're saying? Emergency services. Okay.

I have nothing else.

Okay. I would entertain a motion for this item.

i move that the gardener planning commission will recommend approval of the conditional use permit for a short-term rental at 624 east dogwood street subject to the following conditions conditions one through three i'll second motion made by commissioner lucci seconded by commissioner landisberg all in favor aye

I need you to go back. Two slides, please. One more. There we go. So the motion to recommend approval of conditional use permit for a short-term rental at 624 East Dogwood Street passes 4-0.

And this item will move on to the city council for consideration. and that meeting is July 20th.

Thank you. Item number two on the agenda is short-term or conditional use permit for short-term rental at 351 West Mockingbird Street. Does the applicant here would like to give a presentation?

house and so we want to be traveling around we got a camper and a truck and see how it goes for us and we kind of came up with the idea maybe we can short-term rental our house a little bit of income maybe cover the mortgage that would be really nice so yeah i'm a remote worker too so i'm not necessarily tied down to any house or you So basically, this house is going to be empty.

Thank you. Does any of the commissioners, do any of the commissioners have questions for the applicant before the staff presentation?

Do you have somebody local that's going to be managing the property?

Okay. Anybody else in the area, like spring hill or garden area, that actually walk over it regularly?

Again, my concern is the same as I had on the first one. If we don't have a way, if there's so many, if you're, you know, in California, you know, enjoying whatever, and something occurs, how do we get a hold of you? How do we get you or somebody here, you know, say the worst happens, you know? That's the concern. Thank you.

Thank you. Staff have a presentation?

or for rentals in the city. To staff's knowledge, no letters have been submitted by neighbors regarding this item. The lot is considered a detached house, suburban building type, and is seven feet wide and 8,700 square feet in size, which is similar to the neighborhood. The house has a two-car garage and the rear yard is fenced, which serves to delineate property values. The house is owner occupied and will primarily be used as a short term rental when the owners are doing longer term travel. The recommended condition two has the same five standards applicable to short term rentals as the previous item. In this case, the occupancy limit for this house

Thank you. Do any of the commissioners have questions for the staff?

No.

Okay.

This item also requires a public hearing.

We will now open for the public hearing. If anyone in the audience would like to speak regarding this item, if you have not already done so, please write your name and address on the sign-in sheet in the back of the room. And when you come to the podium, please state your name and address for the record. Individual speakers will have three minutes. A speaker representing a group will be allotted seven minutes. Please address your comments and any questions to the Planning Commission, and any questions raised by those speaking will be addressed at the conclusion of the public hearing. Does anyone wish to speak on this? No? OK. Seeing no one approaching the podium, is there a motion to close the public hearing?

TODD BANDUCCI. SO MOVED. SO MOVED. SO MOVED. SECOND. SECOND. SECOND.

MOTION TO MOTION TO MOTION TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING MOTION TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING MOTION TO CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING MADE BY COMMISSIONER GENTLEMEN, MADE BY COMMISSIONER GENTLEMEN, MADE BY COMMISSIONER GENTLEMEN, SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER ALLUCCI. SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER ALLUCCI. SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER ALLUCCI. ALL IN FAVOR? ALL IN FAVOR? ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. AYE. AYE. MOTION TO CLOSE PUBLIC MOTION TO CLOSE PUBLIC MOTION TO CLOSE PUBLIC HEARING PASSES. HEARING

I have one question, maybe a clarification. In the staff report and in a couple places, it mentions parking will be provided in the garage. However, in my research, looking at the listing, it mentions the garage is off limits. And so I just want to address that where, because that kind of amounts, you know, it matters for how many people will be able to park and not overflow in the street.

Thank you. That was all I had. Anyone else?

Okay, I would entertain a motion for this item.

I'll make that motion. Planning Commission recommends approval of the conditional use permit for a short-term rental at 351 West Mockingbird Street, subject to the following conditions, items one through three, as listed in the staff report.

I'll second. Motion made by Commissioner Juneman, seconded by Commissioner Landisberg. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Motion passes 4-0. The motion is Planning Commission recommends approval for the Conditional Use Permit for Short-Term Rental at 351st West Mockingbird Street. And then this will, as said before, this will go before the City Council 20 July. The third item on our list tonight is 167th and Kill Creek Rezoning. Does the applicant have a presentation?

to talk to you tonight about our project. Just give me a brief overview has been under construction so that just gives you a little bit of a sense of where we're at hill creek road will come through our development and connect to the existing hill creek road to the south and then madison avenue or madison street i apologize is currently planned through the hilltop ridge subdivision to the west We have 218 lots that we're proposing, and based on some market research, we're proposing two different lot sizes. of the 50 foot style and 120 of the 68 foot style and kind of one of the interesting things that we were proposing on this project is to mix those you know oftentimes you'll have a pod that's one size and a pod that's a different size what we did was kind of mixed it up a little bit to get a little bit of visual interest in the streets but primarily existing projects. identified that also contain betrayal and meander it somewhat from its normal position next to the collector. As I mentioned, our amenity areas also contain stormwater BMPs. We've done and submitted a stormwater study to city staff that has since been approved, outlining how we're meeting all of Gardner's stormwater requirements. And then we've also prepared a traffic study that's been reviewed and approved by staff. And based on discussions with staff, it's our understanding that there that signal would ultimately be needed at the location. But based on some guidance from city staff, they've asked us to look at what a roundabout might look like in that location. And so our traffic study basically looked at both of those scenarios, both the signalized scenario as well as a roundabout scenario. and it's kind of part of a bigger overall traffic study picture that they're looking at for this area of the city. So it sounds like it's a work in progress on the city's part. We are asking for three deviations

Do any of the commissioners have questions for the applicant?

Not at this time.

I just would like to clarify what you just said. You, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Okay. You mentioned two-car garage as in two doors instead of a single door?

Is that one of the deviations you were talking about?

Okay, okay.

All right.

I just want to make sure I heard you correctly. Thank you.

There's existing buffers on the east side, on the south side, but I don't see anything on the west side. What are you proposing for that? Can we go back to the aerial photo for a second? You're saying that your lots don't back up to the subdivision on the west side?

No, our lots do back up.

Okay.

Similar to how those lots back up to the property line and are not providing such a track if you will.

We're mirroring that.

Don't plan on using any type of buffer between the two subdivisions? Correct. Okay. Okay, thank you.

Would staff please give their presentation? Yes.

Again, this is item Again, this is item three, 167th and Kill Creek. This is a rezoning preliminary development plan and preliminary plat. Just like what you see before, this is a request for rezoning to a plan district based on the preliminary development plan. The request is to rezone from county RUR, Rural Residential District, to RP2, planned two-family residential. And I do want to apologize to all the surrounding property owners. We should not have put in duplex in that it should have been just planned two-family development. uh again rp2 plan two family residential for an 81 acre 218 lot detached single family development located on the south side of 167th street the reason for going to rp2 are because the proposed lot sizes are 50 to 68 feet wide on average that they do but they do have some lots that are a little wider A development with 50 foot wide lots is usually indicative of a single family neighborhood housing development rather than the 70 foot wide single family suburban. The subdivision is being proposed to be developed in three phases. The second phase of construction as you can see from the slide will include the southern detention basin. which is depicted in blue on here. Development will also include an extension of Kill Creek Road, which is a collector street from the south extending all the way to 167th Street, and the extension of Madison Road, which is also a collector street from the eastern property boundary to the west. As from the previous slide, there will be two entrances into the development off of 167th Street. Three stub streets are provided to connect when development occurs along the east and the west side of this property. Third phase of development will connect Kill Creek to the development to the south, which is the Breckenwood subdivision. This photo is looking from the south from 167th Street, basically at the Symphony Farms entrance drive. The photo also shows Kill Creek and 167 intersection. As you can see, the proposed development site is currently in cropland. This photo was taken from Hilltop Ridge subdivision and looking to the east. Stub Street, the one Stub Street to the west is proposed to connect to this development during the first phase of construction. As what the applicant's engineer said, there are three deviation requests. Frontage design, neighborhood yard access width limits, standard is 15% or 20 foot max per access point. They're proposing on going to 32% with a 16 foot max. And the proposed development, the local neighborhood street type is being utilized, which pairs the neighborhood yard frontage type This frontage type limits the access for driveway width to 15% of lot width with a maximum of 20 feet. With the subdivision proposed to be plotted with lots a minimum of 50 feet and some at 60 feet wide, the code would only allow for a 7.5 foot wide drive or 10 foot .2 driveway respectively, which is not even enough room for a single car. on the 7.5 especially. This deviation request would allow for a driveway wide enough for two cars side by side per access point which will allow a two car driveway for each unit. Staff recommends approval of this deviation with a set maximum of 32% of the lot width and a maximum of 16 feet. Second deviation request is from the frontage design, neighborhood yard frontage, allocation of space. This basically talks about what's in the front yard. 30% to 75% turf, 10% to 50% landscape, and five to 20% hardscape, and they're proposing 35.4% and 43.2% hardscape. And this is basically couples with the previous deviation for the two-car garage. Staff is willing to support the deviation with basically a one-to-one increase in landscape within the front yard. As an example, as the hardscape percentages increase, an equal percentage of landscape should increase. And of course, the turf would decrease then. Third is the frontage design, neighborhood yard frontage. Again, all buildings shall have a direct sidewalk connection, at least four feet wide between the sidewalk and the front entrance feature. As was previously being granted for these types of neighborhoods, we've allowed for that four foot wide sidewalk to connect up with the driveway, instead of out to the actual sidewalk in front. The intent of the standard, of course, is to promote walkability and a pedestrian-oriented framework as experienced from the public realm to the front door of the house. Since all the lots have driveways to the front of the house, the applicant proposes a sidewalk from the front of the house to the driveway, which will serve the same general purpose. As an example, the developer can provide additional landscape, which also feeds into the second deviation request. Between sidewalk and house or additional landscape beds in the front yard Staff is supportive of this deviation request with the additional front yard landscape applicant can provide additional landscape along the sidewalks or along the borders of the drives and Will help to meet the requirement of this again the second deviation request. I Staff recommends approval of the rezoning and associated preliminary development plan to rezone 80 acres from RUR to RP2 planned two-family residential district with the deviations outlined in the staff report. Development must meet the requirements of Gardner Municipal Code Title 14 floodplain and stormwater management including but not limited to stream corridor preservation and maintenance, peak flow reduction and stormwater treatment facility, provision, and maintenance were applicable. Any violations of these requirements will necessitate plan modifications as needed to conform to the stormwater code criteria unless the violation has been approved as a deviation. All stormwater requirements shall be met prior to the issuance of any related permits. Two, annexation of a small parcel along 167th Street prior to final platz middle. There is a small parcel that was purchase fee simple by the city for a culvert underneath 167th Street. And for some odd reason, when this property was annexed into the city, it was excluded from the annexation. So we need to address that prior to the final. either provide a recorded off-site temporary turnaround easement or creating an on-site turnaround easement prior to the final plasmidal. And let me go back to the, if you look at, Dave Rennie, you wanna help me out with that street name?

The one that has the temporary turnaround easement?

So if you look at a tiny dash circle along the eastern boundary, that's basically the temporary turnaround easement. As you can see from this drawing, it is off-site, so they don't control that. So that's really 169th Street. so they can either create that on-site or they can have a recorded easement off-site that's basically what the third condition is and the final building elevations demonstrating compliance with the requested deviation shall be submitted with the final development plan application which we require anyway preliminary plat approval of preliminary flat subject to the following conditions basically approval of the preliminary

plat contingent on the governing body approval the rezoning and the preliminary development plan thank you can you speak to for Madison there because it looks it's on the north side of the section line there but to the east a little bit Madison is on the south side of the section line so is there a plan to kind of curve it up and connect to that roundabout that we're proposing here or not?

There actually is. So coming out of the Breckenwood development, in order to make the curve, you know, meet the geometrics of a normal collector design, they had to move that Madison Road a little to the north. And then, of course, that gradually curves back down to the south and connects up with this property. Okay. All right.

Thank you. Okay, I have a question for you. 167, I'm sorry, Kill Creek to the north of 167, isn't that an arterial?

No, it is a collector. It is a collector.

So it's the same designation street all the way through.

Correct.

I'm sorry, one more question. Applicant mentioned there's a discussion whether to put a light a roundabout there, 167th and the Kill Creek. Will that be submitted as part of the final?

Yes, usually as part of the final, they'll have their public improvement plan submitted into Public Works, the Public Works Department for their review and approval. That gets basically finalized at the final development plan and final plat submittal.

Okay, thank you. What effect will they have on what they're considering as far as upgrades for 167th Street?

That will be worked out by the Public Works Department. They usually like to tell me to stay in my lane, which on this one I'm going to. There are planned improvements to 167th Street, and whatever they do on the design for that intersection, will be part of those engineered drawings.

The engineering portion of Public Works is looking at functionality, obviously, of 167th and Kill Creek here. A lot of it is still unknown because of the school that's under construction and potential redistricting of that. However, they're looking at what makes the most sense for the flow of traffic. And honestly, they're saying roundabouts actually provide better flow as opposed to a light. So that's something that we're relying on them for, like Bob said.

Also, as part of that, part of the dedication that will come during the final, we'll have a total of 60 feet of one-half right-of-way, and then you'll also have 60 feet on the north side. So they have plenty of room for any improvements that they plan for that arterial. 120 feet is generally what's required on arterials.

Yeah, because typically for development like this, they might be required to make, say, a left turn. on 167th, but since they're coordinating with them at this point, is that the intent basically to try to gain some efficiency there then?

That'll be up to those public improvement plans and basically approved by the city engineer.

Okay.

So with the, and I don't know how much you can speak to the public improvement plan for 167th, As 167th gets approved, if they decide to put in a roundabout there, does that mean that it's going to come out of the green space where they have the walking trail around it?

And similar to what Maggie's are stated they're still looking at the functionality of that it could be a single on Lane roundabout it could be a double lane roundabout more likely it'll be a double lane because the schools but if additional right away is needed then the city engineer or

and Public Works Department will require that to be dedicated.

So right now, they have been in communication with the Public Works Department, but we still don't know what that intersection's gonna look like in its final form.

So that will be part of the final development plan?

It'll be a combination of the final development plan, final plat, which is gonna be how they dedicate it, and then of course those public improvement plans.

Okay, all right, thank you.

One question, because it's come up a few times about the type, are we doing slab homes or are there gonna be basements? That is unknown at this time.

Unless... Okay. It's unknown at this time.

I think I'm good if we open the public hearing.

So this item requires a public hearing. We'll now open for a public hearing. If anyone in the audience would like to speak regarding this item, if you have not already done so, please write your name and address on the sign-in sheet at the back of the room. When you come to the podium, please state your name and address for the record. Individual speakers will have three minutes. A speaker representing a group will be allotted seven minutes. Please address your comments and any questions to the Planning Commission. And any questions raised by those speaking will be addressed at the conclusion of public hearing.

Good evening. My name is Patricia Cross. I'm here with my husband sitting over there in the corner. And we just want to make sure we live at 16720 Ingle Street, Gardner, of course, and the Quail Meadows subdivision. The tree line that he had mentioned that he's going to preserve, Quail Meadows has an additional 10 feet.

Mr. Case, can you help me out with that part of that?

Quail Meadows. Sorry. Quail Meadows.

Well, well, well, well, Meadows was platted with a 10-foot tree preservation easement along the west property line.

And we just want to make sure that maybe on their side they can also extend the same to that same line of trees just to preserve since they've been there for so long. They do provide a lot of privacy, kind of our own little oasis, so to speak, in our backyard, and we want to keep that. We don't really mind anything goes behind as far as the single family homes. That's fine. But we want to make sure that we keep our tree line. And that was both of our concerns. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Steve Craig and I'm here with my wife Brandy and we live at 16714 Ingalls Street in the Quail Meadows subdivision and just want to reiterate preserving the tree line. That was one of the reasons we purchased the home and there's several species of wildlife that come through there along the tree line and we would just hope that the developer would keep and preserve that tree line. One of the other questions I have for the developer is for the houses that back up to that tree line, the stormwater runoff, is that going to be going to the middle of the house? Is it going towards the street or do they have it the stormwater runoff going towards the house, towards the tree line and going south or north. That would be my only question is where the stormwater runoff would be. Would we be expecting it to go through the tree line and come into our backyards or would it be going in between the houses and going towards the street? And then also, Another concern that I see is with the subdivision that's being built to the east of Waverly, that subdivision on windy days, trash is littering 167th from the construction sites. And we just ask that all trash to the most part, be picked up. We don't want it being all in our tree line and everything. I know that's a big, when you get winds coming from the north or the south, trash carries a long way. So that would be our only concern. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else wish to speak on this item? Seeing no one else approaching the podium, is there a motion to close the public hearing?

So moved.

Second. Motion to close the public hearing made by Commissioner Jimenez, seconded by Commissioner Landisberg. All in favor? Aye. Public. Hearing is closed. Do the commissioners have any questions for the applicants or the staff?

Not at this time.

We can ask the applicant about that tree line. Yeah. To the east, I think it was.

Mm-hmm.

We would have no issues dedicating a comparable 10-foot tree preservation easement along that line there, just to kind of mirror what they did at Quail Meadows. And again, it's as important to us as it is to those folks, and I get it. I like living back to trees as well. So yeah, we have no problem making that a stipulation or adding that as a stipulation of the approval.

Could you also address the concern about the stormwater runoff? Sure.

I'm going to get the smarter person in the room to come up and answer that for you. Hold on one second.

Jay Caddock with Schlegel. To address the stormwater, yes, the intent is to run the grading up so all the water will run to the proposed street that we're putting in. There will be a point where we'll have to break back down to tie into the tree line grade. So there will be a small portion that runs that way, but it'll be less than what it is today.

Thank you. Staff. As far as the trash goes, don't we have somebody that's responsible for the construction site that can address that with the contractors?

I've already talked to that resident, and we're going to talk after this plant commission meeting, and I'll be able to inform him of his options. Okay. The other thing I wanted to address was the tree line preservation. If you guys wish, you can add that as a, additional condition of approval and I would put that on the plot because that would be the creation of an easement yes I would basically say and the creation of a 10-foot tree preservation easement Specifically to the east specifically to the east Yeah, you could actually say creation of a 10-foot tree preservation easement along the eastern property boundary I Think that's would be more suffice

I had a question. I don't know if you or the applicant can speak to this, but when I was looking at kind of the design there for Kill Creek Road going through the development, it looks pretty, I mean, there's a little bit of curve, but the middle part of it is pretty straight, and that looked like that property is also pretty flat as well. Was any traffic calming looked at in that section basically between that cul-de-sac there on the north end to the kind of

intersection the curve there toward the southern detention basin and I kind of I mean that's a long strip that people can just fly down basically I'm not gonna speak I won't speak on behalf of the applicant but I do know that the city engineer has been taking a closer look to these long stretches last thing we want is to create a speedway through the middle of this development We have looked at little mini roundabouts in the past. I don't know how that would work with a collector street, so we'll let the engineer talk about that. And again, this is the preliminary, so once we get to the final, that's something that can be brought up to the city engineer and to the applicant's engineer.

The mini traffic circle could be, but introducing horizontal curves and stuff, that can't be just addressed simply between preliminary and final. That would be a more significant change. So yeah, I'd like to hear what the engineer says.

Hi, I'm Amy McCurdy with McCurdy Engineers. I'm the traffic engineer on the project. Specifically, I've worked on the traffic impact study And we have had a number of discussions and meetings with the city staff on specifically through this project, not just the traffic internally, but along 167th Street and those corridor projects and then the future of Madison. So one of the things that was brought up pretty early actually was that very specific topic of cut through traffic and speeding. And that's one of the reasons that the roundabout down on Madison came about kind of to it was very important to the city staff that the um neighborhood feel through here continues and to prevent it from being a cut through and I know you didn't specifically ask about that roundabout at Madison but that kind of plays into overall the kind of plan here so with that roundabout to the south that will um offer traffic calming along Madison but also along 167th which are along Kill Creek to the north which will prevent people from using it essentially as a cut through for the neighborhood the only people expected through here are through the neighborhood and we did talk about some other traffic calming nothing specific at this point but putting the roundabout to the north and a roundabout to the south will prevent Those areas being cut through and then also just having it not necessarily extremely wide roadway and having people like, I mean, honestly, one of the best things you can do to slow down people in your neighborhood is to have your teenager park the car on the street for a little bit. And that honestly slows people down because that friction where they don't feel like they can really just fly through there. Sorry, I keep walking away. I'm a talker. Walk. But that actually does provide a huge benefit. And having a design of a neighborhood where it doesn't really feel like, oh, man, I should be cutting through here. Because you're kind of like, you know, there's going to be a kid with a bowl that's going to roll in the street. Like, having that more of an intentional neighborhood design. But, I mean, yes, there are other things we can do. We can look at, like, mini roundabouts or something like that. But honestly, looking at this with the intention of having that roundabout to the south and having a roundabout to the north, if that's ultimately what the city goes with, which I believe is kind of a leading option right now, we'll really make this so the people through here are the people that live here or live very adjacent to here. And that's not to say you don't have the one guy with like a hot rod or gal, I suppose, that is going to be an issue. that having it be that neighborhood feel should cut down on that, specifically that feel of people racing through there. And I'm sorry, I went off on a little bit of like traffic 101, why people are loving roundabouts. So does that answer the question? I can talk more specifically if you would like.

guess as long as as long as the engineers are looking at it you know ways maybe to introduce i know some vertical curves or something in there to make so like you said to make people feel like it's they need to slow down because people drive how they feel the road is and this road proposed in the middle is 36 feet wide it's wider than a highway so if people park along it that's what that's again it makes it feel like they can't speed through it, but driving through neighborhoods where people don't always park on the side of Kill Creek Road to the north. But that road has nice curves. You're going up hills and things. You can't see everything. So you feel like you need to slow down. And that's what I didn't see when I'm looking at this. longer stretch there between one, two, three, to that fourth intersection. So that would be something I wanna make sure the city planner looks at, or the city engineers look at ways to make sure we're not having people fly through there. They're late to dropping their kid off to school or something like that. That's what I wanna avoid.

All right, thank you.

I don't know if this is for the developer or for staff. Has anybody talked to the school to make sure they're not gonna run buses from Madison to Kill Creek and up Kill Creek, run through this neighborhood?

You mean like the roundabout causing an issue with that?

Well, if you run the buses from Madison Elementary to Kill Creek and then up, whether that's the buses that drop at the schools or whether that's dropping the kids off, people follow the bus. If they see the buses making those routes, cars are going to follow that too.

Well, I'm sure there's going to have to be buses there to pick kids up.

Yeah, to pick them up, I agree. But I'm just thinking of...

I don't think that's going to be the primary route. I hope not. I see what you're saying. They should keep going up Waverly at 167. Right. And I think... the bus company uses main routes instead of residential, except for the pickup buses that go through there.

And that other school would be open. You wouldn't have any buses coming from Madison.

You're right, it would cut that down. Well, you'd still have buses going to the middle school.

To the middle school, absolutely.

OK.

I think we answered our own question. Fair enough. Glad I could provide moral support, so it's all good. Thank you.

Any other questions by commissioners?

I don't have anything. Bob looks like he wants to say something. No?

Don't let him near a microphone.

Okay, I would entertain a motion for the preliminary development plan.

I'll go ahead and make a motion. The first motion will be to recommend approval of the rezoning and associated preliminary development plan to rezone 80 acres from RUR County Rural Residential District, excuse me, Residential District to RP2 Plan 2 Family Residential District with the deviations as outlined in the staff report subject to the following conditions, conditions one through four. Second.

Okay, motion made by Commissioner Lucci, seconded by Commissioner Juneman. All in favor? Aye. Motion to recommend approval for rezoning. It passes 4-0. And then entertain a motion for the preliminary plat.

I will make that motion. Excuse me. that the Planning Commission approve the preliminary plat subject to the following conditions. Number one, approval of the preliminary plat is contingent on the governing body approving the rezoning and preliminary development plan. And number two, creating a 10-foot tree preservation easement along the east side property boundary. Second.

Motion made by Commissioner Lucci, seconded by Commissioner Landesberg. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes 4-0. And the next item on our list is Ryan's muffler and brake addition site plan. Does the applicant have a presentation?

Hi, good evening. My name is Jeff Schinkel with Jeff Schinkel 984 West 156 Lane in Olathe. With me tonight are the owner, Ryan Votaw, and the contractor, Ed Moore III with Ed Moore Construction. We just wanted to make ourselves present here, and I'd like to publicly thank staff for the for their guidance through this process. It's very much appreciated as we went through this site plan development. The summary as the project description is listed, we have no objections to, and we also have no objections to the condition of approval, but we are here to answer any questions if you might have those. Thank you.

The addition, is that going to be enclosed or is that going to be open bays?

I'm sorry, it's a 2,600 square footed, two garage doors, if you will. Thank you.

OK, thank you. And staff have a presentation?

I do.

So again, item four, Ryan's muffler and brake. It's a site plan. This request is for a site plan for Ryan's Muffler and Brake. Ryan's Muffler and Brake is proposing to add a 26 foot 100 square foot addition onto the former Kirkens equipment rental location located on the west side of Moonlight Road just north of the Dollar General store and south of Casey's gas station. The expansion will increase the existing building from 2,416 square feet to 5,000 square feet.

and 16 square feet.

So photo looking from the north out of the Casey's parking lot. This is a view from across the street at the strip center where Austin's is located looking at the front of the building. Again, the applicant is proposing a 2,600 square foot addition to be built to the rear or along the west side of the existing building. The existing shared access to the Dollar General store to the south is to remain, while a new cross-access easement is proposed to connect to the commercial lot to the north, as depicted on this slide. This is the front elevation which shows Ryan's Muffler and Auto. Pitcher are the east and north elevations. The east elevation of course is what the public will view from Moonlight Road. The north shows you those two bay doors that the applicant just talked about. This is the west and south elevation. West elevation just has one door that leads out to additional parking that was shown on the site plan. South elevation is basically a blank wall. Let me go back to this. And I'm sorry it's a little faded, but it does show you the material that's being proposed. The front elevation is to remain the same. There'll be a little bit of the new addition that sticks up from the Moonlight Road, and that color is the Alamo White. Gutters and trim are Brilliant White. The south elevation, they have planted shrubs to provide screening around all the mechanics. And on the rear of the property that backs up to multifamily development, they're providing additional screening on that. And I did provide you guys with a kind of a revised recommendation on the staff report, revised number one. And staff recommends you approve the site plan subject to the following, a revised landscape plan showing removal of the shrubs and the addition of a landscape bed. And that's not my revised. Let's try this again. A revised landscape plan showing removal of the shrubs along the west property line and the addition of a landscape bed along the east property that needs to be reviewed and approved by staff. And any new signage will require a separate signage permit, basically.

Thank you. OK. Do any of the commissioners have questions for staff?

No.

Okay, this item does not require a public hearing, but we can open the meeting up for those in attendance to speak at this time if you're either in favor or against this item. If anyone would like to provide comments, please come forward and state your name and address for the record. If you have not already done so, please sign in with the sheet at the back of the room. Individual speakers will have three minutes. The speaker representing a group will be allotted seven minutes. Please address your comments or any questions to the staff. Does anyone wish to speak on this item? Okay, seeing no one approaching the podium, I'd like to bring this item to the Planning Commission for discussion. Any discussion on this?

I have nothing.

Okay, then I would entertain a motion for this item.

I can make that motion. Planning Commission approves site plan subject to the following conditions. Items number one and two as listed in the revised staff report.

Second. Motion made by Commissioner Juneman, seconded by Commissioner Alucci. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0. That concludes the regular agenda for tonight. And we have discussion items.

Yes, so we have one discussion item going over the 2025 development report that we just finished and we're hoping to put on our website. And we're hoping these development reports, we'll do them yearly, earlier in the year, and then any feedback is welcomed. This is the first one, so it's a work in progress. I'm going to go through this relatively quickly. If you have any questions, feel free to interrupt. and just speak up. So this report is a brief overview of Gardner's demographics, existing housing trends from the past few years, and development trends with where we are at in 2026. This slide shows the main points for where Gardner is at the moment. The city is almost 26,000 people with a median household income of almost 100,000. The values for homes have rapidly increased over the past few years, and the low unemployment rate shows that there are nearby employment opportunities. In 2025, the city continued its growth with the annexation of four properties, adding 172 acres, bringing the total area to just over 10 square miles. In 2026, the city so far has annexed two properties, adding 135 acres. One of these is the 167th and Kill Creek subdivision area that you just recommended approval for. Gardner has seen significant population growth over the past 30 years. The city started rapidly growing in 1995, which continued until about 2010. For the next decade, the city continued to grow, but at a slower pace. And then more recently, growth has re-accelerated. The latest data from 2020 to 2024 showed that Gardner was the fastest growing city in the Metro during that time period for cities over 20,000 people. And then over the past three decades, it has grown 20,000 people from 5,000 to 25,000. Gardner's racial and ethnic profile is similar to Kansas and Johnson County, but less diverse than the nation. The majority of residents are white, and diversification is expected to continue similar to that of the county. Gardner can be called a bedroom community, and the age of residents reflects that, with the population pyramid showing that the largest age groups are children and middle-aged. The dip at 20 to 24 is interesting to point out as this is likely from residents leaving once they graduate high school, either for college or to find employment elsewhere. Between 2019 and 2024, the housing unit count in Gardner increased from 7,800 to 8,600 units or a 2.19% increase yearly. Over the same period, the vacancy rate significantly dropped from 8.1% to 3.7%, which was surprising that it was that high and has dropped that much. This likely helped contribute to increased housing prices and the population growth the city has experienced. 70% of the houses in the city are owner occupied. This is slightly higher than the Kansas and US averages. There are a variety of housing types that exist within the city, and Gardner has a slightly lower percentage of apartments than the county, but a higher percentage of mobile homes due to the Conestoga development. This heat map shows the main locations of the building permits issued in 2025. The yellow dot represents the highest concentration and it is over the Cypress Creek development. In 2025, there were 74 new housing permits issued there, which was nearly half of all the new housing permits issued that year. Last year, there were just over a thousand building permits issued with a combined construction valuation of $166 million. And this is a significant increase since 2020. The yellow line shows that over the past five years, residential investments have fluctuated depending on multifamily developments. The red line shows that apart from 2023, commercial investment has increased every year. In fact, last year, for the first time ever, new commercial project valuations surpassed new residential building valuations. But this large increase in 2025 is largely attributed to the Crossroads Commerce Center warehouse, the new Gardner Elementary School and Service Center, and the Evergy substation on Clare Road. So the increase is not yet commercial in the sense of retail commercial, but it is more large projects that support growth. Um, there were 159 new single family building permits issued last year, which is the second highest amount ever for the city, but no duplex town homes or apartment building permits were issued for that period. Uh, larger apartment projects typically come in waves. So many units will be built at once during certain years and other years, no units will be built. Uh, we anticipate multifamily building permits to be issued this year, likely for phase three of tall grass. Year to date, there have been 106 single family building permits issued. This is more than the 79 building permits issued at the same time last year. And these are single family building permits. We are expecting that construction will continue for the second half of the year as Flint Trails begins constructions on their 256 townhome units. One change we will be closely monitoring is how the building code change to require storm shelters affects these building numbers for single family units and their valuations. This map shows the locations of all the planning commission development items from last year. There were 70, yeah.

What was that code change you referred to?

So at the city council meeting just last week, they passed a code change requiring that all new single family or is it all residential units?

Last week, the council was just looking at the residential code, the IRC, International Residential Code, they will be looking at all of the other codes in the coming months for consideration of adoption but we did this one separately for some other reasons and included in that was to require a storm shelter for property for single-family residential because that's what the code referenced if they do not have what's referred to as a qualifying basement so there's some different characteristics, if you will, of basements. And so if it doesn't meet the requirements to serve as the storm shelter, then for all new single family starting July 1st, they will have to install a storm shelter. And that could be a standalone, that could be within the interior, or it could be something underground, for example. yeah good to know yeah and part of that was the large number of slab on grade homes that we are seeing in terms of its i don't have the numbers but it was 20 what we've seen in the last couple of years so conestoga has you know large buildings for storm shelters that's the place where does every single resident have to have uh In the case of Conestoga being a mobile home park, they can have a storm shelter that would be a group shelter, wouldn't have to be individually. And we will be looking at that for multifamily, other types of multifamily developments as well. They will have to provide some type of shelter, storm shelter.

As far as single family?

They need to provide their own, an all new single family.

And you said as of, excuse me, July 1st?

Any building permit for new single family that's submitted July 1st or later will be required, too. So we do expect to be getting a slight influx of additional permits all the way up to June 30th.

So then, like, is it Cypress Creek between the 167th and the high school?

Mm-hmm.

right those houses that are already built are those then grandfathered all the existing homes including those that are currently under construction are grandfathered yes it would just be brand new building permit applications for new homes so you're expecting the developers to flood you with the building permits for the remaining lots in advance of that

We would expect some, not maybe every lot, because even if a permit gets issued, they have six months that it's valid, and then they have to get an inspection to renew that period. So it's not like you can get a permit and hold onto it for years.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

So yeah, that June number, that's of today. We have 106, so that'll go up. Then we'll see how it goes on for the rest of the year. For this, there isn't really a clear pattern as planning items are spread around most of the city. Then this map shows the locations of the new residential and commercial projects approved in 2025. The red dots shows the sizes of developments based on square footage, and then the yellow dots show the residential development based on number of units. The total commercial buildings that received final plan approvals was 660,000 square feet. Most of that was from the one warehouse at Crossroads Commerce Center. And then on the residential side, there were 626 units approved through final plans or plats. And then this map, you can clearly see the growth is more around the outskirts of the city. So in conclusion, the city is continuing to grow with current developments. And there are large projects that have been approved, but have not yet begun construction. So if you have any other questions. security first title which is just west of here they purchased it and are remodeling the interior it they submitted a site plan but because they were going to do an addition but then withdrew it because they're it's all internal work I got a question you know a lot of stuff about

food trucks, and nobody can figure out how to find food trucks. And I remember a while ago, like, we were talking about maybe making, like, a food truck, like, designated area or something like that. Has that, like – They tried that. Did we try that? Like, at the – was that at the – Moose was there. Oh, north of the pool? Yeah, yeah.

Okay. That was – that's county property in the city. So when the fair comes – Right, they got to move. They got to move. Right. And I think mooses was the only one that actually took advantage of it. Yeah.

Yes, the fairgrounds where the fair board was considering requesting a conditional use permit for a food truck court. They decided not to pursue it because it was running up against the fair last year. And we've not heard any more about that. So It's still a possibility. I don't know that the city is necessarily taking that on to create a food court or a food truck court.

Thank you for putting this together.

Yes, thank you.

Very interesting.

Yeah, if you have any suggestions.

Jesse did a nice job with that. We tasked him with the project. And doing it for the first time, it took a little longer. So definitely, if you've got ideas or additional information you'd like us to include in that, it will be a work in progress. And it will be available on our website as a marketing tool for people to see how we are growing.

we see the number of subdivisions but how many more lane miles of streets have we added you know that would be something because you know people talk about all the subdivisions they want to know about access you know they want to know about how easy it is to get around there your point around the bottom inside of it that straight away is still you know yeah So yeah, I'm hoping to continue moving into that.

Or it could be a revenue generator for the city. Parking officer nearby. Because in my neighborhood, there is one guy that flies through my, not a collector street, just a normal residential street. He flies through it like crazy. Oh, we've got a golf cart there.

I never knew a golf cart could go that fast.

We had one at the PD, and I know ours didn't go that fast. We didn't have a governor.

The July Planning Commission deadline has passed, and we will have items on that agenda. So we will have a July 27th meeting, and hopefully we'll have a few more of the members here.

Yeah, I will not be here for that. I have to travel for work. Okay. Somebody dropped their glasses on me.

is there anything else we need to discuss or can we close the meeting there's nothing else that I'm aware of is there a motion to adjourn the meeting

So moved.

Second. Motion to close the meeting made by Commissioner Juneman, seconded by Commissioner Landisberg. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes. Meeting is adjourned.