Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening everyone. I'd like to call the um November 18th, 2025 City of Gardener Planning Commission meeting to order. Um, can you all please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Begin with commissioner roll call beginning on my right. Commissioner Lansburg present. Commissioner Vonner present. Commissioner Sza present. Commissioner Collins present.

Commissioner Junan. Um, we have a quorum. Okay. Um, move on to the consent agenda. 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 from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda at the request of the planning commission or the applicant. We have two items on the consent agenda. Um, are there any items that any member of the planning commission would like to remove from the consent agenda? Seeing nothing, I'll entertain a motion to approve.

I'll make that motion. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Combmes. A second by Commissioner Sza. All those in favor? I I oppose. Motion carries. 5 to zero. Moving on to regular agenda item number one, uh, wireless communications facility. Um, this is a public hearing item. Um, we have a staff presentation or or applicant. We go first.

Uh, good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the Gardener Planning Commission. My name is Curtis Holland. Uh, my address is 900 West 48th Place Suite 900 Ky, Missouri. Um, here on behalf of MW Towers, the proposed uh, developer owner of the communication facility. With me here on behalf of MW Towers is Paul Raba. Um, anyway, I appreciate you all hearing us tonight. I did want to thank staff for their work with us and getting us to this uh to this place tonight. Um, I know that, you know, we've worked very hard with them to get our site plans in order. Uh, this is a fairly routine sort of easy application by standards. These standards, you know, communication facilities can sometimes be challenging. Here we found a great location. Uh we're actually uh subleasasing or leasing a piece of the City of Gardener substation property at 16500 Waverly. Um and so we're going to blend right in with the substation property with our structure. It's a 100 foot tall monopole which is relatively short for uh communication facilities. Uh it's it's being constructed and developed for our the primary carrier in this case is AT&T Wireless. Uh so we'll have a tenant here providing uh good quality um you know wireless service to this area of the of the city. Um and again thank staff for their help getting us to this point. We are in support of all the stipulations. Agree to all the stipulations. We're here to answer any questions that you might have and otherwise that's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Um I think we'll probably hold off on questions. Sure. Thank you. All right. Staff presentation.

Good evening, chair and commissioners. Good evening.

So, MW Towers LLC is requesting approval of a conditional use permit for a 100 foot tall communications tower located at 16500 Waverly Road. It is located near the Megan Valley neighborhood and is on the Gardener Electric substation property. It is currently zoned R1 single family residential and is also surrounded on the north, south, and west by single family residential and to the east is county rural residential zoning. This is the comprehensive plan future land use map and it labels the property as utilities and is surrounded by low resident low density residential. The applicant will lease a 50 foot x 50 foot piece of property to the north of the substation and will be accessed from Waverly Road by an extension of the existing gravel drive. The tower will be located in the center of the leased area and is 162 ft from the Waverly Road rightway and 126 ft from the lot line to the north. None of the existing trees will be removed from the site. The site plan layout shows the tower as the circle right in the center. It'll be surrounded by a sixft tall treated wooden fence with three strands of barbed wire on top and will have landscaping consisting of white pine trees around the outside of the fence. There is no building proposed on site and instead there are four leased areas within the fenced area for the carriers to be able to colllocate. Uh the tower will be of a monopole design without support wires and will be painted gray. The main structure will be 100 ft tall with an additional 10-ft tall lightning rod on top. The applicant provided two perspective views of the proposed tower. This view is from

Waverly Road looking west. And this view is from West 165th Terrace, the culde-sac, and is also look or is looking north. The tower is shown in the center between the two houses. Staff finds that within the land development code, a new communications tower requires a conditional use permit in all zoning districts. The project is consistent with the various policies in the comprehensive plan to support future growth and it complies with the requirements of chapter 17.11 in the land development code. There's one motion needed for this item and the planning commission makes a recommendation to the governing body for conditional use permits. Staff recommends approval with seven conditions. The first is for the expiration of the conditional use permit. The code requires approval terms to be a minimum of 10 years for uh new cell towers. And the recommended condition is that the tower is approved for the minimum of 10 years but does not expire as long as a lease is approved for continued use. Condition conditions two through six are to ensure the site meets code requirements and condition seven is there just in case the lease needs to be revised due to the storm water treatment. staff's available for any questions.

Thank you, Jesse. Um, any commissioners have any questions before we move into the public hearing?

Okay. All right. Um, since this item requires a public hearing, we will now open the public hearing. If anyone in the audience would like to speak regarding this item, uh, please write your name. If you haven't already done so, write your name in on the sign-in sheet. And when you come to the podium, please state your name and address for the public record. individuals. Speakers will have three minutes. A speaker representing a group um such as an HOA 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. Seeing as no one is approaching the podium, is there a motion to close the public hearing?

I'll make that motion. I'll second it. We have a motion by Commissioner Combmes with a second by Commissioner Lansburg. All those in favor? I

opposed. Absentions. Motion carries 5 to zero. Okay. Now we'll move into commissioner discussion and we'll begin on my right. I guess my my main question for you either the tower is further from closer to the neighbor. Why is it closer to if I'm a homeowner? I'd rather have that a little further away from me. Is there a reason why was established? versus the distance to the house.

I think uh Kurt Holland here on behalf of the applicant. I I think the the our folks our our team met with the city and on site and decided that this would be the probably the best location for it. Um so, you know, proximity-wise, there's no real magic to it. We weren't trying to get close further away from the street and closer to the residents. Um there's some good screening behind that property. So I don't think it's going to affect them too much. It's actually a fairly u you know decent buffer and with the screening of the facility on the bottom with the wood fencing and the and the shrubbery and trees we're going to put there. I think it'll be fine there. We haven't had any question or issue from the residents about we gave notice to everybody and there weren't any any objections to the location. But I appreciate the question. I don't have any questions.

I I do just point of clarification to keep this visual up because I know you just represented it and it's in front of me. I just want to make sure I'm seeing what I'm seeing is is accurate. So the 126 ft to the north property line, that is in fact uh the one home that we saw I think from 165th terrace in the culdeac that you took the picture from. And I'm not a communications or radio frequency expert. However, 126 feet in general in my research in this project seems really close. Are there maybe this is to the help me feel better as you have built these monopoles in other locations. Uh, is this proximity at all similar to some of those other builds or would you look at this and think it's a little close to a resident?

So, we have literally thousands of tower structures across the country. I've been involved in hundreds of them. This is not uh too close by any means in comparison to other facilities and uh the property itself uh you know is used as a substation property. You said there's some tall transmission poles out there. They're I mean I don't know if there's taller there's taller almost as taller but they're I think several of them are even closer to the property than say our facility would be. So yeah it's it's it's not going to be an issue. So So that distance in general just make me feel comfortable is quite common in your thousands. Yes. They're even closer in some cases. They're closer. So Okay. Right.

No other questions. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I just have one uh question clarification as well. I think staff said it was painted gray. Is it going to be painted or is it going to be galvanized? It's galvanized. Yeah. Thank you for that question. Okay. Yeah. So, it might be a little bit shinier at the beginning and then it will be more It won't be shiny. It'll give a nice patina. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's all the questions I had. Can we bring the proposed motion back up on screen? Thank you.

I'll make a motion. Uh, the planning commission recommends approval of a conditional use permit for a communications facility tower for wireless services on 7.88 88 acres located at 16500 Waverly Road with the following conditions items 1 through 7 as outlined in the staff report. Just clarificate. Yeah, just clarification. We are recommending approval on this one now. Okay, correct. I'll second that motion.

Uh motion by Commissioner Combmes, second by Commissioner Vonner. All those in favor? I opposed. Abstensions. Motion carries five to zero. All right, moving on. Uh we have item number two, New Life Christian Academy. This is a resoning uh preliminary development plan, preliminary plat, final development plan, and final plat. Um this item also requires a public hearing. And um I believe Commissioner Bonner, you're going to recuse yourself from this item. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Do we have the uh applicant here for a presentation?

Hi, my name is Will Dubois. I'm with Davidson Architecture and Engineering and we also have Michael Ward with New Life Christian Academy and also Kevin Lee with Pulsonelli. Um, just to give you a brief overview on this project, we're very excited. New Life uh with within the New Life building, New Life Christian Academy is operating and is growing at a very uh quick rate. We're proposing giving them their own facility to continue this growth that is in very high demand. It's a multi-phase project. Phase one is what will be built immediately and that involves elementary school. But the full buildout phase one through four involves a middle school and involves a high school and then some special use buildings like a vocational school and special uh education facilities. Um I staff has worked closely with us on this project. Uh so I know that their um report that we read through it looks really good. another um I don't want to oversp speak on them on on some of the particulars, but I'll also let Michael Ward come up here and kind of talk about the vision that they have for the New Life Christian Academy at this location.

Hi there. So, Michael Ward, I'm official title will be founder and board president. Um, this started out years ago as a a vision and then as New Life Community Church has built their new church building, it just happened to coincide with this project where Pastor Rick George was like, "Why don't we just put rows of classrooms on our new building and you guys can subleasase from us?" So, we are technically a separate entity from New Life Community Church, but we named it New Life for the continuity. Right now, what's been happening is to to Will's point is demand an increased demand. And so, we went from 25 students. This is our third year, 25 students to 56 to this year, we're at 85. Looks like we'll add a couple more. We usually add a couple throughout the year. Um, so significant growth. We just 60% over the last year. Um, we also just achieved accreditation. Usually it takes five to six years to gain accreditation from an ACSI uh organization. We got that in less than two. And so as far as the amount of um high level um that we are performing at, we are also growing and creating a pretty deep community. Um we have acquired 25 acres which you know we're going through resoning and things to uh because we're growing out of the current church building. So uh great facilities that we're in right now. Unfortunately, if we continue to grow uh we'll need uh more facilities. One other sign of that is that we had um 20 we have kept every class at 20. We had 35 applicants for 20 kindergarten spots this year. So it might be just another couple years until we open up a second section of kindergarten. Uh and so when this is fully grown out K through 12, two sections per grade, it would be 600 students is what the ultimate vision is with like what he said which is a vocational school. Um uh interestingly enough about the vocational school. I won't speak a lot about that, but the

Wall Street Journal has recently had a lot of articles around how AI is changing the landscape about what is the white collar jobs and what does AI do with that and also the bluecollar jobs, a vocational field and how does that all play in? And so we feel like we are positioned perfectly to be able to have two tracks, a college prep track, but not a kind of secondary vocational side, but equally as important um is that vocational side of things. So that's the vision that we have kind of going forward, which of course has great opportunities as far as internships uh with the community and a lot of different things like that. Um, much like New Life Community Church, uh, is very generous with their facilities, whether it comes to firefighters or funerals or whatever it is, we want to do the same thing. And so, this new building is not just going to be for the school. Um, as you know, gyms, for example, are always in short demand. My third graders two years ago had an 8 800 PM to 900 pm basketball practice. Why? Because the gyms are so packed. So, we are going to have right out of the gate, phase one, have a gym that is a full-size regular gym, but also has two, three quarter courts with a drop down um barrier in the middle. So, we could be running games on the weekends, practice during the week, uh things like that. It also is going to have a stage built in, so we'll be able to host uh community events. You know, firefighters is the most recent banquet that New Life held. That's why it's top of mind to me, but things like that. And so we definitely want to continue that heritage of being uh for the community and something that the community can use at large. So I feel like um uh now if it's not time to take questions I'll pass it over to Kevin or if those are later you just let me know.

I think if you want to continue your presentation I think we'll okay with that. Okay.

Thank you Mr. Chairman members of the commission. Kevin Lee with the Puly Law Firm appearing on behalf of New Life Christian Academy, Inc. Um hopefully Michael's presentation gives you some of the insight in into the larger vision for what the project is and I'm sure that you'll hear from staff on some of the particulars of the project um and and have that in your packets as well. The the item I wanted to hit was the stipulations of approval. Um so we've reviewed those and and are generally in agreement with all uh with the exception of just a couple items that uh we would wanted to discuss and and would ask be modified accordingly. Um neither of those are we asking be deleted entirely. It's it's purely about deferral and we'd ask that they be um kicked to a a future phase if required. Then so the the first is dealing with turn lanes and specifically the requirement to install a leftin turn lane. Um with the first phase we have a traffic study um that we had conducted in connection with this that finds that neither a right in or a left in is warranted here. Um it also finds that 90% of our our trips are coming from the east. Um and it's it's a very nominal um impact coming from the west. And so uh given that it it finds there's acceptable I think in one place it describes them as excellent levels of service at at those um intersections uh especially the left in movement um we would ask that that left in turn lane be deferred to a future phase if required by an updated traffic study um and and not required with construction the first phase. The other one similarly would be the the sidewalk requirement along the north of of 191st Street. Um so that is it as it stands today there's not a sidewalk to either side of us and so it would effectively be a sidewalk to nowhere at this point. Um and so we would ask that that also be deferred to um either the earlier of of when that leftin turn lane is required or when those adjacent properties develop and and would construct sidewalks. So happy to to stand for any questions. um our our traffic engineer was running from another meeting. So hopefully she will be here if you have questions that are

deep in the weeds on on the TIS, but would ask that we get your approval tonight with with those two modifications. Thanks.

Do we have a staff presentation? Good evening all. Evening.

All right. Again, this is uh these applications are for resoning, preliminary development plan, preliminary plat final development plan and final plat for the New Life Christian Academy School. Subject property is located on north side of 191st Street approximately uh approximately,000 ft west of Locust. uh plaque includes uh three parcels that they're combining into one lot and is comprised of approximately again 25 acres. Uh all utilities are available to the site. The existing sanitary sewer line to service the first phase of development is being extended from the list station located to the north north of the site. Uh for future phases, updates to the list station may may need to be made. surrounding uh the current zoning for the site is A agricultural and R UR rural residential. Uh the surrounding zoning includes RP5 plant to the north, C2 and C3 commercial to the east, agricultural to the south, and Edertton uh LP logistic park and county RLD residential low density. and uh school has a first right refusal on that uh property that is zoned RLD which is depicted in I think like a extremely light brown as mentioned in the staff report. The consequence of plan and uh I35 subbury plan designated this property as regional commercial and light industrial. While the plans do not define this type of use within our descriptions of accessible uses, the school is a great transitional use between the industrial and commercial development to the west, east, and potentially to the south and

with the uh residential development to the north. The overall school development will include approximately 142,000 square feet of buildings for grades K through 12. The development will occur in four phases. First phase will include the elementary school and gymn gymnasium. Second phase will include a middle school to the north. The third phase uh to the west includes the high school and performing arts center. And the fourth phase includes two support buildings. The uh tech building uh in the northwest corner and the special education building uh to the east of the elementary. Building materials uh for this facility will be tilt up wall, concrete and brick. This slide uh shows the final development plan which includes phase one and 1A. 1 A is uh the gymnasium. First phase of construction is approximately for 40,000 square feet of classroom space and as mentioned before the gym. And here's the landscape plan showing a treelined entrance drive and then buffering to the south. As mentioned before, the buildings are mainly constructed of tiltup wall construction with ample massing to the size to create form scale proportions of building shaped space around the school. This is accomplished through stepbacks and bumpouts that reduce the amount of single length of wall on any one facade. Staff finds uh with the proposed conditions the plan reflects general accepted sound planning and design principles. The site's capable of accommodating the building use and other site design elements. The design arrangement of the building is

consistent with good planning and landscaping design. The architecture and building design uses quality materials and the style is appropriate for the context. The plan is in substantial CL compliance with code and I'll leave the staff recommendations for we will have three motions for this uh for this project here and I am available for questions too.

Sounds good. Uh I guess one other point uh we did have a possible another condition that should be on the preliminary development plan. Uh the additional condition will be as access point stub to the east shall be gated and for emergency access only. Traffic impact studies shall be updated to recognize the eastern access point as emergency access only. future phases of this development may require syrup a sec a secondary point of uh access.

So the the east being the secondary point of access or west future drive. Let me let me go back to the site plan real quick.

Clarify that for me. So uh here along the first phase you'll see the uh basically it's orientated uh north is the top and east will be on your right hand side. Uh there's a lot of vacant ground, commercial ground to the east uh to where a emergency access can be uh granted for fire, police, anybody that needs it. But uh we want that to be gated. And then for the let me go back to the preliminary development plan. So the uh and this was spelled out in the staff report. The uh property that is currently zoned the uh low density residential. Uh it's in the county. It's it's shaded uh rectangle space on the south uh west side basically just adjacent to where the detention basin is. Uh they have the f first right refusal. If you see the dash lines it shows the secondary access coming up off of 191st Street into this uh project. We can't show it because they don't control it. It's not within the city. So we can't even really look at it. But uh they do have first ride uh refusal on the purchase of this property. The emergency access again will become uh will be uh actually they depicted it on on this ply uh development plan. Uh if you can see the stub leading over to the uh east. Uh we basically have told the developer that you can slide that sec that emergency access point anywhere up and down along that east side. It just we needed to be gated and and locked up and only like with a for

emergency services to access it through like a box or something like that. Okay. Guess the members of commission, do we have any questions right now or should be okay with opening public hearing?

Yeah. Okay. All right. We will now open this public hearing. Uh same rules as before. Individual speakers will have three minutes. Individuals representing your group will have seven minutes. And then any questions or concerns brought up will be addressed at the conclusion of the public hearing. Seeing as no one is approaching the podium um for the public hearing, I will entertain a motion to close public hearing. I'll make a motion. Second. Motion by Commissioner Sosa, second by Commissioner Combmes. All those in favor?

I opposed abstensions. Motion carries five to zero. Okay, moving to commissioner discussion and we'll start on my left this time. Um Bob, I hate to ask you to do this again because you did so well, but can we talk about that about the entrance number one and number two um I am missing something? The deviations were not illustrated in the packet and before any final decision up here, we want to make sure we understand Those are there was because I believe I'm so sorry. The applicant mentioned two. Yeah. But I got I'm sorry. Yeah. So sorry.

Okay. Uh so I will let you clarify your point. Sure. Sorry.

Uh at first we thought there was going to be some deviations uh basically on parking. uh but after looking at uh the amount of parking that they had, they met the requirements and they were within 10% of the maximum or minimum allowed. So uh also with this being a multi-phase uh project uh I can see the uh advantages of doing a pimary development plan because we still have three more phases to go. So this would allow if anything comes up that they need a de deviation on the second through fourth phase, they'll be able to present to that that to the commission.

And the the stub that we're looking at in the photo here, I think there's only one. I'll make sure it's right in the middle between the number seven and 17 on the Okay, perfect. Um when I look at the actual map that goes into just openness or is there a road that exists there? No, but we we were fully aware that eventually that land directly to the east will be developed and uh by connecting the stub over to it, it'll allow that whoever develops that land will have will connect up with this to allow for those emergency vehicles to access this site.

And and so that that stub at least on the property line is where that gate that you're talking about would be. That's correct. Okay, perfect. That that's clear. I did have one other question and we may have already talked about this. I just wanted to be clear in the traffic study it identified that the location doesn't meet criteria and a variance is needed. Is that the points that we were just referring to about turning in I can speak to that briefly.

Uh there's kind of two and you guys can tell me if I'm speaking incorrectly. Uh the variance mentioned there has to do with the distances between adjacent properties drives where basically in the code you're supposed to space so far apart from your neighbor essentially. Um there's a lot of drives on that area kind of close together. And if this is considered an arterial, you know, higher traffic amounts going faster, you typically have to spread out a little bit further. So with our narrow frontage and considering that in the future we really want to have two drives, one of those is going to be out of compliance and uh the the current one with that ride in ideally would be further west from the neighbors but we're really kind of compressed with some of those existing conditions. Then separately we were also um you know we're we're committed to doing that right in. Then the se the separate one that we're talking about is the necessity at phase one to do the left end for traffic coming from the west. So those are kind of those two different items.

Okay. Or correct me. No. And then uh you know if you guys look at the entrance drive off 191st Street uh the original submitted plans showed that drive coming straight down. After uh talking with the city engineer, he wanted a little further distance from the adjacent property. Also, that would allow for that that ride in for westbound traffic coming off of uh 191st Street into the school.

Makes sense. And would any of that need to be outlined should we, you know, move to our approval process? Meaning, are there conditions that we should be mentioning and pointing out is my question. In the staff report, there's a condition on the final development plan for the first phase that both the left in and right in turn lanes shall be built with this phase. So that's one of them. The other with respect to the sidewalk, I don't see as a condition. However, they would be required as part of their public improvements to install a sidewalk. Public improvements, it doesn't make sense necessarily to install a sidewalk at this time because it's not connecting to anything. Therefore, they would pay money in lie of the construction into a future sidewalk. Is that correct, Tim? And so we don't have to have it listed or or call that out because of that.

Typically we would, but uh it is also covered by the public improvement plans that are a separate set of documents that go into public works for the review right before construction.

I was thinking necessarily inconsistent because we have accepted the money in accepted or requested. We we recently did that last month in terms of not requiring sidewalks to be constructed with that school district.

I would just add to that. So it's not unusual for us not to do sidewalks on you know we do quite often do build sidewalks where we're confident it's on we don't want to build something I'm Yeah question that I have I had before commissioner kind what's the access.

So, so with all emergency accesses that we require, and we've we have required quite a quite a few around the city, uh you heard me mention a NOX box. So, the fire department, all emergency services will have either a combination or a key to that NOX box to allow them in and through that emergency access. So, it's really only for emergency vehicles to be able to access that point. Well, they won't now, but when it does get developed, they can access it. So, this basically gives the applicant the choice of where to place it. That's future development.

And that's atypical with uh the development of any adjacent uh parcels of land. uh the first one in really gets to decide where that kind of point is. So the person who develops to the east of here will have to tie into that somehow some way.

I just had some questions. Um, it wasn't evident on the plan, but like I saw on the website that there is a proposed playground on the property, but it wasn't didn't seem very big, at least not for a K through 12 school, and there was no it didn't seem obvious to me that there was a playing field, kind of a fenced in playing field either that you would normally see with a school. Um, can you speak to why that was not on the site? Um, because it seems kind of important to to have that for children's school. Absolutely, definitely is. So, um, and apologies if it wasn't very apparent in the plans, it is just to the east of the elementary wings. Uh, it is fenced in and you know, we don't

that playground equipment, the exact design of everything to be determined in the future. Um, New Life has some great relations with a bunch of uh, well, current parents and stuff that might donate some of that equipment. So, we kind of left that area open as far as like what the exact equipment would be. But hey, here's this fenced in area, this turf area that they can use um from this from day one. Is does that kind of answer the question? Yeah. Or where where it is? Yeah, I Yeah, I see it kind of in between, you know, there's bubble number 11 there. It's kind of just just off that bubble there, it looks like.

Yeah, it's just there. And then if you're on the elevations page just to the east, it there's kind of a low, you know, metal fence, so it looks nice. Yep. Um it's controlled access, that kind of thing. directly from the elementary wings. Yeah, it just to me it seemed noticeably smaller than other schools, you know, um that we have in the area. So, I just didn't know if like if there's kids are going to have recess, you know, potential capacity of 600 students here. I mean, they all won't all have recess at the same time obviously, but like it seems but really it's just the elementary school. So, 600 kids aren't going to play on that. Just the elementary school. Okay. So how many middle school is not going to be using that high schools won't be using that.

So up front in phase one is really more of what we're important. That's a plenty large playground for phase one. But you think K through K through five the sixth grades 120 kids. That's definitely enough for 120 children to use. Now maybe like you're saying we get two sections and we grow. Maybe that does need to be adjusted to some degree. That's

that's fair. And I'll say we've also been working uh New Life Christian Academy has had the opportunity and we've had a good working relations with Marinatha who has been going through a lot expansion lately and kind of outgrowing their current building and doing uh additions. And so we've been kind of seeing okay what worked where did they not have enough room and that's kind of how we've arrived at a lot of the size both of the building um parking how that queuing works like just hey where were your pinched points that you had that you just went through? And so that's how we've br ated this. But that's also uh you know why we're going with the PDP and then we'll come back in with the FTP as you know needed. You know, hey maybe we maybe will need to become bigger at some point. Um but there is a lot of room to grow out here on this piece of land too.

Yeah. I mean you say there's room to grow, but to me it looks pretty pretty tight. Um, and if there is room to grow on this site, I mean, it's that southwest corner and then you're going to have to have kids go all the way across a parking lot to go if you're going to have a field a field of some kind to play play ball or something like that on. Um, so I I that was that was one concern, one question I had just seemed kind of tight, very developed, you know, for the site. Um I think also in phase one that that the special education is not going to be there until phase four. Correct.

And so that's the very last thing to go. So now you've got So it's been kind of all stuff. Um let's just say it this way. We've used our imagination a lot the past three years as far as what to do and how to how to do recess because we didn't want to put any equipment in the ground right now because once you put it in the ground, you can't dig it up and move it for insurance purposes. So that's why we've actually just been using a field. So that whole thing that looks like a special education building is just going to be a wide open field until for you know 10 years. But would would it be fenced in like you know you know like a typical school would be or it just it's just kind of

it it could be uh up front it won't be but like right now we don't play in a fenced in area. We have uh teachers that are on all corners, but we don't have a fenced in area right now to play in. Okay.

So, but the plan will be for it also to be turf for, you know, more year round use, make it look nice. Um, and then also I will say because we can't technically include that southwest corner, you know, we can't put stuff like the specialist building over there, but you know, if hey, that whole area ends up being used as a playground. New Life Christian Academy has a relation with that property owner. So, it's not, you know, nothing's official, of course, or anything like that, but feeling pretty good that that is a viable option to possibly move some programming in future. Not necessarily, like you said, yeah, you don't want to bring kids across that parking lot, but a building that's occupying a future spot could be down there.

I guess I would say this, too. Um, you have to take care of your first thing first. The first thing first is the elementary school. The secondary is special education, right? We don't even have that yet. That's a fourth program. So, if that ends up being something that you know what, you're right. We have to push into that land. Um, we can either move special education to that southwest corner when we own that or if that just does not happen because we had to use that space and that is what it is. But you have to think in terms of priorities is what we're thinking. Priority one is elementary school and our core school. Okay. So yeah, I now I don't know if that if your question had anything to do with sports either. So we're not going to have any fields or sports or anything.

Correct. Yeah, I was I wasn't like, you know, where's a track and field at, you know, I wasn't wasn't assuming that, you know, I'm not saying you cast have a football field there, but just I I think it's an generally accepted norm that a school would have an open field for play um for for children just because it's it's good for their health to be able to play outside for recess and not always inside in a gym or and just making whe there's adequate room for the amount of students that you guys are projecting for. So that was that was the the essence of my question. Agree.

Um next question would be I guess for staff. Um I guess the future land use map. You say this parcel was light industrial and commercial. But I didn't see any commercial on you know on the future land use map that I was looking at either on the sub area plan or it didn't seem like there was commercial for this property. Um so I guess can you explain you know what the inherent assumptions and differences between a light industrial future land use and a commercial like a C3 industri commercial land use would be sure I should be able to do that

I assume there's inherent yeah on the uh on the uh uh the I35 gardener road sub area plan uh which is a basically an add-on to our comprehensive ensive plan. Uh it actually shows this area right on the edge uh in between light industrial which to the west and commercial to the east. Yes. So, but this parcel itself was not

this parcel was, you know, those without being able to see the parcel lines on the sub area plan, which you can't. Uh, this area was so close that I include both of them. I think it's probably right on the very edge. I think this parcel is probably all light industrial and that eastern boundary of the parcel is probably commercial. Okay. Yeah, I just it I didn't want to say like yeah, it seemed like in the staff report kind of like oh yeah, it's fine for this land use and stuff. Um but I didn't know how big of a change it is really from that light industrial to this land use. I mean because I mean it seems like this is going to be pretty large traffic generator um for the area and I don't know that a light industrial use would necessarily generate as much traffic as this.

It could. Okay. light industrial could and not just the amount of traffic but it could be light industrial could generate a lot of heavy truck traffic as well. So uh and that's that's very relevant if you look at the uh uh quickrip travel plaza down there. How many trucks are that's not all all those trucks aren't just coming off of I35. Uh, a lot of them will be coming down 191st Street.

So, I I may have one followup question to your to your question. So, if this were to be approved tonight and the development doesn't move forward, the zoning stays as is. Correct. The The zoning would stay as is, but that zoning is connected to the development plan. Correct.

So, so if this project does not proceed, yes, it will still have the zoning classification of a plan development, but it will not uh the only thing that can go there is a this final development plan. So that that zoning is is directly attach the sorry the preliminary development plan and the final development plan are directly attached to the zoning. Does that make sense?

Yeah, we've had questions before or we would see another development plan and preliminary. We would see all of that of course in the within the nature of the process. However, and this is a big what if but it's a question I feel like we need to ask. If the development doesn't occur, then this parcel of land is now CP3 zone. Yes. But it would have any other development that is not following this development plan would have to come back in with the resoning. Got it. Okay. That clarifies my my question. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry.

You're good. Um said the and then just for applicant you said the proposed capacity is is 600 students is that correct? Yes sir. Approximately

yeah um we won't achieve that till 10 years from now. That's all all the questions I have question I think so as far as accessing what we're dealing with It's not as far as the traffic study did analysis. I don't disagree with the analysis from a number standpoint lanes are needed. My perception is that from a safety perspective that is why we recommend putting As you can imagine, I think I think the traffic study I think it said it was about like 25% trucks or something up there currently peak hour could be I say my I guess my opinion like I I don't I don't know if it's a great location for a school honestly. Um, and then you threw on top of that that it

was, you know, the comp plan says light industrial. Um, I think that's I don't know if I'm I'm on board with the reasonzoning, but I say I'm one person. So I think I think would you mind clarify one thing? Yeah, sure.

I just I wanted to make sure that that you all um again Kevin Lee with Pulson Nelli on the zoning question. I I think one piece that was lost there may have been was that as it stands today, we could do this use by right um under the a zoning with the exception of the one parcel that was that was just annexed. We're having to reszone that. And so that's that is the sole reason that we are are driving the the reszoning. Our thought was to include the entirety of the property in that because I think there's some question um as to the ability to use if it's truly a vocational school. I I don't know that that's the right um characterization of it based on how it's defined in your code. Um but that is the only use that is proposed on site that would require the the C3 zoning. Um otherwise school up to 600 is allowed in in a I believe as I understand it. Um so I did want to clarify that and then I I wanted to make it abundantly clear if it wasn't before that we are committed even though the the traffic study says neither are warranted. We we hear Tim's point and we are 100% agreeable to doing the right intern lane with phase one. It's just the the left turn lane we would ask be deferred out. I think we're talking about nine trips um in the AM peak hour or something like that. And so it's if there are safety concerns, it's hard to imagine that that level of of trips is adding to those. Um and then on the uh that the sidewalk thing, I think that that makes more sense now that we had talked about um the payment. Um our request would still be that that payment can be made later. Um it's as you can imagine, it's a not for-profit fundraising component that makes this unique and so cost is is an issue everywhere. And so, um, I I think we're all on the same page that it doesn't make sense to build that now. Um, but to the extent that we that the commission was agreeable to deferring that payment until later, um, that would be appreciated as well.

Thank you. Thank you. I guess my question was there now versus a later phase of school would be built why we asked something excluding location do phase one you Well,

yeah. So uh again this part uh the three parcels that make up this development site uh with uh the southern parcel that uh provides the entrance drive into the facility and also has the storm water sitting on it. Uh that's zoned rur which is rural residential. The top two uh parcels which make up about 20 acres of the site is zoned a. However, uh the plyorary development plan is what depicts what type of uh and also the building type is what depicts why this has to go to the the CP3. uh the attorney came up and spoke for the school is is not wrong with the 600 student. However, this uh the size of the site uh it really the prominent civic uh building type fits within that and that's what that is not allowed within act prominent civic uh is the why it needs to go to the CP3. So that's why uh everything the zoning is tied to the plumbary development plan that's the overall site not just the first phase. Okay, I'm jumping in. Hello. So a tricky thing for you all is looking at code 1703. That's kind of your guidelines for considering these things and the kinds of factors that you can consider as commissioners. One of the tricky things that is not within those elements that can't factor into your decision and maybe it goes to staff to be concerned

about that is finances. So whether how much it's going to cost the applicant is not your concern legally. So that's something that they can talk to staff about, but that's just not you guys. Okay. So wake up.

So sorry. Uh so number three in our report as under the final development plan and final flat it it identifies the left and right turn as we've indicated. I believe the applicant is well, let me be more specific. It not only identifies the left and right turn, but it states that it should be built in phase one. The applicant is asking for that to be pushed into a separate phase. I think I understood that correctly, right? That is what they have requested. The left be pushed just the left.

I'm so sorry. Thank you for the clarity. The left hand correct. Thank you. Um, and so now my question, do we specifically identify the phase or does that is that item left openended for it to be approved at some point in the future? For the specific left turn request, keep it vague if you want this to be something that staff has conversations with the applicant about. You're not required You guys aren't required to name a specific phase unless you have one in mind that you would like to add for some reason. Sure.

Okay. Thanks. So we said, you know, the next final development.

I also think though that it's city engineers opinion that left turn lane should be as part of a phase one. Perfect. Thank you for that clarity. There's a lot of different parts to this one, so I'll help out when we get to the voting.

I'm just not I'm not a fan of the site plan. Just got It seems like it's kind of a necessary item.

No, they had the playground.

Oh, no.

Who's to say So then the question why do we that's that's I just want I just want there to be enough thought going forward. Yes. as long as it's in substantial compliance with that. That's great.

So that's I just want to make sure there's enough thought and care into selecting this property for the school so that you know it's kids can have a open field playground 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now when the school is is healthy, thriving, and doing really well. That's what I want. I want to see the school be successful. I just don't want it to be, you know, hey, we had 25 acres. It's pretty close to our current location, you know, so it wouldn't be too disruptive to our current students to go to a different location where a different location might be more well suited for a school that's going to generate a lot of traffic in the morning and the PM and, you know, just maybe have some more flexibility with the site to be able to meet meet entrance, you know, access and um you know just I don't know just be be a little bit better of a site I guess

and this is always a lot of parking lot a lot of building yeah this is always a diff difficult decision when you're talking about long range 10 years plans uh trying to nail down

a plan uh if there are significant changes we will require them to come back We're talking about the other uh the other point I'd like to make is uh that they were requesting that the uh left in be built later or uh to uh not be specific on on the first phase. If if you do decide to take that out and allow them to build that in a different phase, I'd like to put that condition I'd like to take that condition off the excuse me, I'd like to take that condition off the final development plan and place it on the preliminary development plan, guys. uh uh because again it's very specific in nature. It came from the city engineer as a as a a requirement. So that's why we put on the final development plan and said that it has to be built within the first phase. But again, you know, whatever you guys decide, if you do decide to take it off of the first phase, let's put it on the ply development plan. And I don't know how we're going to go back and do that once we

but that's why we have totally

we can cater whatever you guys end up choosing. We can make that clear in your motion. Can the preliminary plan? But the final development plan because what we're talking out loud. Everything is public. But what we're talking about here is either asking them to rearrange and make for a larger play area or deny as submitted

if if because your point is very well. It is a lot of it's a beautiful concept. I support the idea

and yeah, let me make a comment to that. So when you the preliminary development plan is yes it's laid out on paper but it's it's really a concept. So again if they if they change things around there's a little bit of flexibility in that you know with this with this site with the preliminary development plan the final development plan as I mentioned earlier it doesn't show the uh the special ed building on it. So for the final development plan, you're looking at that development plan that is that is very specific. So if you you will have the opportunity at a future date to take to relook at this site and to determine whether or not you want to move or request that those buildings be moved in order to provide that that play that additional playground. uh along the east side and I could see where they they could work with work with us as uh work with the city to uh say, you know, maybe that tech building can go down on that first ride of refusal property if they obtain that. Uh not a bad location.

Well, that so that's why I asked the question. Thank you for that clarity because uh we could obviously move forward with the concept but but then look at the final uh we would want to see some some changes. Well again the final

one of the Yeah. Again the final is what was presented to you tonight and it does show that big large open area that that Austin was talking about. Uh so you know when they decide to continue further with this uh development there is an opportunity again to relook at things relook at the and relook at the entire site if you want there's a We work with the land.

Yeah. and and the size of the building dictates all of the and obviously the only the parking the number of spaces. So while we're seeing a lot of parking spaces in a large building, those are really built no pun intended around the code. However, if we as a commission would like uh to see a different concept for the final play, you know, for for example, if we thought that that special education building, which I know is not there, that's I'm just using as a point of reference. uh that location on the plat if we thought it should be larger and the applicant should work with the city to make that larger. Is that even part of our process of approval?

Based on your concerns and comments tonight, uh we will be working with them in the future on how uh their future layout and design. and and that's that's why I asked the question

that's a good point. That's very

So, so I have maybe this is a final question as we prepare. uh within the final development and final I'm sorry final development plan and plat the conditions there are five points that are listed the gate access is that number four or should we

that's correct that really needs to go on the preliminary development plan. Yes. Because the ST while shown on the preliminary development plan would is not shown on the final development plan and so wouldn't necessarily be built now. Plus, the traffic impact study needs to be updated for the whole project to not have access for the general public to that eastern stuff. So, it's really preliminary development plan issue.

And so, and I'm I'm just preparing for a motion. Put that as number three. If you were to want that in general, it would go under the two, the reasonzoning and the preliminary development plan. Those are things that you guys aren't the final decision makers on. These are things that you only recommend. Yes. So that would go popped into number three if that's something that you want there. And then everything else is your final decision maker tonight.

Yes. So the reasonzoning if again just for clarity as we prepare for any motion uh we need to add.3 which is the gate refer to what we're looking the staff recommendation is being is being modified to have a.3 and if you agree with that that lumps into those two the resoning and the preliminary development plan because you are not the final decision maker on that tonight. Correct. Okay. Think I'm prepared.

Uh I'll make a motion. Planning Commission recommends approval of the reszoning and associated preliminary development plan to reszone 25 acres from county rur residential and a agriculture districts to CP3 planned heavy commercial district for a private school subject to the following conditions. Items one and two listed in the staff report. But I am adding a third item which is the access point stubbed to the east shall be gated and for emergency access only.

I'll second. We have a motion by Commissioner Combmes and a second by Commissioner Lansburg. All those in favor? I opposed. Nayensions. Motion carries 3 to one to the preliminary plat. I'll make a motion. The planning commission approves the preliminary plat with the condition that approval of the plat is contingent on the governing body approving the resoning and associated preliminary development plan.

Second motion by Commissioner Coleman, second by Commissioner Sosa. All those in favor? I oppose. Nay. Motion carries three to one. And the uh final development Yeah. final development plan and final plan. I'll make a motion. The planning commission approves the final development plan and final plat provided the following conditions are met. Items one through five listed in the staff report. Second. Just Just to clarify that that's the left and right. You want the left and right turn in the first phase. Yes. All right.

Okay. Motion by Commissioner Combmes, second by Commissioner Lansburg. All those in favor I opposed. Nay. Motion carries. Three to one. Thank you.

Sure. Mr. Bonner. Okay. All right. Uh moving to uh regular agenda item number three. Uh new trails north third plat. This is the stay bridge and holiday in suites uh reszoning. Uh and this is also a public hearing item. Uh and this also preliminary development plan and final development plan. Um do we have the applicant here for presentation? Oh, pressure. Okay.

Um, they have not here. Uh, no. Okay, they aren't. the uh the developers out of Texas and the applicants engineer is going through some health issues right now. So, okay,

this is item uh number three, neutrals north, lot seven uh for a dual brand hotel, Staybridge and Holiday and Suites. Uh it's for resoning, preliminary and final development plan. Uh the applications uh before you today are for again for resoning, plary development plan, final development plan, and are specifically for a new four-story 128 room dual brand hotel. It's located on the south side of New Trails Circle, north of New Trails Parkway, which is basically located at the south uh southeast intersection of 175th Street and I35. Uh approximately the property is approximately 3.2 acres and is part of the new trails north commercial development. Uh the to the north of the uh of the property is vacant commercial ground and a convenience store. to the east and south is vacant commercial land and is adjacent to the Southern Star National Natural Gas Pipeline. Uh this development will u just as clarification this uh development will need uh an encroachment agreement in order to have their south parking lot and possible cross access with the land to the south. Uh this will be one of the conditions of approval on this. And again to the west is I35. Uh the dual brand hotel uh chains that make up these applications are Staybridge and Holiday in uh Express hotels. Uh the proposed uh hotel is tolling approximately 23,000 square ft and again it will consist of 28 rooms 100 128 rooms. Uh the land uh landscape plan showed here is uh provided above the minimum required landscape plant materials to to

be installed on site for the land development code. They have added additional planning materials to help break up the large amount of parking on this site. Uh I do apologize for this uh landscape plan that's a little hard to see uh because it is a fairly large site. Uh they have concentrated landscape along the perimeter of perime perimeter of the site to screen the parking areas and mechanics especially along the neutrals circle. This is the elevation showing the uh shown the west side elevation of the fourstory hotel which is considered the backside of the structure. So kind of unusual. The back side of the hotel is actually facing neutral circle. And these are the side elevations. Uh showing the north and south side elevations. Uh the north elevation will be most uh visible from 175th Street. They have provided a a lot more variation in color material on the north side. And this is the front side which is the east elevation of the main entrance of the hotel. And as you can see from the elevations uh the developer has broken up the long walls uh very similar to kind of like what I mentioned with the school. Uh the offsets with offsets uh different materials and colors. Uh the main structure material along all facads are colored ephus stone and brick. Uh this property is consistent with the character of the area and proposed plan is in line with other recent developments to the I35 and 175th street sub area plan. The architecture and building design along the overall final development plan are in substantial compliance with the code.

Uh they do have one deviation request uh uh for parking along a building facade. Uh the code states that you need 8 ft uh width on the sidewalk and they're proposing five. Uh they've enhanced uh landscape around the B building and perimeter of the site. The staff feels that this is an adequate tradeoff for the reduction in the sidewalk width. Site also has a constraint of the Southern Star gas uh line which uh severely limits the amount of width that they have in the lot as well. Staff recommends approval of the of the deviation.

Thank you, Bob. U any questions before we open the public hearing? Okay. Um at this time, we'll open the public hearing. Um same rules as before. If anyone would wish to speak, um you have three minutes for an individual, seven minutes for a group. Um, please remember to state your name and address for the public record. Hello, my name is Blaze Bman. I live at 25112 West 177 Terrace. Um, on the map, this is basically my backyard. So, a little frustrating to see that they want to put a hotel directly in my backyard purely based off of the size of it. Um, the way that I look at it is kind of frustrating is probably the best word I would use purely because I mean, if I'm looking at my backyard, I'm going to see a giant hotel that is now going to block everything. Um, I understand that we purchased our home in a commercial zone where they were going to be able to build commercial areas. Um, my only issue with it is is the fact that the crime that typically comes with hotels as well. um as well as traffic. I don't know if anybody ever frequents over in that area, but the road that we have typically probably won't do super great with that amount of volume and vehicles that are traveling and especially with commercial vehicles only having one turn in on that side during that time period. It's going to frustrate a lot of us, I think. Um just wanted to voice our opinions as a small community of a neighborhood. We've talked to quite a few of other neighbors and everything's we're all in agreement. It's kind of rough to be able to have a hotel in our backyard. Just wanted to get that point across and that's all I have for you. But thank you for your time.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this item? Seeing that no one is approaching the podium, I will entertain a motion to close the public hearing. I'll make a motion to close. I'll second. Motion by Commissioner Sosa, second by Commissioner Bonner. All those in favor?

I posted abstensions. All right. Motion carries five to zero. Okay. We will now move into uh commissioner discussion. Um it's a little frustrating that the applicant is not here to answer questions, but we'll start we'll start on my on my right this time. Chairman Jun,

we're not sure why they're not here, but if there are questions or issues that you think they need to address, you always have the right to continue on. We at this point do not have a December meeting, so it would be continuing it to January. So just keep those things in mind and if you decide to continue it if you wanted to open the public hearing you could at a future meeting but you would not have to. Okay. Thank you for that for that context.

I guess we'll kind of see where discussion or questions if we feel like we need to do that. Um, seems like a decent approach to me. You guys think so? I I have maybe one silly question. I mean, I travel a lot. Maybe I don't realize this, but this is clearly one hotel, right? I look everything that I've looked at is one hotel. When we read Stbridge and Holiday and Suites, are these is that just because they're owned by the same company? They own each other?

Uh, no. As mentioned in the staff report, it's considered a dual brand. Correct. Which basically means one half will be the Holiday and Express. All right. The other half will be the State Bridge. All right. So, that's what I thought I read, but it's not a silly question. Very silly question. Okay. It would be graded. Yeah. Is state bridge is that typically like extended stay or I'm not familiar. I I can't remember if it's an extended stay, but I do know it's it's a little higher uh level than the Holiday and Express.

It's an extended stay hotel technically. Thank you very much. I feel like my personal opinion, we have a member of the community show up. I feel like the application should be heard and I might recommend that as we can obviously continue it, but I would want to make sure we have the opportunity for another public hearing

to give. Yeah, I might be able to address the question uh or concern from the uh the neighbor who came up and spoke. Uh this this development was uh reszoned to commercial back in 2020. uh the overhaul both the uh villas and the estates, Prairie Trace, which is the residential side along the north and west side of Neutrals Parkway, which is a very wide parkway, uh was all scheduled for commercial out here. And specifically, they basically labeled this as a hotel site back during that presentation. So, this isn't really something that's new to you guys because you weren't here back in 2020, but u it's been kind of slated for that type of development.

Um do you know are they limited by height by because of the airport proximity? So they will need to go before the uh new century airport board and the county commissioners. Uh so back when the resoning happened and you know we uh uh you know the treadway apartments which are at the southern end of this kind of side of uh new parkway uh had to be reviewed and approved by both the new century airport commission and also the board of county commissioners. So, with these new structures, yes, it I'm guessing that the county will say, "Yeah, we need to bring this to their attention.

It's unfortunate. They had that control.

So I think we would table this to our December meeting. We need to set we need to say the date that you would have to or sorry

motion like your usual motions you make. So if you do that and it passes and we could move it 60 days without the consent of the applicant, but if it's going to be more than 60 days, which based on no December meeting, it would technically be right over 60 days, we would have to get consent from the applicant to just move it to what whenever the January meeting is. Um, so if for some odd reason the applicant is like, "Oh, I don't I don't consent to this," we would have to meet and consider it in December. And that could be like on Zoom or whatever, but as long as it fulfills the requirements of coma, the public meetings act, we can still hold it. Anyway, all of this to say, we have to ask consent from the applicant to move it to the January meeting as well. Thank you for that clarity. I'm willing to meet December if that's how it happens.

I I'll make a I'm sorry before I make a motion. Is are we is it continuing? All right. All right, I'll make a motion uh to continue this item number three for the new trails north third plat either the December or January meeting depending on applicants consent. Do we want them to go ahead and do it January? Yeah, if you would like to say it specifically so we could tell the applicant when it's going to be heard next.

Yeah, I'll I'll revise the motion to continue item number three for New Trails North Third Plat to the January meeting. January 26. January 2026 meeting. January 26th. January. Oh my goodness. Uh to the January 26 meeting. Yes. Second. All right. We have a by motion by Commissioner Combmes, a second by Commissioner Bonner. All those in favor? I

I posted extensions. Motion carries five to zero. Okay. Um that is the end of our regular agenda. Um we have three discussion items from staff. Okay. We provided in your packet both a red line and a clean copy of some proposed amendments to chapters 1 through three of title 17. And what we're doing is going chapter by chapter, maybe not in order to make proposed revisions. So this is the beginning of something that will probably take over a year just depending on workload and time frame and things like that. So we thought this might be a good place to start. They are more general um process areas of the code. So, I wanted to just go through the high level changes, see if there's any questions, and then we would not bring this back to you until at least the January meeting um based on any feedback that you may have that Katherine would have from a legal perspective as well. Chapter one is the general provisions chapter. There's just very few changes to this section or this chapter. They include rolling back deadlines from 4 pm to noon um on the day of the deadline. That's more of an internal process thing for us. And modifying the language related to the board of zoning appeals officers to be consistent with that of the planning commission and allow the the planning commission chairman and vice chairman to also serve in that capacity for the board of zoning appeals. Just more

cleanup, if you will, in chapter one. Chapter two is definitions and we are proposing to modify a few definitions to provide greater clarification. Um for example, accessory building and accessory use making sure that it's clear. Um there's a little bit of opportunity to make sure that it what an accessory use can be in an accessory building for example. So I just minor modifications. I'm probably making it more convoluted than I should in my explanation. What we're really focusing on with in the definitions is ANC is adding several when we've been talking about deviations versus variance for example or what is a principal use. Um and then also even something as simple as what does annexation mean? If terms are not defined in the code, then we automatically go back to just a standard Webster's dictionary. Um, so there are certain times that we want to define terms to make sure that they're specific for what we are working with and doing. So that's several proposed new additions to the definition section. And then chapter three in applications and procedures, we are adding a section related to discovery meetings. In the code, there's a pre-application meeting and we actually are recommending and have been trying to do this already. It but have what we term a discovery meeting with applicants before they spend money on a traffic study or full engineering drawings. um it's more conceptual what are the high-level issues that may come up and they may

decide to obviously pursue it or they may say not the right property I'll look elsewhere so we want to codify that the next two items that I've pointed out here the posting of signs and mailing of notices relate to our public notice requirements right now staff is doing all of both of those things um the posting of signs it does say that the applicant's going to do it and we're pro proposing to provide greater direction for those placement of those signs and start requiring them to to actually do that rather than us post the signs. With respect to the mailing of notices, staff has been providing doing that process in terms of drafting the letter, paying for the postage, making sure we meet the deadline. And we are proposing to shift that responsibility from the staff to the applicant. We've looked around at several other communities and it while there is a mix, the majority do require the applicant to take that responsibility. We found that in our expiration time frames that our preliminary plat are only good for 18 months where our preliminary development plans, final development plans, and final plat are all good for two years. So, not to cause any confusion, it's nice to have them all a standard two years. And then the last two items again relate to sort of consistent language and clean up of some of the language relative to incomplete applications and continuences. Um, open it up for questions. Obviously, I'll probably send you like I did with the bylaws sort of a a middle of the road email. Hey, you have any other thoughts? Um, as we proceed forward and then we will in the future give you an idea of how we're going to tick off some of these other chapters. Some we won't be able to take in a group because of the scope of them. But when we can do

them in bunches, it does help. So, if you've got any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I have one very simple question. Uh so the this is unique to posting of signs.

So very much like mailing of the notices there was some proof right that it happened. Obviously you can see a sign if it's where it needs to be. However, isn't it or would it be staff or someone's responsibility to ensure that signs were properly posted or how can we be sure that the applicant's doing what obviously staff would have done before? Sure. Unique to signs, sorry.

Unique to signs, um, what we have done is drafted an affidavit and require photographic proof in today's technology. take a photograph, it was installed, they would have to visit and have a notorized statement saying, "I visited the day of the meeting or the day before the meeting. The sign was still up." Um, we have not necessarily been following up as a staff. We we put it up and we put it up where it should be. Um, but making sure that it stays up is important. And so we did include if it is if if they in the affidavit if the sign is no longer there, they need to let us know and get one back right up there.

And and so I saw that uh and this is one of the reasons why I was looking to maybe get clarity is with the mailed pieces there was a period of time in which they had to provide proof of such. Mhm. Uh, and I saw that yes, there's a photograph, but is there any time limit that I overlooked or specific time period that they need to abide with? Are you with respect to the posting of the signs? Correct. Okay. There there is a deadline by which the sign has to be posted just like the letters have to be postmarked so many days ahead of the meeting. I'm sorry. I'm uniquely talking about to the photograph.

So when they take a photograph and say, "Yeah, I did. I know I'm splitting hairs here. I just just curious about when they take the photograph, is it do they have four days, five days to get that to the secretary of the planning commission very much like the mail reports or I think we're going to want the the the photograph and the affidavit relative to the sign closer to the day of the meeting. Gotcha. So, and again, that's all I was just curious how we're going to make sure they're Yeah. doing what they're doing. Well, and often times we will hear from neighbors if the sign disappears, of course,

and you don't know who caused it or how it disappeared. It could be wind, but sometimes they do disappear. Absolutely.

Yes. Exactly. Right now, we have been mailing them first class. We have been requiring them to provide the list of who it needs to be. They obviously will continue to have to do that, but in order to ensure it was mailed postmarked on time, they would have to be sent certified and so that will cost them additional. Um, so I actually that raises one final question, I promise. uh the list that they obtained. Did I overlook are they to so when they obviously the applicant is going to be uh sending the mailings?

Do we provide the list? No, it's their responsibility to determine. Yes. And there's a couple ways they can do that. They can either go through a title company who will provide they're they're required to do it either 200 feet from correct their property or a thousand depending in the city or in the county. So they can either go through a title company to get that information or you can go through Johnson County Records and Tax Administration Office on Ames. It's relatively easy to do if you know what you're doing. So absolutely perfect. And that would be a cause if it was done incorrectly. That would be a cause for an item to be continued.

Okay. And that's really where where I'm going. If we were to identify that time frames weren't met, certain applicants weren't or I'm sorry, residents weren't notified, obviously those would be issues that yeah, we could address. All right.

But what's the what's the checks to make sure that they notified the proper people, you know, the list was accurate. How do we verify they did that correctly? We we don't necessarily doublech check it, but we may do some spot checking even today with them providing the mailing list. Obviously, it has to be to the property owner and not to the resident. So, taking a quick look and doing some spot checking is is how we would continue to do that. No other questions.

Okay. Well, there's no vote required tonight. It's just more of good questions and we'll be prepared at a future meeting. So, as of today, there's no December meeting.

As of today, we have not received any applications. So, unless there is an issue with the item that you continued, we would not see you in December. And if we do see you in December, it would be on a Tuesday again because we do not want to have meetings the week of Christmas. So it would be um the 16th on a Tuesday if we do see you. And we'll we'll get information. We'll talk to the applicant as soon as we can tomorrow hopefully and make and let you know as soon as we know. Yeah. Um, if you want me to keep rolling on in terms of the agenda. Yes, please.

Um, last night the plan the city council considered all of your items that were on your October agenda. Um, those included the four corners, the Meadows of Aspen Creek, the school district elementary school, and the school district service center. And I'm missing something. Um, oh, and the Hilltop Ridge and all of those were approved as you all approved them. There was good discussion. There were neighbors that came to that meeting as well, but those are all hopefully moving forward now. So last item, and it's not too late, so I'll try to make it quick anyway, is continuing with our idea of some education or orientation opportunities. We staff developed a list of common terms or that we thought might be helpful in terms of what they mean or may be a refresher for some people. So, some terms may be obvious, others may have a unique nuance because they're more planning, land use related. If you've got questions, stop in the process and we can talk about them. First, we talked about a little uh city council versus governing body. Um, obviously, city council, there's five elected council members and the governing body includes the mayor. This is more important for them in terms of when the mayor votes on things and when they don't. And I did and when he doesn't and I did include here Kansas state statute does define what a governing body is. They don't define what a city council is and so it really relates to what that the mayor votes on or doesn't. Sort of a little quirky thing but thought you might be interested. Um you'll sometimes hear applicants refer to a plan when they

really mean plat or plat when they really mean site plan. So the subdivision plat is where they are dividing the property into lots. It's a legal document. It's recorded with the county. It's prov prepared by an engineer or surveyor. Site plan is more um showing the development. It's the building footprints, the related improvements. They're both done by engineers. They're both to a scale. That's important. but it's the plat that allows for the sale of property or transfer of property. So, we just wanted to make sure that sometimes we'll jump in and tell and say it's a plat, not a plan or or whatever. Um, lot, parcel, tract. I um I thought this was interesting because we use all of those terms sometimes to describe land and they may be interchangeable. I like to think it about it as the the lot has been subdivided. So it it's subdivided to create a lot when before it's been subdivided or platted. It I like to think about it as a parcel. And the tract often times is where you've got common space in a development um for storm water or it sometimes the access easement is in a tract. Um the term parcel describes land that may or may not be subdivided. Um, so that that it's sort of nuances, but it's it's they can also be interchangeably used. So that's a little different than the plan versus plat. Zoning versus land use. Oftentimes the public is concerned about is confused about this. Zoning relates to how the regulations, the police power of how a property can be used and what regulations it must come under. land

use. It could be future land use. It could be existing land use, but how the land or sometimes the building is occupied. We might talk about land use like single family. Well, we also have a single family zoning district, but you can have commercial use and you would have zoning that allows specific types of commercial uses. it's probably not going to be generic enough that it says any commercial use because that can be such a broad brush. So the zoning also relates to how the um the development regulations, setbacks, building heights. Um, so those are some of the differences if you will in terms of and that one's more as a refresher because we'll get people talking about the zoning when when they really mean land use. Well, the the comprehensive plan says it's zoned this. No, it's the comprehensive plan is land use and it doesn't change the zoning. So, okay. Then this is another little nuance. We have our future land use designations or existing land use designations. Um and then we have how the properties used. And so I put some examples in the comprehensive plan. We have low density, medium density and residential or highdensity residential. And in the use table we have group care home or household living. Um and so there's the land use designations are more um higher level if you will and the use table gets into retail small retail heavy or those retail warehouse even

sometimes to the different sizes or levels of uses. We refer to part of our code as formbbased code as opposed to Uklitian. Um, Uklitian is just a little fun fact maybe. Um, derived from a 1926 US Supreme Court case from Uklid, Ohio versus Amler reality. That's how they came up with Uklitian zoning. Zeros in on specific land uses and it and typically assigns buildings or land a single use. They they wanted to separate at that time industrial from residential. Form-based as opposed encouraged the mixing of uses and focuses more on the form of the building and that's why we talk about the building type and the frontage type um in terms of how it relates to its surroundings. Our code is a hybrid. We have elements that are form based relating to like I said the the street types, frontage types and deviations to make something comply with code or better versus we also allow straight zoning like we had last month for four corners where it was single family. It was not a planned development and they had to meet lot width, minimum lot size for example. Um permitted use versus conditional use. Permitted use is allowed without any special approvals. We had conditional use this evening and that was the south tower. So it required an additional level of design review. Is it compatible with its surroundings? We can include conditions of approval and it the review is actually similar to a reasonzoning in terms of you're making a recommendation, it goes to city

council and they are approving a conditional use by ordinance versus um something that's permitted by right. they may be able to go straight to a site plan or if it's an existing building, they might be able to move into the building without any review or approval. I won't go through all of these, but there's specific review criteria for conditional uses. Um, it's slightly different than resoning, but there are some sort of overlap because they're looking at how it fits with the area and it's more focused on that particular use such as the cell tower, um, and the potential impact to the surrounding area. temporary uses. Um, probably pretty obvious, short period of time. Um, after the use is over, they return the site to its previous condition. Here's some examples that we see. And there are, um, for several of these, there are a temporary use permit that's required, and that's an administrative thing. Here's the criteria. Here's the criteria. And if it complies, staff can issue a temporary use permit in most cases. Um I think one trying to remember if we we probably talked a little bit about this with the board of zoning appeals versus planning commission variance is board of zoning appeals that must meet all five criteria deviation more flexible. Um the uh I think that's easy enough to to go through. Um I included appeal versus variance because both of these are board of zoning appeals. Um actions appeals are not common. They're filed

when an applicant disagrees with a decision that's was made by the director um based on planned zoning allowing for a more flexible application. We don't see very many variances and we see even fewer appeals. I would tell you there are other boards um the board of building code appeals. You are not so don't worry about that. That relates to building electric fire mechanical those building code issues. So administrative adjustments versus um planning commission versus staff. There are some things that staff can do. We have much we're much more limited in granting administrative site plans. For example, you can see if the setback is being modified or maybe increased by 10% or less, that's something staff could approve. If it's greater than that, then the adjustment would have to come to you all as part of either a site plan or a plan development. And there's criteria. We like to have criteria for everything. Gives us the guidelines of how to make those.

Can I ask I'm sorry question. You go back one slide. So planning commission bottom left my screen up% would that applied tonight to uh the special ed location that we were talking about. I'm just trying to apply that to a real life example. We don't have to debate if we discuss the hotel versus Um well it's usually in your example they want to go taller. Yeah.

Um so you would not be able to go from three to four because that's of the greater percentage. It's usually it's more a um the number of feet if the maximum it's not going from three to four floors. If if the maximum height is 40 feet and they want to go 20% greater of 40 feet, you could do you could potentially grant that.

So it's it's it's either the feet or the percentage. Like if 10% open space is required and they want to go less than that, staff could grant 9%. I think you just put Okay, you clarified my question and the application of this because it would have to apply to the requirement of open space at least in my example. Correct. Okay. It's it's to very specific numerical requirements whether they be a percentage or feet or wonderful. No, thank you for that. Sorry. Sure.

Uh just couple more and they go pretty quick. The only thing I'm going to say about a use variance is they're not allowed. Kansas state statute does not allow a use variance. And a use variance would be like, oh, I want to put a nail salon in a single family residential district. No. So, that's all you got to know. Spot zoning, you hear that term every once in a while. Can mean a lot of different things to different people. Um, sometimes we people like to throw that out there when it's when they think the proposed zoning is incompatible and it's usually for a small acreage of land. So, I would ne wouldn't necessarily call the school um spot zoning number one because it was commercial and you've got commercial around it. But let's say they were going for the a residential district because they could develop the school in a residential district. That was 25 acres of land. It's not necessarily your one parcel that's two acres. Um, and it's really relating to more not conforming. It might be a reason that you would not recommend reszoning because you consider it spot zoning. We don't hear that term as much as we used to. I don't think last one promised. U grandfathered. That one gets thrown around a lot too. It's really, it's called legal non-conforming. It was a legal use or a legal building that is now no longer conforming with the code because maybe it was we annexed it and it complied in the county, but it doesn't comply with our regulations. or when we get farther into the code and maybe we start making changes, probably won't do this, but making changes to our parking requirements and a building had

adequate parking, but we changed the requirement and made it more. We changed the code. So, that would be a legal non-conforming because when it was built, it complied with the code. Claire's mud That one's easy. Good. That's it. Any questions? Any ideas of other things you'd like to hear about? Um topics. Yeah. So, last month we approved the recommend. Yes.

I was surprised that within a week fences were up and grading started. So, they start private development before the governing

and they can and they can under certain circumstances. One, you have to be the property owner if it hadn't transferred to them. Um, and two, they had to have and they do have a land disturbance permit. So, they had their silk fencing up and all of that. Um, what we would not allow them to do and we have not approved their public improvement plans um because they don't have their plat recorded. So that was the case also with the other school property for their service center. They started um and we had some neighbors concerned. So yeah, good question.

I might just add not to that topic, but this topic uh this review is very informative. Good. And I would just say thank you. And I don't know what it would take to, you know, continue training maybe not always at the end of a meeting right or even online I'm talking about the future aspect of things but this is extremely informative and I would absolutely you know be interested in more of this kind of education that's good to know I won't put you on the spot but if there's certain topics you'd like to learn more about

let us know and if it even if there you know we had the city engineer here this evening I'm sorry I didn't introduce him. But if you have questions, the the traffic 101, you know, those types of storm water 101, I'm g I'm going to volunteer public works. Uh but and and we will also start to get into comprehensive plan a little bit more because we will be looking at um and need to start doing a regular review of it. So, we're going to be looking at it for amendments and bringing information to you to to help you hopefully grow in your knowledge and make Yeah.

always want you to make informed decisions.

Well, I think for me to answer your question, uh I mean I I referenced all of our codes, all of the tools, right, that that we need to do this. One of the things that stood out to me was the slide that I asked you to go back to. And maybe the best way for me to get this out of my brain is I want to understand what the rails are that we actually have and should stay within. And I and I know we all completely understand things like uh we don't need to look at the finance side of things. We really need to stay to, you know, the land development code and the use of the land. Those types of terms. All I'm sure we're all well versed on. uniquely what I would be interested in knowing more of is again that slide that you showed me where or us where we have uh I'm trying not to use the word authority but uh we have say and can impact open spaces and those types of deviations. that be the right way to say that?

Would it be helpful and this may be more of a conversation of deviations in general because I know chairman Sosa you've also had some questions about deviations and maybe that's something in the future of a roundt discussion if we had some topics or questions to start that. No, I think that would be great. And not to belver the point, but the one thing that I think we all look to fall back on unique to deviations is where did we do this before and looking at key examples and yeah having some level of precedence because I understand we want to be flexible but it's you know to do the right things for the community but at the same time the code's the code and the guidelines are the guidelines and we set them for a reason. So I that would be a wonderful topic I think to to have yes a roundt discussion.

I hear what you're saying and I won't belabor the point. I'm sorry. Um I hear what you're saying about setting precedents and yes and no in terms of sometimes disagreement. Honestly, every property has uniqueness and not really, but you can't compare this development with this development because they're both residential. Topography may be the issue or whatever. You're exactly right. And it depends on the deviation request.

It's, you know, Okay. So if someone is saying like tonight the deviation of 8ft sidewalks they wanted at five but they wanted three of uh shrubbery or landscaping not going to really question and say have we had precedence on that before but if someone says I don't want to put that ACA approved uh ramp on that side of the building and they give some real justification as to why it should go somewhere else where I know that's probably an extreme example But where is the precedent in such a big deviation request that's not, you know, adding landscape to where concrete would be? Okay.

And for me, the the precedents, it's more about why we made that change. What was the thought process as to why we made that change? So, I think that's where it comes in. Less about that these are two residential properties, we should treat them the same, but what was our thought process when we made this change over here? So, we could consider that if we should think That's fair. Thank you.

Have we approved things in the past? Yes. Yes. We've done that in the past. What's the issue? Absolutely. That's it. Can we I have no more questions. You sure? I mean, give me a minute. Give me If we don't end this now, this Let's Let's I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll make that motion. I'll second. Okay. Motion by Mr. Comb, second by Commissioner Varnishment. All those in favor? Opposed?