Planning & Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

All right.

Call meeting to order. Several full calls.

Okay. Anderson.

Here. Graham. Here. Coodle. Here.

Espinosa. Here. Wheeling. Here. And Randall and Miles are absolute notice.

I look for a motion to approve the agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda.

Second. Motion approved and second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Look for a motion to approve the meeting minutes from June 30th, 2026.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes on June 30th.

I'll second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. No more comments. We don't have any. Is there not two or seven or five yet? We'll jump ahead, Mr. Clark.

All right, so residential, number of open single-family homes, we have 20. We had a boost of nine from Kane Construction over here in Western Meadows. So there'll be a lot of work accommodated.

Announcement development. Hold nine in one day. Wow.

You're glad it's part of the 20, though?

Yeah, that's part of the 20.

Yes, it is, sir.

Where is that at?

Is that east of Foote Star? Or what?

No, so it'd be down here in Western Meadows addition, like the coffee cup. So it'd be right to the west of there. Kelly Nielsen is doing, yeah, that new circle. The ones that were in the smaller lots? Yes, exactly. They rezoned to the smaller, yeah.

So I'm guessing those are stacks then that Nielsen's putting out, I assume?

Yeah, he's going to, his crew builds them all and then they sell them, so yeah.

There's four holes. They live literally right down the street.

There's four holes dug up on the east side of that town. Yeah, we did two footings today for Opal.

He's also, you know, he purchased on South Main here from Gillen. He purchased that land. They have got the water and sewer in already there, and they're going town shaping the road. So it's true they're going to town. It's good to hear. Yeah. I was just sitting idle before.

Sorry. And then Twin Homes, we have the one. And Commercial, the quick start to our finished work. I think it's going to open in September, right?

September 10th. That's what they said at the last council meeting. 5 a.m. if you want to go. Free coffee, though. Free coffee. That will be there.

The contractor shops, we call them Byron up on North Oaks. We did a putting in the foundation walls and backfill them. Bro Ventures up here, 1095 Rue Trail, right next to Tony's shop, they're adding a mezzanine and some stairs. And the Black Tie Corporation is doing an interior finish room, nothing too much. And the United Methodist Church is going to do a new stoop and some interior walls. That's kind of the gist of what's going on.

What did you say was going on over north, kind of behind Berkman?

It's called the B-Y-R-U-M contractor shops at North Oaks in the corner of Western. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like a building that's got some offices in there, and it's got like four garage stalls. They'll be contractor shops.

Similar to the building that Tony's in, you know, it's a shop building with larger bays. Yeah. Yeah.

So what are they doing on Highway 38 there just east of Quick Start? Looks like they're digging something.

That's Dale Jan. Oh, probably his water connection there. Yeah, water and sewer. Well, that's going to have gas. Yeah.

on the north side, so they're redoing something there.

It's along the highway, it's probably that gas pipeline over there.

So yeah, right down the ditch, they're working on it.

That runs from all the way up north, they're going south. I think they're redoing the sleeve that the gas pipeline sits in, it's so many years old and so they're digging up all of that and redoing that whole portion.

Correct, that has nothing to do with the pump there.

So all the traffic that goes up and down Colton Road Where are those guys coming and going to? Do you know?

Do you know? I know. Are they working? Are they like work vehicles?

Yeah, the semis that are hauling gravel and stuff. I think there's a pit to the north of me. And then where do they... I wonder why I have a speedway again. What projects they're working on. I need to go visit my city council again. Our signs aren't working. I don't know what we can do.

Call the Sheriff's Department. It's an enforcement. God, I get so tired of that. You can put signs up, but people don't obey.

No, they surely don't. I'm on the mower today, and I'm just doing this. I mean, I'm on the mower on the road, and I feel like I'm going to get pegged with a rock or something. Yeah, they can call the Sheriff's Department, and they'll park there, and then they'll slow down. Yeah. I mean, I guess there's really nothing else you can do. I don't know what else you can do. I could lay down in the road, I guess.

I just start to get worried when school's about ready to start again.

I can pass it on to the deputy then. Do you see it more like morning or all day long? I'll let our daytime deputy know to make me patrol up there a little bit more.

So what is happening with the ASIM development and the road that we voted on?

So as I put in my report, it did not pass city council. So basically he needs to put in his connection up to city standard. They did not approve the temporary either. So I think we've had a few discussions with this couple. I think he's going to come back and we asked that again basically to get some kind of temporary road in there um ask him you know what he's got to do i think we're talking about him maybe just doing some you know we talked about having an agreement through this group here about timeline and whatnot i think the council maybe you want some kind of added insurance maybe monetary insurance but that'd be fun or what i don't know um so i know our attorneys talked with him a little bit and um At some point, I would expect him to come back and ask for a temporary road again, just so he can keep selling lots out there. Because he's at his max now.

I was going to say, it sounded like he was kind of in a tight position because there's more homes.

Right now, he's on hold. I mean, he can't sell any more lots, and nothing more can be built out there. We just issued the last permit on it this week. I think it got written up. I'm not sure if it was picked up or not, but that's going to be it. until there's some kind of secondary access whether it be a temporary road and you know he has indicated that he is moving forward with building to our specs the connection on library 38 but we know that's got to go through the female process like we talked about so it's So he has indicated that he will build two city specs then? Yes, he's indicated that that connection at 538, he will put it in. He didn't get a variance, so that's his option. And he says he's got his engineers moving ahead with that. But he says, I do want to readdress the temporary role because that's going to take time, like we talked about.

How does FEMA fit in with that? And if he meets city specs, will it then meet FEMA requirements?

So regardless of what city specs are, I mean, our specs are that he can't overtop it. Regardless of that... Any projects have got to show FEMA that there's going to be no rise, that basically they're not going to back up water back stream by putting this road in. And so he's got to prove that to FEMA, which FEMA might make him change his plans a little bit to accomplish that. But he's got to get FEMA approved before we can even accept the road. So it's really kind of two things. He's got to give email approval for the no-rise and then he's got to bill it to city specs.

And interim should be something he's... That's what he still was hoping to do.

just in the interim get a temporary road like we talked about with you know grab a road shoot at east to 465th the town trip road there and and then once that connection is made at highway 38 that would go away it doesn't know what you propose though that's what he proposed to city council city council did not accept that but i think the city council wants Like I said, more of an assurance that he is going to move forward with FEMA and put in this road, whether it's to tie some kind of bond with or some kind of monetary thing, that it's going to basically make him do it. Otherwise, he's going to lose out on dollars. Right now, in agreement, he's not moving out on anything. Like the details of that, I don't know yet. I know there's just some talks going back and forth, but I do expect him to come back to the city council with some new plan for the temporary role, whether it's new verbiage in the agreement, you know, some more added verbiage is what I think it's going to be. I guess we'll see. Yeah, he does want to come back before. He says he got interest in lots, but he... I can't tell anymore. We can't issue any more building permits or occupancy, you know, until.

How far is it from the end of his lots to that section line, or that road to the, I want to say to the south, but maybe east?

To the township road where he wants to move that to? Gosh, it's a ways. I mean, that's going to cost him in itself to put that in there. Is it a mile? Oh, I don't think it's a mile. quarter mile maybe i don't even think it's that much maybe maybe yeah somewhere in there i'm just thinking yeah it'd be a thousand people all right i mean that's going to be a cost to him too i know there there's no room i mean there is there country rooms there right right right but he would have to go from where he's at straight east eventually so yeah eventually in his overall plans there does show a road going that way it's just

So if you build it out now and gravel, then you're stripping gravel back to put utilities in there?

Exactly, and then just let it sit there until you're ready to build the road. So I mean, he'll eventually utilize it, but it just wasn't in the plans right now.

All right, we'll hit our seven to five. Hearing, amend the 2026 revised Hartford zoning regulations. Or do these individually, I'm guessing?

Yeah, let's do them individually. They're two separate ordinances. They'll go before the city council and pass through here. But basically, these are the two that we talked about at our last meeting. This first one here, Ordinance 773, that's the one on accessory buildings. We're proposing two changes, and mainly it's just to address the minimum building sizes. The one section will... go from 150 square feet to 200 square feet where you can be up to 200 square feet before you have got light materials like we talked anything under that don't have to be like materials of the principal building and then we changed another section just to stay consistent is that if you have two buildings on your property it used to be one one of the buildings is 150 square feet. We've raised that up to 200 square feet now. So, and that's just so that number stays consistent. It kind of, we talk about, it kind of matches building codes because building codes does even address anything under 200 square feet. So this kind of puts us more in line with the building codes, keeps it consistent in our ordinance. This kind of regulates things a little bit better. So this is the same thing we looked at at our last meeting. It's just put in an ordinance form. We could have a public hearing, a public present, and then it could go to city council.

So we just need a motion for that.

It could be a recommendation to the city council. Approve it. Approval.

Are there any concerns from the board?

I don't have any other ones.

This all started out because of the metal roof.

Yeah, it all kind of started out. We were finding accessory buildings that were at 120 to 200. People were just buying them already pre-built and moved in with metal roofs. They're putting formal metal roofs on accessory buildings. durability you know easier maintenance and you know we've had a couple come before your board that you know that's how it came that's how we bought it so we're finding more and more pre-built sheds are you know under that 200 square feet do have the metal roofs on it if it's 150 square feet that doesn't match our like-kind ordinance

Didn't we have some concern about exposed fasteners or something?

That's in a house, a single family dwelling. That's a regulation of a house. We're talking about accessory buildings here. Okay. Yeah, you can have...

I would make a motion that we approve ordinance 773 amendments. Send it to the city council. Second.

Do we have a motion and a second? Do we need to vote on this specifically? Or is this just a recommendation? No, you have to vote on it. Okay. So we'll vote. We'll vote. Yes. Espinosa?

Yes. Will?

Yes. Duran? Yes. Anderson, yes. 773 is approved to the city council as recommended by 774.

So this one we talked about previously at our last meeting as well, and this has to do with campground regulations when we talked about all that. We decided ultimately we're not going to have campgrounds in any zoning districts. This, though, currently, we mention campgrounds in our manufactured home districts. Basically, there's a definition in there for a travel trailer campground, and then there's a reference to if you have a travel trailer campground, you have to get a license. Well, it's mentioned in there, but it's not a permitted use, and it's not a conditional use, so it really doesn't apply to anything at all. So we're not going to allow campgrounds. We should just clean up that verbiage. this ordinance would take out that definition for a travel trailer campground and that reference to licensing so there would be no reference to campgrounds in it so that just kind of cleans up our manufactured part and that goes out two miles outside the city limits These ordinance are just in municipal city limits. That's just our growth area and the only thing that really affects our growth area is plastic. All ordinance are just in our municipal boundaries. We only have zoning in our municipal boundaries. The county takes over after that.

So there's still an opportunity if somebody wanted a campground inside the city limits, they could come in.

I mean, yeah, I mean, it's just, I mean, We can always change the zoning regulations if somebody has a viable spot, comes in for, wants to put in, you know, wherever it may be. But that's not what this does. That's not what this does, no. This just cleans up some verbiage. This just makes up some verbiage on this one. If in the future somebody would like, they would need to come to this board first, you would have to add a zone for camp. You'd have to add a camp ground regulation like we talked about, but that can always be changed in the future. As of right now, this would clean up Burbage and Camp Rums wouldn't be in any district.

So that doesn't end that forever, it just...

yeah just currently we don't have available at the moment right we won't have available at the moment i said somebody comes in with a viable plan for a campground they can always come to the board and say will you consider adding campgrounds to this zoning whatever it reviews don't mean to be up to the board if you want to move forward with it or not

I recommend approval of the ordinance 7-7-4 to clean up that verbiage.

I'll second. We have a motion and a second.

Any other discussion? It's just to recommend approval for the City Council, right?

Yep, yep. Ultimately, it's a zoning change, so it'll go to the City Council. That's the ordinance.

Any other discussion on that? Okay, we'll vote. Graham? Yes. Cuomo? Yes. Espinosa?

Yes.

Leland? Yes. Anderson? Yes. Okay. Going to the old business, going to the new business. Teresa, would you update?

So as always, my updates in your packet, maybe an update on the current projects we've got going on. Just so you know, at the last City Council meeting, it was voted on to move ahead with bidding. We're going to redo the intersection of Diamond Trail and Mood. That would be just east of the coffee cup there. That intersection is in our budget to redo. It's falling apart basically. There's a lot of water that sits there. So we need to fix the drainage through there and we need to redo the street. So council did approve for that project to go out to bid. And so we're advertising it. We plan to bid and we plan to do that project still yet this year. So that's kind of a new project on our scope. I'll let you know when that will be going on. I don't know if any of you have noticed the one-way on Kelly Avenue.

I saw it, there was no tragedy there. I did see some comments on Facebook. I don't go on Facebook very often, but they're not happy about it. I didn't know they weren't happy about it. Some are, some aren't.

So this is just a trial run. We're just signing up and paying to see, okay, here's what it would be like if you had, you know, we're going to keep it up for about a month. We're going to take it down right before school starts. We didn't kind of just want it back to normal traffic from school start. We all plan to have a follow-up meeting with those residents, invite them and get feedback, good or bad. And from there, then the city council decided we actually do a project or not. The majority of them aren't on board with a repair of some sort.

The main point is to help them with drainage, right?

That's how it started, help them with drainage. They've got some infrastructure issues with water and sewer down there too. We're seeing a lot of water breakage in the service lines. If we would do a full street, we would replace those water service lines because it's old, it's aging infrastructure. The last meeting we had with those that were present, We talked about just doing a drainage project, but it was kind of the consensus of most of them present that if we're going to tear up the street and spend money on a drainage project, why wouldn't we fix everything? The biggest concern, like I said, those that are present, obviously they all couldn't be present. I've got some emails with comments of those that weren't, but those that were present, they want to make it as least evasive to the yard as possible. City actually owns a full 66 foot right-of-way. We can put a full two-way street with curb and gutter and sidewalks and everything, but you know, right now, they think that's their front yard. I mean, they've been used to using that as a front yard. Just like Part T. Yeah, just like Part T. You can't imagine how far back those property lines go. When you see streetlights in the middle of their front yard, that's the property line, and they think it's much bigger, but So I get it, you know, they've been used to having, you know, that green, they want that green area. So that's when it came up, well, you know, the smallest thing we can do in there is a one way. So that's where this trial run comes, we'll see. So we'll get feedback from, you know, those property owners. And then the council decided we move forward with the project or not.

Is there going to be a meeting on their comments and stuff about the street, whether they want to leave it one way or not?

Yeah, we're going to have a meeting. We're going to invite all the property owners to a meeting and get their input. And then, obviously, before any action would be taken, there would have to be, any act has to be done at a council meeting until a full public meeting. And we did say, you know, we want your comments, and if you can't make it to the meetings, or if you think of them throughout, email them to us or whatever. I've gotten a couple emails with comments already, so we'll save them, and also we'll take all that into consideration.

Yes, I just guess I thought it was all good, but apparently it's not all good.

Those presidents seem to kind of want it, but yeah, some of them come out that do not want it.

And I should know better. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think with anything, you can't please everybody. We just hope that the majority do the best thing, and we'll see where it goes. So that's our first one. We're trying, and like I said, we're going to probably run it to the 17th or so. We want to back to normal before school starts, and then we'll move on from there. So there it goes. um and otherwise just then some of my other updates um we did fill our wastewater position so i'm real excited by now we've been looking forward years August has to be starting, so that would be great. He is fully Class III certified. He has experience with the AEROMOD system, which is our system, so that's kind of encouraging. So somebody with a little bit of experience in it, has all the certifications on it. So excited to get him up and going and train and kind of review our other guys for a little bit. The city's 2027 budget meeting is going to be the 17th of August is what it's set for. So it's going to be next month. It's coming up fast. So kind of been crunching a lot of budget numbers, kind of planning on that. And one thing that isn't on our report that I want to bring up, before budget, the mayor wanted to do kind of a ballpark tour of the city. We did this a couple of years ago. And I can't remember if any of you were present. Were you present? I was there. I was going to say, I had to bring up some people. Basically, it's just kind of go around the city, stop at our park here, just kind of talk about what we see, what we think we need improvements on and whatnot, kind of give the council some, you know, some experience looking at stuff and talking about, before budget comes, see, do we want to incorporate any improvements into the budget? You guys are definitely invited to come again. I'll send out a calendar invite. It's going to be, though, next Tuesday at 5 o'clock. They're going to do it before their council meeting, so it's going to be like 5 to 6.30. We're hoping to be done by 6.30, so I'll throw out a calendar invite. We're going to meet here at City Hall. If you guys got a golf cart and want to bring it, you can. Otherwise, we're going to use some of the city vehicles, too, but that's the plan anyway.

How long do you think it will take?

Like I said, we're going to start at 5.00. I'm hoping that 6, I think between 6 and 6.30 will be done. I kind of need to be back here at 6.30 to get set up for the council meeting that night. Sometimes people come early. So hoping to be done for sure by 6.30. So plan. But I'll throw like a calendar invite out for you guys so you can take a look at them and look at your calendar. If you want to attend or not. It's not required. Just throw it out there.

It was interesting to be part of that conversation, I guess.

IT WAS KIND OF NICE TO HAVE, BECAUSE WE HAVE PARK AND REC BOARD, WE HAVE PARK AND REC AND CITY COUNCIL. WE DEFINITELY STOPPED AT ALL THE PARK FACILITIES AND MANY OF THE CITY FACILITIES. IT WAS A GOOD DISCUSSION. I THINK IT KIND OF WAS HELPFUL BEFORE WE WENT INTO BUDGET LAST TIME. MAYOR WANTS TO DO THAT AGAIN.

The grandkids are telling me the pickleball courts are coming along nicely.

We're hoping in about three weeks they'll be open. They're working on fencing this week, probably maybe up to next week. We have painting lined up in two weeks and then it has to sit for about a week. So we're hoping three weeks we will be Ready with the next one, so.

They are busy. Yeah. And I've tried probably half a dozen times and they're so busy we just keep going.

Oh, really? Yep. So good. It'll be good to get two more in. It will. That's about all I have. Do you have any more questions for me?

So the city allotted some money for HADF? kind of a shared position for a director later?

Right, right. So, Amy Farr, who was the economic development director for the HADF, she took another position, so she's no longer with them. So, SMGA, Sue Metro Grove, They partner with some other area cities where they, basically these cities pay for them to come in and provide a director on a part-time basis. That is what they propose to do here in Hartford, that this director would BEING AN SMGA EMPLOYEE, BUT THEY WOULD HELP KIND OF DO THE DAY-TO-DAY STUFF, THE KIND OF GET READY FOR THE BOARD MEETINGS, THE SUBMITTING OF RFIs, KIND OF THE THING THAT AMY KIND OF DID, YOU KNOW, THAT THE BOARD MEMBERS DON'T REALLY HAVE TIME TO DO, YOU KNOW. SO THE POSITION, um like i said it's limited hours i think it's 20 to 22 hours something in there um it's a part-time position um the smga the cost would be though 50 000. the city agreed to um we haven't agreed with them that for this first year we'll hopefully see how it goes but the city will pay 25 000 half the cost and the hedf will pay half the cost so we've agreed that for 2026 and we'll see what they budget in 2027. I haven't heard of, we've got all the documents signed, and we have sent our portion of the payment, and I don't know about HADF, so I have not heard if they've got anybody assigned to them yet.

Okay, that's what I was curious about. I know that's gone through, but I haven't heard anything.

Yeah, that's it. I don't even, we haven't talked about it with the mayor today. He asked me if I've heard who they're bringing here or when they're starting, and I haven't heard anything, and he hasn't either, so. So I would hope shortly, like I said, I got our money, so maybe get somebody in place.

Yeah, I think there was definitely some benefit in getting our name out there and meeting some people fast. There was some feedback that I got at least.

Yeah, I hope it's a good partnership. Definitely, you know, you need somebody in that director role kind of responding to inquiries and kind of marketing Hartford and, you know, kind of pushing economic development here. So it's kind of hard. It's hard to have, like you guys know, you're on this board, it's hard to have a volunteer, you know, go out there and do that all the time, you know. So you need somebody like that to fill the shoes. So hopefully this is a good solution.

And then any update on the Gateway project as far as the wastewater treatment plans and grants or anything like that?

So they initially applied for a Brownsville grant, which got denied. They're taking applications again, though, in October, I believe. So they're going to reapply in October here to see if they get a grant for that. Hopefully they do, because that's a large project. I think the plan is they're going to reapply, hopefully they get a grant, and then they can move forward with remediation of the ponds. The ponds aren't pumped down as far as we can pump them down, and now they're just kind of, not air drying, but the air, whatever's left of moisture, you know, the air is taking it. So we've done all we can do until you can remediate them and actually dig the sludge out, but that's going to take a remediation. So hopefully they will get their grant this next fall round and they can do that next year. As far as the respite, Gateway-Harvard though, I think they continue to meet. Talk to the developers, talk about revitalizing that, coming up with a plan to revitalize that area. So redevelop it, so it'll be great.

Anything else?

Just wait for Mark. He's had lots of questions. Just wait for Mark.

I make a motion to adjourn. I'll second. All right. Motion to second. We're adjourned.

Mark was very curious today. Okay. Good to stay in the loop. It is.

We're still out of here.