Planning & Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

We don't know what. Yeah. Okay. Call the meeting in order. Start with roll call. Okay. Randall here. Miles here. Anderson here. Espinosa here. Kudo here. And Graham and Wheelie are absent with notice. All right. Defer a motion to approve tonight's agenda. I'll make a motion. Second. Motion. second to approve tonight's agenda. All in favor? I opposed. For a motion to approve the minutes of the February 24th, 2026 meeting. I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second. Have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of the February 24th, 2026 meeting. All in favor? I post. Public comments. Are you here to comment? Yeah, that's me. You got five minutes at the podium. Introduce yourself to Teresa so she gets you in the record.

Cooper Tracy of 411 North Oaks. Um was in here a few weeks ago about the parcels that are out there between Fifth and Ramona. Just wanted to kind of question I guess is a potential proposal. I have no idea what the process would be for this, but I know that the walking trail eventually is going to go up western at some point or at least is I think that's what the route says will eventually do. Um, that obviously isn't the best ground to develop or at least has come into issues with it. I'm not saying it's impossible. You can throw a couple houses on there, but it's financially I know it's kind of a strain. Um, we've all wanted parks of some kind in that area. There's nothing I mean, we've got to, you know, we can go not too far over and get to the main park, but if the walking path goes up that way, that could be a perfect spot for a park. Um, sure needs plenty of ground. weird space that isn't a whole lot to do with, but obviously that involves the city buying it. I don't know exactly the process to pitch something like that or what, you know, even just personal opinions on it if that would be something idea.

Your first place to pitch would be with our park and wreck board. Okay. And Teresa can let you know their meeting dates. Yeah. Actually, they meet on the 23rd of this month. So, it's Monday at 6:30. Okay. Um that two weeks. Yep. and and their agendas get posted just like you know you can look on the website but be the 23rd this month and it's a Monday though 6:30. Yep. Because they're the they're the starting point of determining where parks and trails and all those things kind of go. Yeah. They kind of a comprehensive plan not that long ago.

Yeah. And that's I saw that and that's kind of what popped in our head and okay there's at least a want to do something like this to add parks of some kind in. even if it's just left as a you know chunk of nature. I mean obviously that'd be perfect for for us but you know like you know even something like that it would be obviously well received I think in the neighborhood of Yep. So it's a good idea and you're right the the county's original traffic studies and plan for Western Avenue includes the what they call it multimodal path. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. side word for it on the east side of that if and but that's out probably 10 years yet in the county's plan. Yeah. But it's a right time to be talking to parks board to get it on the

radar. We were thinking just wanted to at least figure out where to start to get the ball rolling. So that's a good quite think parks interact. That makes a little more sense but you saw us here so it's a good starting point. Appreciate you taking the time to come in and start the process. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Bring your friends next time. Make them come with you. Norally that's bad when people show up, right? No. No. We'd like it. Yeah. Yeah. Forming an issue. Yeah. You guys have a good one. Thank you. Thank you. All right. No hearings and petitions tonight. So, we'll move to new business reviewing the current building permit fees and changes. Teresa, lead us on.

Okay. Well, as you know, we've kind of been looking into this. Um, actually Kyle did a lot of research of getting the numbers together, but we thought it just might be a time to look at our current um, fees and structure of how we calculate building um, permits. Last time we reviewed this was back in 2018. So, we just want to put it out there for discussion, see what you guys think, if you think we're in line, if we're not, if we should change anything. So really when uh we figure a building permit for something and we figure basically we start with figure an evaluation of a project and um certain things like you know a new home or remodel. We charge evaluation is so much a square foot um you know other things are just you know a flat fee of so much a square foot whether it be a deck or fence you know everything's got a valuation associated with it. So they come in, we figure the valuation of that project and whatever that dollar amount comes to, then we take that times our fee schedule. So we charge, you know, so much for the first, let's say it was a new house. The first 5,000 we charge x amount of dollars of valuation and then we charge $2 every thousand after that. You know, there's this calculation system of how we come up with the actual dollar amount. Um so we figure the valuation then we figure what the fee is and then us and every municipality around us has you know various other charges that go along with the building permit. So say like it's a new house we have tapping fees you know to hook into the water and sewer main so you may have hookup charges. I mean all the all the other communities have that too. Um, and really the only other thing that we have here in Harford is what we call our part fee, but that's a fee that we associate onto a building permit, residential and commercial. All building permits get it. That goes into our general fund to basically help with all

public improvements. We can use, it's really unrestricted. We can use this for public improvements throughout the city. So, those are things we charge. Other cities have administrative fees. They have um if you look through the packet, you'll see uh T and uh Brandon have a huge sewer district fee because they're hooked up with the Sou Falls um municipal our water system. So, they have a huge fee on that. So, their building permits are super high um if they're going to be using um sewer. Um some have um inspection fees on it. Ours we don't have an administration fee or inspection fee. That's all kind of figured just as part of the building permit. So, it's a lot of information we gave you. Like I said, um child did a lot of research, kind of gave you a sheet that kind of just does a comparison of what other counties charge as far as how they figure their valuations. You know, so much per your habitable space, so much for a finished basement, so much for a garage. you know, we have us shown what we charge and then we have the other cities there to compare it to. Also, then with commercial permits, we we kind of got a system of how we charge or put a value onto those. And then after that, like I said, that's then the actual fee schedule of, you know, how do you calculate that valuation to so we gave you a comparison of all the cities there and and every city's just a little bit different. May their valuation may be slightly higher or lower, but then their fee structure may be slightly higher than lower than us. We thought I should say then the next one we had kind of have a list of the other additional fees put on but I thought maybe a true comparison and the last sheet in year of all this information give you Kyle went and did a

comparison of actual okay let's just show what the difference is here's a single family home he just took a three-bedroom two bath you know 1326 ft um on the main floor you know 791 garage, unfinished basement with a deck, and then calculated what the actual fee would be, the building permit would cost somebody if they went and do did it between the various cities. So, like I said, you look at T and Brandon and and all these are with a 1 in water meter, too, because um like T and Brandon, they charge it by the size of the meter. We just have a flat fee, which so does Linux and Harrisburg, but those have by the size of the meter. So we figured apples to apples. You can see T and Brandon are definitely way higher, but that's that sewer district fee in there for being on the Sou Falls system there. That's that onetime charge. Even if you take that out of there, T is still pretty darn high. Um Brandon comes a little bit lower, but it's pretty high, too. Compare it. We're not the lowest around the region. We're not the highest either. So food for thought and discussion of what you guys think have to look at this.

If you take the take the system development charge of Brandon Harrisburg are pretty much neck to neck and T is yeah barely ahead. They're not there's not much difference between No, it brings them down to here but T still stays way up there. T is the highest definitely around. Um, he's just a take off the floor. What' you say? They're they're just between four and 5,000 then cuz you're going to take Yeah. six grand off of it. They'd be the highest though. They're still the highest. We had a winner. We do have a winner. We do have a winner. And that's I mean the other side of that is what makes them the winners. Yeah. Four grand to hook up to the water and sewer,

right? If you're doing a 1 in meter and like I said, you know, if they if you're doing a 3, it can be a little while, but if we're comparing apples to apples here, but how does that compare with water and sewer rates in the future, you know, down the road? Well, I was going to say and and the question, so they have their system development fee that goes to being hooked on to Sou Falls. How does that compare to then sewer and like search charges that we have or that Harrisburg has because we built our own plants? Yeah. You know, that goes on the water bill. You know, we don't charge that on the building permit. Right. I realize that. But what I'm saying is we got our search charge. What's the five-year comparison like with those? Yeah. We're paying

20 whatever 60 $600 a year in a search charge for the sewer plant. What's the one time? How does that compare to what is on their sewer bills? Does their six grand come back in 10 years? I don't know. Or do they still have a search charge? I don't know that either. I don't know that either. You know, do they still have a search charge on top of the hookup to the I mean for the I mean I mean it's whatever. It's it's a here nor there on that side of it. But I thought it was a lot of good information here.

There's a lot of good stuff. What I I mean I look at the single family and it's great. I mean, it's a great comparison and everything. It's good information. I would love to see some comparables on commercial. We can do that.

And and I would love to have feedback from our development corp on how they feel. And I don't know if they have already run comparisons or they know what it is, but what's their feeling if say we're, let's just say on a commercial building we're five grand and everybody else is less. Is it hurting us because our building permit is higher. The feedback from them I think is a good question to ask. Sort of like the HADF HDF. Yes. M something there's I guess very similar to the to the residential. Yep.

Do like do a million a five and a 10 million. Let's think somebody big's going to happen. Yeah, I thought the residential comparison put together. Kyle, how do you think that the building permit fee is $665? How does that how does that compare with our cost instructions? I mean, how many times are you on site on a on a single family home? Minimum three. You have footing, foundation, footing, framing, and then final.

Yep. I mean, probably 25% of the time there might be a pre-final and a final depending if they're missing stuff, but for the most part, it's three inspections. Three to four. Yeah. And I what we're doing, but I would say a commercial, you're probably out there more though, aren't you? Just as it seems like we're Yeah. Yeah. Those are usually larger projects and so you're keeping kind of eye on them. Yep. I'm just wondering if that's administratively what do we have an hour into a building permit by the time we put everything together and

and like say you know every project's kind of a little different so you know it's really hard to get a thinking about the single family home but this thing yeah we can compare like this project and compare that with other city we can maybe do a comparison with you know a commercial I mean our building we have permit fee is low or lower. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. And then the park fee, I know that that's kind of a push with the park board and getting some funding in. We're looking at our, you know, developer fee. Unfortunately, the park fee, it goes into the general fund.

It goes into the general fund and they can use it. It's not just for parks or development. used to buy sand salt to salt the street. That's where the money comes for the park board and but it it can Yeah. Like you said, it can be used to buy sand salt because street Yeah. It should just be general. Yeah. Yeah. I really hate that we and it's been called park be ever since I've been here. I really hate that it's called uh Yeah. We should just call an administrative fee or something. Yeah. Something a little bit better they should have come up with. Would be a more encompassing Right. Public improvement. Yeah. Something more general.

I know. I try to think of like what Harford's closest by like building wise, you know, to what towns are building like Harford is. And I would say that, you know, Harrisburg and T are probably in the league of their own comparison as well. I think we're closest to Lennox and D Rapids on this list. you know. Yeah. Communitywise, population wise, but yeah. Yeah. Um there I know when we built our house, it was more than what we'd planned on compared to like Sou Falls just the building permit wise. But were you figuring their sewer fee in Sou Falls? So they got amounts to one there.

Yeah. So I mean no, we were just looking at building permit itself. So yeah. So, no, I I understand there's more pieces to that than just the

um we'll just point. So, the water the hookup fees, the water and sewer, they do go into those funds. So, that is good to have because that'll go for the maintenance and operation of those funds, you know, and actually, you know, help with the reserves in those funds. So when we do do water projects or sewer projects, you know, that helps build up those funds so that that doesn't go to the general. I mean I would rather than changing rather than changing the fee schedule I'd almost suggest that we look at our valuation because other than G I mean our valuation is dramatically lower than everybody else and you can raise you can raise the I'm just for lack of better words, you can raise the mill levy and everybody looks at it and says, "Well, you're so much higher than somebody else." But if they see the valuation and we're evaluate we're valuing that say $100 a square. You can't you can't build a doghouse for $100 a square anymore.

Yeah. And and and that's no and that's true. you know that we're putting a value on these projects, but you know, last time these values were changed was in 2018. We all know everything has gone up, you know, so it isn't unreasonable to think to assign a higher value to a project. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I mean, I've have had that discussion with people on property taxes. It's like, well, our taxes just keep going up and the city keep our mill levy has gone down every year since the move to this town in 2015. Every year the mill levy goes down, but the value of your house went up. That's why your taxes went up.

But yeah, looking at residential construction, pulling the lot up. The last that we built was they were slav, but they were over $200 a square foot, not including the lot, you know, just house side of things, 500 grade. guys I've been involved with now has basically said it's 250 a square and you're not getting super good I've heard 300 a square yeah it could be three 300 wow isn't that nuts so I mean you can you can bump you could you could bump both your permit permit fee and your park fee would go up without changing

the multiplier Mhm. But you could bump those up by 50% all the way down the board, right? And still be underneath the threshold, right?

That's just that's a couple things I had. I'd like to see some commercial, but the the residential comparison is awesome and I appreciate that, but I'd love to see a say a 105 and a $10 million comparison. Okay.

For the commercial, you're talking for for commercial, right? For commercial projects. I do agree though looking at the value of the how you're valuing the new homes and stuff. Uh I don't know. Do the other towns base that off of uh are they just using a set dollar per square foot? So like like he said, some of them are based on can go anywhere from two square foot, right? Some Stacy, some some are basing on a square foot and some are are based on the actual cost of construction.

It depends on it depends on the city where they're coming up with their valuation from. I I like just having a square foot number goes across the board. Doesn't matter what you're building. Here's our number. And our number is still low compared to the vast majority of the builds are going to be done. Yeah. Even change it up to 200 is square. You're going to be under both anything that's going to get done. Yeah. Yep. Not calling any saying anybody might fib a number. But when you're asking act based on actual cost, what's your paperwork to show what your actual cost was, right? Yeah. What's included and what's not. Exactly.

Yeah. We we kind of got that land or it should just be the building. It should just be the building, but but there again, it just takes out a lot of the equation where you put just a square footage valuation. It takes work out. Well, if you if you're going total cost, you can even get in a situation with somebody that's going to GC their own house and when they come in to get the building permit, say, "Well, I'm I got a construction loan. it's going to cover the cost of everything I'm going to do here and it's 350,000 while a h 100,000 of it was land acquisition cost and others not part of the building and they didn't realize that now they're paying too much for the building permit

okay well we'll get some comparison for the next meet on some commercial projects um and we'll Teresa could you find out what Krooks is charging Crooks. I didn't see the crooks listed on there when I read it this morning, I don't think. Well, if you Yeah, but they say they're supposed to be growing pretty fast with all that expansion in Northwest Sou Falls. And I just like to see RFPs compared to theirs. Well, I don't think I don't think our building permits are keeping people from developing in Hartford. People are leaving.

I mean, RFPs are the worst of anybody around the area. tax, you know, you look at all the towns that she had listed there, I think, our fees are a lot lower. Del Rapids is kicking our butt yet. Yeah. I think Robins needs to resurface it. Exactly. So, and then I say once you get that commercial once you get that commercial comparison, I'd like I'd like to have feedback rock test from HADF how they feel. I got that. So, we'll do that first. I'll get some feedback from the HAD with their thoughts about development and if there's you know they got any input on that.

We'll try to kind of figure out maybe what a administrative cost is for a project for residential home maybe you know what time it takes and kind of trying to figure out cost for that and so we'll put that too. So okay look we got some more information and continue our discussion then good start. No. Perfect. Do we have anything more for Mr. Clark other than his So, he couldn't be here tonight. Uh, he did send me an email though to give you guys an update. So,

I figured that he did. Uh, residential, there are seven open single family home permits. Um, still two of the twin home permits.

Commercial project updates. Um, basically for the city, the park bathrooms are still in progress. We are I'll just tell you from the city side, we've got the plumber, electrician there. We're getting close to being almost done with with those. And then they're working on putting um tin on the shelters out there with the roof and whatnot. So, that's another permit we have outstanding. Um 1095 Root Trail. Um, he said he completed a pre-final inspection on that. 1205 North Oaks. uh there on HDS ground completed a pre-final on that commercial building as well and Wayne's warehouse he closed off their sign permit. So this updates

all right Mr. Christensen what have you got for us? Uh still got dealing with pet licenses, animals at large. I did get a complaint about chickens inside of city limits. over by the pump house 38 lift station. I guess um there's some at Hartford Heights I think. I'm surprised you haven't gotten complaints by the ones that are across my road and they tend to they don't seem to cross they don't seem to cross. They're in the county. Yeah, but if they cross Colton Road they won't be. But the chicken's not crossing the road. You let the chicken cross. THEY DO INTEND TO ROAM ALL THE WAY DOWN there and I'm surprised that they don't.

Where was where was the complaint on chickens? Um the lift station on Highway 38, our new one. Okay, we're just east of that. This that strip is still technically inside the city. We had chickens on. So who was who was there that was complaining about it? Is that There's no structure. There's no structure, no farm, no nothing. What did they just have them out in the pen out there? There's a coupe in the in that row of trees there. Okay. Mr. Wman. Yeah. Somebody who lives in Arbor has got chickens. Cross the road. Yeah, they do. They do cross the road. They do.

Knowing where they're at. That's I'm pretty certain I know whose chickens there who belongs to the chickens. Didn't they come up at city council? We did. I read the minutes. We did have a gentleman come during a public comments at the last city council meeting and asked the council to consider chicken. That was only fitting that showed up when the mayor wasn't here. I know. Isn't that funny how it was timed that way? I don't know if he knows that. Yeah. Okay. What? Anything else, Kyle? The chickens. Uh then I just had a a code enforcement violation. Well, not a violation, just I sent out a reminder letter for temporary signage. Mhm.

Other than that, that's it. There's a car on North Maple up by the Maple Pass Apartments that's missing a tire and a wheel. It's just Yeah. sitting on the asphalt right now on the road. Been there for a while. Yeah, maybe a week. Speaking of temporary signage, I sent Teresa an email today. I think that's the one he's talking about. Was that the one? It was about political signage. How long is that allowed to be up and out and uh

120 days? Temporary signage as long as it's under 32 square feet. Temporary sign can be for 120 days. Okay. I know that's been up longer than 120 days. You said that, but I think we don't really have a start date to. So that's what we had. Kyle, send them the regulations. Let them know that we do have regulations on signage and but aren't even political stuff exempt from any of our sign ordinances. Well, she had to call in. I I read it. I thought it could only be around an election. And we don't even call out political signs. They're just classified under temporary signs.

Okay. I was for some reason I was thinking that state law said that there's state law on how long signs there's state law out there as to when political signs can go up and down and they have to be down within a certain number of days post election. Yeah, that's good. No, I was just looking because I knew that because one of my friend Joy Holm, she had to make sure she got all her signs off a certain time. If I if I remember right, post election who enforces that if I remember right, post election is seven days post election and I don't follow the election so I doesn't I don't even know if there's one coming up but that sign has been there forever.

June would be and I'm tired of Tony. It's seven days after the election. But I don't know pre-election cuz right now I mean any if it's if it's for a candidate it could be up now for primary coming up in June. Yeah, but it's we're talking this is March. Well, I know but primary is in June. There's a primary This has been up I I at least since Christmas Well, there's there's one one candidate for governor that's had signs up for going on two years now. Okay, that's probably who I'm talking about. So, yeah. And because Toby Toby Doden's had signs up for forever already. Yes.

So, I'm just tire I was just asking. I just was getting tired of looking at it. But yeah, you probably want to you probably before we get in a firefight, you better check the state law and see what it says about politicals. I just didn't want billboards. All the Biden signs are down. All the Viking signs. All the Bing signs. All the Biden signs. Yeah. And there's still a couple here and there. All right, let's not get into a political argument. I just don't want billboards all over town. You're just making a statement that I know I know I would lose this one. Kyle, what else you got? Anything for us, buddy? That's it. All right, Teresa, you have anything to add to your report?

Um, nothing to really add to my report. Um, just let you know. So the 38 north development, we did pass a plary plans contingent. They addressed engineer comments. So they are addressing all of them. We did have kind of a starter conversation with the city council about detention ponds though. And um we're going to get us some more information from other cities to see if they take them over, when they take them over, do they charge me, just kind of gather some more information for the council so we can continue that discussion. There's there's pros and cons against taking detention ponds over obviously. Um I think though long term, especially in a situation like this where a developer comes in and develop it and is gone, you know, like a residential development like that and they're not like a commercial property that's on the property. I think the city will have to take them over in the long run. It's just how do we take them over? When do we take them? Just figuring out those nuances have to

unfortunately unfortunately and it wasn't here and I know Mark and I have talked about it but in my mind anything that's reg regionalized I mean you got multip multiple properties dumping into it's kind of hard to make yeah and that's kind of been done a little preliminary just kind of threw some questions out to other city administrators and usually the consensus has been if it's a regional Well, they take

and I take, you know, you get two two really good examples. The north side of Ace Hardware has a detention pond and that's collects from them. The new car wash on Opal has a detention pond. The car wash and Opel's detention pond dumps into drainage detention pond that goes down to Mickelson across in front of Gerald Cresman's in front of Cresman's house and then meets up with well it goes goes down then it goes around the back side of Cresman's house and back down this side and then dumps in and goes down the scum down to Turtle Cradle Creek. Well, it's collecting up that detention pond in itself is collecting up water from four or five different development or neighborhoods there in effect. And but Cresman's are having to take care of twothirds of that. The city took over the west side going to the south

and on the south side, but then craftsman's have to take care of it. Get from the south side down by your old house, you know, and then up to the road and then down alongside the road and then back up in again. Yeah. And that's taking care of all the water from their development as well. It's taking care of their water, everything. But I mean, that's that's in my mind that's a regional regionalized type detention. That's almost a waterway. It's not really a detention pond holding the water structure. But there begins even the question is you created your pond. A waterway was created there to drain all those neighborhoods.

It should as we go forward on this, it shouldn't just be detention ponds. If we're creating a waterway to get water out of those neighborhoods rather than putting in a storm sewer pipe. Yep. That Yeah, that should be looked at as well. That needs to be looked at too. because that takes maintenance and care as well just like we get but detention by design should have an outlet structure and then piped into the storm sur correct yeah yeah or into a waterway it's not a natural yeah a little but it should have an outlet structure yeah I think we just need to look at a whole

there was and I don't know who was the cause of saving a whole bunch of money on storm sewer but there was a whole bunch of money saved on storm sewer. They're creating a waterway drainage easement rather than putting storm sewer in. Cuz once you get under Mickelson Road, it dumps behind all those houses on Kia until it gets down to the creek. That should have all been a storm. That should have been a 36 or 48 inch storm sewer instead of

instead you got a giant water. That's really difficult for everybody, including those that live with it in their backyard cuz that the closer you get to Mickelson, that hill gets pretty darn steep, even for the houses that have the as backyard. So,

so yeah. So, there there will be future discussions on this, but I I think we just need to figure out how to handle these some way, shape, or form. Yeah. So, we'll be working on that. Um, otherwise just a little update. Tyler Torson with SMGA was here at the last council meeting too and we are starting to see some movement still on regionalization. It's not dead. The very first part of that whole grant system was to do this study and they're getting close to kind of the end of this study to basically evaluate all the communities, you know, the cost, the need for it, all that kind of stuff. that's part of the grant process. So it it is things are still happening. Just don't see anything happening there. So I'm still moving forward on that. Otherwise, I guess you have any other questions.

I make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Have a motion and a second to adjurnn. All in favor? I I opposed. We journ. Thanks, Stacy. Do you want me to take a picture of that plate and send it to you or doesn't that help you? You just want to come look at it. Does it have anything that says like who made it or what it