Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

order the plan commission meeting of March 25th and we can we can proceed with roll call. Mr. Hman here. Mr. Coots here. Miss Lazerus here. Miss Lazerus here. Mr. Grady here. Miss Curler here. Miss Heim Street here. Dr. Mason here. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Uh, next is item number three, correction and or acceptance of the meeting minutes of February 25th. Move to approve the reading the meeting minutes. Second by Mr. Homeman. Mr. Grady. moved and Mr. Homeman seconded to approve the minutes of February 25th. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, then we'll proceed with a roll call vote. Mr. Coots, abstain. Miss Lazerus, I. Mr. Grady, I Miss Curler. Hi, Miss Heim Street. I Dr. Mason, abstain. Mr. Hullman. I motion passes 5-0. Okay. All right. Thank you. The next item, questions and public comment. Um realizing there may be people online. Uh the public may address the commission at this time. We do not have a public hearing this evening. Public comment may be made regarding items on the agenda. Public comment may also be made on items that are not on the agenda if you have registered with the city clerk before the meeting. The state's open meeting law discourages action by the commission

on items not listed on the agenda. Please keep your comments limited to three minutes. State your name and address when starting your comments. Also, fill out the signin sheet for people online. Follow the Zoom link or the phone number listed on the plan commission agenda. Are there any public comments at this time? And we see that no one is seated in in the uh in front of us. And uh we uh but are there any comments and anyone commenting online? Are there any public comments at this time? Do we have any public comments at this time? All right. Hearing none coming forward then we can move on to item number five five discuss discussion possible action residential zoning bulk regulation review and uh and and Mr. um Mr. Daly and Mr. Evenson we will u have you um uh talk about um what you have um presented. Mhm. So, this is just a revisitation of a previous conversation the plan commission had. Um, there had been talk about, you know, what was lowhanging fruit that maybe the city could pursue that might reduce the cost of development and encourage the development of more housing or are there impediments to the development of more affordable housing. Um this all stems from the uh study that was done through the H Heartland Housing Initiative completed by uh Cedar Corporation. Um the ex excerpt of that report of the bulk regulations and some recommended amendments to our bulk regulations was included in your packet. I did include a memo that touched on some of the things and and I just want to kind of touch on the conclusion of that a little bit because I want I want

everything to be kind of eyes wide open as we talk about this is that none of these changes to bulk regulations are going to all of a sudden change the housing market in Lake Mills. that the main reason housing costs continue to rise is because the demand for housing in our community exceeds the supply of housing being created. So if these resulted in more housing being created constructed than otherwise would have been that may have an impact on it. But on an actual perome basis we're probably talking on the margins. We're talking about slightly reducing the cost of construction, allowing more density because of reduced uh minimum square footage requirements, because of reduced setbacks, things of that nature that might allow you to have more single family homes within any given housing district than would be allowable under our current um ordinance. Now, there are avenues within our current code to achieve some of this, perhaps through a planned development district or a planned neighborhood, but those require more um approvals and more of a process to go through than simply allowing construction of something by right. I would also note something I didn't include is I'm not sure what I'm not equipped right now to tell you what the market is looking to build in Lake Mills. if we did provide the opportunity to construct something like that. I've had uh conversations with developers, land owners, um who might be interested in actually uh facilitating the construction of homes on larger lots, more premium housing, you know, a different kind of neighborhood than what's been constructed in the past that it probably actually looks to more expensive housing, a different client than what's been constructed now. So the market will still kind of bear out what

they want to build and what the consumer is is looking for. So we kind of have to juggle. Is it our zoning code that is making less housing get created? Is the market building the housing that it it it wants to? Are there other I mentioned in my memo, are there other infrastructure requirements that are prohibit that are keeping things from being more affordable? You know, width of roadways um being one of them, infrastructure requirements that are placed on new developers. Um, we haven't really seen single family housing development in the city of Lake Mills that hasn't had some kind of public involvement, whether that was extension of utilities to the southside like the Tyrannina uh point Tyrannina Point neighborhood or the unique development agreement we have with the developer of Brookstone Meadows Meadows where the city fronts the cost and gets paid back over time at at sale of the of the lot which assists the developer in um those those upfront costs. And so there's there I I I'm not I don't want to present this as some kind of silver silver bullet to you to solve the the concerns the plan commission has raised about the cost of single family housing. Um it may help in some regard. Um it may not if the market decides that smaller lots and and you know smaller homes is not what people are looking to buy. but it's one of the factors that could contribute to the cost of housing. And so that's kind of where we're starting this conversation as we discuss what are the city's goals goals regarding housing, what are the needs of the community regarding housing, and how what role does the city want to play in either

incentivizing or facilitating the construction of housing and what and what types of housing as we kind of as as we keep an eye out on statewide regulations. is one thing to keep um our eye on is there's been talk at the state level of uh tiff reforms once again and one of the things they're looking at is removing the prohibition on single family housing within TID. So right now you're limited to 35% of a TID can be for uh new residential development. they're talking about removing that and kind of opening the way for um tiffs to be more involved in the development of housing without those limits placed on it. So, there's things going on at the state level as well as they grapple with housing on a statewide level. Um that's an introduction. Um we're available to answer questions. Um but this is really an opportunity um to kind of start the conversation on what does the plan commission want to look at? what's important to the plan commission, what types of recommendations might you want to forward on to the city council, um things of that nature. What what uh what ideas do you have plan commissioners? What would you like? What um what are your impressions of this? So, you touched you touch on it a little bit, Drake, but what are similar communities doing, if anything? Um, I'd probably have to put in some more dedicated research into specific programs, but um there are programs out there. Um the one that comes to mind is um Village of Jackson in in u partnership with Washington County have um uh created some public private

partnerships on single family home development with uh limits on um purchase price. Um now a lot of that seed money came from American Rescue Plan funds that Washington County chose to invest in that way and then tiff from uh the village. So there are certainly programs like that I could research more that you're seeing public um subsidies I suppose to spur or uh incentivize the creation of development and also limit the cost of of the of those house of that housing. Now affordability is kind of subjective to to some people. We're still we're not seeing the return of the $300,000 home or the $200,000 starter home. we're still seeing affordable in relation to what the market would bear on its own or affordable in that no other housing would exist. Um I guess the flip side of that is um I guess a concern might be is the local government picking winners and losers, right? are by picking who you're partnering with for the buildout of a of a housing development um that is receiving public funds, you're then competing with other, you know, other developers or you're um artificially restricting the value of of homes perhaps by placing those limits on when you buy the home, it's at this rate. you if you sell it within so many years, it can only be a rate of return of of so high. Um, in some communities there they don't incentivize it, but the market bears more con more more construction of housing because the market demand is is higher. Um, we've certainly seen that in Dayne County. We've seen uh our neighbor Waka County as well where the demand for

housing and the the prices that they can command from the end buyer um justifies the investment that it takes to build a single family home subdivision. Um so there's it runs the gamut from you know heavy public involvement to just letting the market bear what the market will bear. Um, you know, I think a lot of the there's county and city/village partnerships that you see. Um, and I could certainly research those those more, but um, oftentimes there's a funding source that, you know, may or may not be available to us at this given moment in time. Well, along with u looking at the zoning code, I would um recommend that maybe we want to also um take a look at uh anything in the subdivision ordinance which um might make it more difficult uh for to create a new neighborhood. You know, are the standards um too much? Now, for major thoroughare, that's more that's more understandable than say for a local street as an example for the particular standards that apply. Uh so that might be something to also take a look at and to see if there's any um uh tweaking that could be possible with subdivision standards. Now, some, you know, you're going to you're going to have to have um others you could possibly relax um you know, and then in this piece here, you know, uh you know, the way uh you know, the um between the R28 and R 312,

uh this is, you know, from the study, the MMR um but of course that's, you know, just something to as a placeholder I would say. But uh one thing we might want to look at uh as a possibility would be an R38 that uh where it's um going to be more relaxed and with less standards and it's um it's beyond its it's development that is more dense than duplexes but not as much as um 12 to an acre. So that and maybe that would be um something that you could have and instead of um missing metal it's like so and you know it's missing only to the extent that you know that we don't uh that we ignore that we ignore the situation. Right. Ideally it's not missing forever. Right. So, might be a little bit of an odd name if it started getting constructed. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little jargony, little industryheavy like Oh, sure. Sure. But um but some of these ideas for the standards um appears to be um in keeping with what would make it more affordable. Yeah. Miss Kriller, um I had a couple comments, but I wanted to follow up. I thought you had um raised um some an interesting point there, Miss Lazarus. And um I agree that the missing middle term we've talked about before is not intuitive. Um but something that perhaps would be a multifamily. It seems like that really ties back to the conversation that we had with Mr. Mangan a couple of meetings ago where

um you know what what I think we envisioned as a commission and some of the feedback that we were giving him it doesn't quite fit in any of our existing districts um and he certainly had a preference for multifamily but was willing to consider you know some of the suggestions that we had. So sometimes it feels like our ordinance doesn't you know easily let us accomp you know communicate our comm maybe our goals that what we might you know desire from a developer. So I think that's an interesting um approach and I too feel that the table and this is from that h heartland housing initiative. It looks like they they reduced the standards on everything. Um, you know, starting with R14 and I I think we could probably argue and debate, you know, what if we wanted to take a route like this, we could argue and debate at what is the right minimum area for a lot in each district and what is the right setback and so forth. So, to me, this is just like one one idea that if we wanted to go down that path of changing the bulk regulations, we could we could look at this Um, I was curious about um Oh, shoot. Now, where did it go? Drake, you mentioned something in your memo about Well, I mean, I think it's sort of the affordability piece. Um, to me, part of why this topic is interesting to me and important to me is because I hear from constituents so often about wanting affordable housing for starter home or senior home, you know, both. And ideally, um, most of the people I talked to would like to own. You know, I think people are, you know, um, willing to, um, rent as well, but they'd like to own. And I think there's

even yet more reasons why developers aren't building, you know, condominiums or aren't building things to own. Um, but I I do um appreciate that we're talking about this and I hope we'll continue to talk about it because if nothing, you know, we have Mr. Mangan's going to be continuing to want to pursue something and I think that's a parcel that we want to see, you know, some housing move forward on. um who knows when north of the interstate will be viable, but I think we want to have an ordinance that's ready to go that really reflects our goals. So, you know, I don't know um what others are feeling, but I'm very interested in others thoughts on on where we should head with this. you know, speaking about different residential standards, I am looking at you, Steve, that um I remember a while back you were talking about uh the garage setback. There was a garage setback issue that came up on um one of the streets. Little different. Fremont. Yeah, Fremont. Yes, it came up in Fremont. Yeah, it was a little Mine was a little different concept. Mine was mine was, you know, change some of the regulations in the in the like the older part of town. Um, where some of the some of the things aren't feasible and, you know, putting putting existing homeowners and, you know, in a in a tough spot to, you know, codes that we developed in beginning in 2010 are now kind of retroed back to people who some of those houses are 100 in my neighborhood, 100 plus years old. And you know, so it what's really funny about reading this list is over the course of the last 20 years, I'm

probably mentioned every line item on here. Um, so I I guess um as I as I was thinking through this, um, let's just use Sherwood Hills for an example. So Shard Hills is probably the one of the most affluent developments, you know, that's connected to our community. um they basically as far as affordability um they could pretty much handle anything that was required. However, they have uh they basically just have roads. They have all different size lots. You know, some big estate lots where you can't can't really see the you know, I think that was Bill F's vision back then. Um uh but anyway uh if you take that and and kind of incorporated all these ideas and created a uh an exclusive um zoning code that allowed this opportunity to to be I don't know not so much trial but um I see it in a rural rural setting. Um let's just say uh as the community expands outward and you get into the the farming community um instead of having uh uh storm storm water uh pipes, you know, they have ditches. Um we wouldn't have to get away from things that would be like required from the DNR like retention ponds. But I don't know, Short Hills functions functions perfectly without like miles of sidewalk. um people walk, they walk dogs, they they bicycle. Um maybe we can incorporate um only that type of development in 25 mph speed limit areas and that would avoid you know safety concerns like Highway V places where we've had you

know we've had you know tragedies and you know more more like um you know end of the woods developments uh basically uh a long road to a culde-sac um and you could eliminate um storm water pipes, you could uh eliminate sidewalks, uh a whole bunch of a bunch of things. Um I think that I think that would encourage a unique development and you see it you see it going east by by a lot of them lakes. Uh you see all kinds of places where they're deadend roads, you know, and and uh boy, they're fully functional as far as uh you know, people people walking and you know, we still could incorporate some of the good ideas in the comprehensive plan by having connective walk trails and things like that, but just keep the infrastructure down. You know, I'm uh I just fortunately I work with a lot of the being where our sanded gravel pits are, I work with a lot of the excavating people, whether it be out on the out on the interstate or even with some of the projects in the city. And you wouldn't believe what I've learned over the course of some of that. And the Main Street project alone, the the size of that elliptical pipe is huge. it. Um, and we should talk about that a little bit on a different day. But anyway, the pipe is so big that it's almost touching the road, and that's what's causing a lot of those manholes to to be bumping cuz there's must be a a freeze thaw issue there. But anyway, that pipe is so big. So, I wanted to use some of that pipe in a in a drainage ditch for a crossing. So, I went up to it was a different company then, and I was just flabbergasted with the cost of that big elliptical pipe. you can walk in the in the main street pipe. And I said, "Why is it so much?" You know what they told me? Because they sell it to

municipalities and they'll pay it. You know, just think of think of that reason. It has x number of cubic yards of concrete, which you know, we could we could calculate that. And the reinforcing, whether it be wire, that's that's a really heavy gauge wire in those pipes. I I got to tour the factory and that's a cost per foot and it's it's in hundreds. It's not in it's not in pennies. And just think about that in a in a development. Um it's it's it's massive massive cost. And the developer isn't going to eat that. It's passed on. You know, it's like anything else. So, um I think you know being creative, we could we could come up with something logical and kind of be the best of all worlds. Yeah. It just uh I don't know. I've been thinking about this a long time. I'm actually totally pleased that this came to the forefront. And the other thing the other thing and this needs to be said especially for the cameras. So, we spent the better part of the last 20 years with consultants. And who do we really want to be modeled after? Do do don't we have a uniqueness? In fact, Lake Mills is so unique that if you go down there almost any night of the week now, you can't even find a parking place. It's so robust. the the the businesses downtown. It's a dream that that you know, cities would like to buy that and we just have it as as uh it's just fortunate that we that we have that. So, I mean, we got we got we got so much um so much going for us and uh God, I forgot my train of thought here. Um uh the uniqueness of Lake Mill. You're talking about the uniqueness of Yeah. the uniqueness of Lake Mills anyway. So, I just think that we could, you know, we could incorporate we can incorporate

something and and try it as a as a zoning area. And I really do think that you get some of the big numbers out and and like Drake said, it's nothing's going to be immediate, but we certainly could see. And when I visit with the people uh at the county, um it's not just Lake Mills, the county is short. So, I mean, we have we have some farmland 15 miles from here, and the county was eager to make suggestions about any any of the land splits that were available. Um, just because we're short. We're short. And, you know, with the way the farmland preservation is at the county, there's, you know, there's only so many land splits and and they're thinking about being creative there, too. So, And maybe I'll think of more before this is over. I didn't mean to get too long-winded, but I'm excited. I'm really excited about this. Oh, that's fine. Those are good things to bring forward. That was fine. Um, any other thoughts about about how how you'd like to see this shape up? I got a question. So, like say like 20 years ago, um I wanted to have I had land. I wanted to go ahead and have it developed. Got to put a road in, sewage, water, all that stuff. Um are those costs just way higher now than they were then? And if so, can you share why? I don't know if I can tell you why, but yes. I'm years ago, you would see developers that would install in install roads, install infrastructure, build an entire subdivision, and then sell lots. And a

developer could recoup their investment off the cost of the lot. That is no longer how you see single family home development especially occur. Now, what usually happens is a the same developer will develop out a subdivision, if they even develop a subdivision. They install the infrastructure, they install the um roadways, sidewalks, curb, whatever they might need, and then they make money off of the sale of the home. So, they build and construct the home. And so you no longer have subdivisions where people buy lots and select their builder and build a home. You get subdivisions that are built out by the developer. The developer, they build the homes, they sell the homes, and that's how they make their money back. So, uh, cost of construction has certainly gone up. Cost of labor has certainly gone up. Materials are are more expensive. um uh requirements are really no you will you you can go to any community in Wisconsin oftentimes and go to the older parts of the community and you'll see you'll see curb gutter you'll see sidewalks you'll see things you'll see in older parts of neighborhoods the infrastructure that a lot of times now we're requiring to be built and sometimes in the in between is where you'll see subdivisions and things that actually got built without um you subdivisions and and our sidewalks and things like that. As the community became more car centric from its it its historical record of being more walkable and being more kind of self-sufficient with a local grocery store and local downtown businesses as it became more carentric and you needed cars to get around, you saw it move away. And then the last 15 20 years

you've seen kind of the return of of um sidewalks and things of that for pedestrian friendliness impact on uh home values and and safety related reasons largely to remove interaction between vehicle and pedestrian as much as as much as possible. So something occurred from back when that used to be how subdivisions were developed. you bought a lot, found your builder, built your home, and and that's what you did to now where that doesn't pencil out for developers anymore. They don't do that. And um that's where I've said in recent history, Lake Mills has the city has played a part in single family home development, whether that's through bringing utilities out to a lot or actually installing the infrastructure on the front end and recouping that on sales of homes. And that's true throughout the state and likely throughout the nation that um we're not building enough housing. And part of the reason we aren't building enough housing is that it's become more expensive to build housing and harder to turn a profit while building that housing. Um that is probably not something we can solve. But um that's why we see housing has continued to get more expensive as well because the cost to extend infrastructure has gone up. Um and that's true across communities throughout our region and throughout the state. So it's just different now. It's different how developers make their money on how they sell their land. Thank you. Land's also getting more valuable. So land is more expensive to buy, which means that the what you put

on it has to be more expensive in order to recoup your investment. Um Lake Mills is a desirable place to live. People want to move here. people want to um buy homes here and that creates a lot of demand and multiple offers on homes. Um in Brookstone, we're seeing homes basically get sold before a foundation gets poured sometimes. Um that when demand is that strong, you're going to continue to see pricing reflect that. Yep. So, uh, in the vein of, uh, what you said about extending utilities and, you know, the city needing to do some of the infrastructure work up front, uh, Miss Curler briefly mentioned, uh, north side of the freeway development uh, earlier. What are the what are the barriers to a north side of the freeway development? How significant of a investment is this? would the city need to make to have something like that happen? Uh it's in the millions of dollars. Um I think you know I've estimates I've seen for for kind of first phase of north side improvement um plans and these were all preliminary 9 to12 million for full buildout. So I mean that's roads, that's water, sewer upgrades, you know, retention, you know, storm sewer retention, potential well or potential um reservoir, water reservoir, water tower. Um electric is already largely out there. We do have sewer out there, but it's uh probably would be in need of upgrades um in certain areas.

Um, so that is cost is the is the impediment. We've not yet found a private partner that wants We have a TIFF out there. We are able to assist, but we've not yet found a private partnership um to do that. And to date, the city has not chosen to speculatively extend um that infrastructure. We could certainly choose to. that would reduce uncertainty for a developer, but it comes at the risk of what if you build it and they don't come. Is that uh I if if the city would engage in some sort of a speculative buildout, is that something that the city could do gradually in steps or would it essentially need to be you'll need to build a big chunk of it all at once in order for it to be worthwhile? otherwise that you're it's not going to be worth worth the effort. Um I don't know if I have the answer to that yet. I'd probably want to sit down with our engineers to talk about what stages you you'd want to break it up into if you could. Um I think water is the largest impediment to development out there. The cost of bringing water across the interstate is the the highest cost. So, is it possible that if we had a a water project to extend water across, that would reduce enough uncertainty? It's possible. Um, but I don't know for certain. You know, what portion, let's say it's $12 million for the full buildout. Is there a $3 million project that might spur development? I at this point, I'm I don't know the answer to that. I just have one question. is the if they if they put if if we put uh a size enough a big enough water man out there and a large enough sewer to handle x number of acres that would just be the

interstate would just be bored wouldn't it there would be no that would be our intention I would think that would be the way that we a permit through the dot would have to be in order to cross there we wouldn't be cutting it up sewer would gravity from there though wouldn't it well we have sewer out there and a lot of it already. Um, but isn't that that's a that's forced main, isn't it? There by the truck stop. I don't know off the top of my head. Yeah, just but I believe it is. Yeah, it's either it's either lift station or force main. It's old infrastructure though, so that's my only question about what Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. What needs to be um upgraded or what its capacity, you know, might be. It's from the old Most of it is still from the uh old um sewage district that the city took over back in the '9s um that used to operate separately from the city's utility. Just a followup to um Mr. Kuz's question. Oh, thanks. Just to follow up to Mr. Kuz's question. Um it seems to me that one of the challenges the city would have if we wanted to proactively um send some infrastructure to the north side would be um sizing it for an unknown development, right? Because you it could be all residential or it could be a hospital, you know, and you might do the the infrastructure differently depending on what you'd want to have there. But if you're doing it speculatively, then you don't really know. So I I don't know. I'm just I'm just I think that's my understanding of what would be a little bit of a part of the risk is a bit of an unknown of what you know what size. Yeah, we'd want to we'd want to discuss that with engineers to figure out you know to what level would be we be comfortable overbuilding.

Yeah. Um, you know, I think that there's that there's probably we have kind of old plans of what we were expecting out there and it did include residential, industrial, um, retail, office, and so those those original that original north side improvement plan did contemplate lots of different uses. And so I imagine that has been taken under consideration when developing those cost estimates is that it's not only thought to be purely residential or purely industry or or purely uh retail development but a mix of uses. Um and so I think that is probably accounted for in some capacity. But we if we were going to undertake a project, we would certainly want to do a review of what is it that we're extending out there and what will it be able to um support because we don't want to redo something that we just did at great expense or limit ourselves when it doesn't meet, you know, ultimately what the city council's vision for that area is. I I knew we shouldn't have let Dwayne go on vacation, but there there is some easements that have already been obtained um to go underneath the interstate and there's I don't know if it's a eight or 10 in water man that's stubbed in that direction. So, I know there's going to be a loop. So, there'll be multiple waters that are going to go underneath the interstate most likely, but there is some work has been done and, you know, some pre-planning, but like Rick is saying, we know that's 10, 15 years ago and who knows what's going to be out there. But there is baby steps that have been made and the thoughts the thought process is there. It's just a matter of, you know, like you said, finding the funds to make it happen. So for like the century site

like it doesn't seem like a lot of that overhead on on the building on like the city side like you have to build a big street and sewage all right there. Right. So like what what can you comment on what's getting in the way of something like that from being built? Redevelopment is expensive. Um it likely requires um that building is largely to our knowledge unusable in its current state. Remediating it would be a significant um so just demolishing it costs a lot. Yeah. Uh remediating the site and there's some remediation that needs to occur. There's consol land consolidations. There's actually multiple parcels out there. That home also needs to be uh demolished that's been vacant for a number of years. Um so there are redevelopment is expensive. Um it likely requires some level of density in order to be a viable project in order to make back your investment on it. Um cost of construction continues to rise. The last couple of years we've seen significant you know cost to borrow. So capital has be has been an issue. Um, but in general, redevelopment projects are difficult and expensive. Um, so even though all of the utility and infrastructure exists, you're still talking about completely redoing a site. Um, and starting, you know, from from scratch essentially, and it's everywhere in Madison, but it's just a different market. The cost to construct a building in Lake Mills is the same as the cost to construct a building in Madison, but Madison is going to command much higher uh rents or values than the Lake Mills market is going to be. And so the rate of return on a project in Madison for its investors is going to be much higher

than the same project if you picked it up and moved it to Lake Mills. It's about seven stories taller than what we're going to have here. Yeah. But if you can command $1,500 rents in one community and command $2,200 rents in another community for the same amount, your proforma changes, your business plan changes. Yeah, it will get developed. I'm I'm confident. Yeah. So I mean what I'm hearing here for the sake of this conversation I mean I'm I'm hearing summary um that these that this chart I'm looking at we can go ahead and talk about moving forward but it's kind of on the very margins of the kinds of um costs that are getting in the way or the kind of um opportunities that get in the way in the big picture like the big picture there's these other big barriers that seem to be getting away so we could move forward with this and indicate like, hey, we're going to play ball. We're really we're going to play ball with you kind of under certain circumstances. Um, but it's not like a if you build it, they will come. Maybe. Um, maybe it is, but isn't But what I'm hearing from you is that there's bigger dynamics in play. Yeah. I think right now developers will build housing in Lake Mills right now and they are building housing in in Lake Mills right now. Um we're just not building enough fast enough in order to achieve the type of affordability that I think many of you are talking about are are desiring are desiring to see. Um, at the end of the day, it is it is still a simple supply and demand graph, right? You need your supply needs to meet the demand before you start to see pricing stabilize. And we're far from

that in Lake Mills and at the county level um from from seeing that happen. Um, so you could make these you could make these changes in bulk regulations. I'll focus on R14. you can reduce lot sizes, reduce minimum square footage requirements, and that will allow you to build more houses on an acre um than you otherwise would. And so that would create increase supply. Um what that that still requires developers believing that that's the product that single family home seekers want to buy. And so that's the market driven piece of it is you can change your regulations all you want. Builders are going to build what they can sell and what the what the customer ultimately wants. And so um you know we could we could reach out to some single family home developers and say, "Hey, look, would this would you build something like this? Would you build more housing if the minimum lot sizes were reduced and you could fit, you know, more houses on a street? Would you do that? or do you think that the quarter acre lot is kind of what your customer base is looking for? We can ask those questions. Um, you know, we don't I don't have the answer to that for you tonight. Um, but I think in general your statement is correct in that we are talking about we're talking about trying to get more housing to be built and you know on the margins reducing the cost to construct housing, allowing you to construct more, allowing you to build smaller in some regards, you know, reducing setbacks, things like that can help um if that's what people want to buy. Um that's what we don't know.

Well, I think uh future development uh flexibility is going to be very important like conservation subdivisions where you know because one thing that um if you uh do just a standard layout and have reduced um setback standards, one thing that you may face is um is is not having enough onsite um storm water control which is still going to be an important issue. But you could with some flexible standards and and have these smaller lots here and then a bigger area that is um a natural state. So yeah, reduce green space requirements, you have more impervious surface, less impervious surface. Sure. So when you're looking at infrastructure installation, you need to, you know, account for that. Um, you know, you could reduce cost by removing storm water, you know, requirements and going to ditching like you see in township subdivisions. That may be in contrast with the desire for more trees in a community because you don't plant trees in the ditch. And so, you know, those are your competing priorities. And, you know, none it's not there's not a wrong answer necessarily. It's what do you want to accomplish? What do you want it to look like? What do you want to achieve? Um those are all you know the values and vision that the plan commission and the city council ultimately um you know come up with. What's what are you willing to sacrifice in the name of reduced costs and what aren't you? Those are judgments you have to make. Um well and then along with that you can also is also looking at um what developers might want to do and maybe allowing some of that with some um

pvious services that you know are strong enough to hold um say parking as an example but allows um filtration. So you there's um those those aspects too that could be part of a new design. Yeah. And it's a lot of it has unintended consequences, right? I mentioned road width, right? It's really easy for me to tell you one way to reduce cost is to narrow the roadway. It's cheaper to build a narrower road and but if you narrow the roadway and you reduce the setbacks, your driveways get smaller. You have less on street parking because you've narrowed the you've narrowed it to make so maybe there's only parking on one side of the street to maintain the travel lanes that you want. Cars are getting bigger. I you know if you look at a Ford F-150 today versus a Ford F-150 you know decades ago the one today is a lot bigger now. And so you know even in our newer subdivisions you'll see that driveways that probably at construction could fit two cars in them. You now have vehicles that are starting to hang over into sidewalks or can't fit into garages that were constructed in 2005 because the vehicle has outpaced the size of what people of what people thought. And so you you take that to something new where you've reduced setbacks, you've reduced the size of the driveway. Um you might still have a garage that it could fit in, but um we know garages get used for other things other than vehicle storage as well. and you've reduced on on on street parking, you know, facilities that creates problems in and of itself as well. So, there are tradeoffs to all of this. Um, and some of it is, right, we are still right largely uh a majority of our

residents, I think we estimate over 70% leave the city when they go to work um in the uh during the workday. So, we do have a community that is reliant on vehicles to to get places and so accommodating those is a consideration when we're looking at uh um um neighborhood planning and and and things of that nature. So, um it's complicated and you can fix one you can fix one thing and cause difficulty in another just by just by changing it. Um, so that's where value judgments comes in is there is no there's no perfect solution to what you're you're looking for. Um, just a followup to that. I I think um you hit on something important earlier, Drake, about, you know, as we look at considering uh reducing some of the uh bulk regulation requirements, you re we really do have to consider, well, how do we want our community to look? And um but then it also goes to another question that was asked or or that um we discussed, which is what do people want to buy? you know, like what size house will somebody buy? I personally don't want to reduce the green space percentage, but if you would reduce the lot size to make that, you know, sort of cost per lot maybe a little bit less or the street frontage or maybe both. Um, but you don't reduce the green space, then you're having a smaller home and we don't really know will it will a customer buy a smaller home? Will a developer build a smaller home? You know, is that marketable? So even there we're I don't know that we have a whole lot of certainty that if we were to change all these bulk regulations even as proposed whether that would what that would result in you know whether it

would really give us what we are hoping for. One question I had um kind of tied to um Mr. Holman some of the questions that you've raised over the years and ideas um for the existing neighborhoods and historic neighborhoods. Would it be fair to say if we reduced the bulk regulations in R14, you know, older neighborhoods, many of those homes are are in that R14 district. That would give them a little bit of flexibility on their existing properties, right? Where they already maybe have a garage that's too close to the sideyard or whatever. You know, they already have a smaller setback because of historic construction. It it I don't think this is our purpose, but it could address like some nonconformity that maybe is already out there. Would that be correct? I think so. Reduction of side setbacks, reduction of, you know, rear and front setbacks. The the lots in the historic parts of Lake Mills are smaller. Uh they were built in a different time and so yes, they they naturally sit closer to the roadway or naturally sit closer to their neighbors. um you know how much relief that might grant them. I'm I'm not sure. Troy works with them much closer on on the kind of the day-to-day needs and he might be able to speak to it. Yeah, the R16 R14 would both benefit. Um you know, common ones that I get are garages, driveways, front porches. A lot of people want to expand their front porch. Well, like Craig was saying, they're already too close. They can't meet the setback. So absolutely if reducing you know the the stringent um setbacks would benefit for people to build or expand or or develop some more but um yeah I don't know if that's something you want to do a blanket across the the the bulk regulations or if you create some sort of overlay that

you do it in certain areas. I I I don't have the answer for that. But um because if we did it the way this table reads, it wouldn't be targeted to particular neighborhoods. So like even somebody in Brookstone could say, "Well, I want to build a bigger garage that has a reduced setback." Then they would be able to follow this new table if we did that. My my contention with that though is is not across the board. It's it's specific zoning sites. If if if you want to ease Troy's job, you make these subtle changes and and it will it will be monumental in a year's time because th those people have um they have shared driveways. They get along with their neighbors. This is not like this is there's like no drama intense uh issue here. It's basically the rules we make they have to follow and that's where the that's where the problem comes in. you know, it's it's uh um you know, many things over the course of years made made staff's job easier. I mean, that was the intention. I'm not I'm not guaranteeing any of that, but um that was the intention. So, I I I think it's I think it's uh two separate issues, though. And I just wanted I I just wanted to reflect back on what we were initially talking about. I think some subtle changes. cuz I know Lake Mills is really they're really big on on the sidewalk thing and and I I would I would be okay with that. Um if some of the things were relaxed like I'm just going to stick with Sherwood Hills because that's what I'm basing at the moment my design on. They're fully functional and if you if you liked um tree lawn trees, you could still put a sidewalk and put those behind a ditch. But if you if you relaxed just the the impervious

surface, you wouldn't believe how a subtle change like that could affect just one thing as a concrete driveway. Concrete driveways aren't $2,000 anymore. Um the size of some of the driveways, they're 20, 30,000. You make it so the main driveway has to, you know, where where you are every day going up to the garage, you make that so it needs to be impervious. But if you allow them to park a boat next to their garage on gravel, it's going to save it's going to save in tens of thousands of dollars and it might be the increment. We don't know that yet and I'm not guaranteeing it. But I think in in discussion and further discussion, we can make some rationale on two or three changes and you take, you know, you take uh increments off in $10,000 increments, all of a sudden you're going to bring some affordability back even though the building costs are more. So I I I just think I just think this this group here could come up with really something special and, you know, it could be futuristic. I I don't think this is as far out of touch as we think. And it could just be in a a dedicated zoning district. Don't don't blanket this because the people in Brookstone bought into the the the concept of of what they have and that makes their home values uh retain their home values or increase them. Um what we would do in an older part of town would I think adversely affect a newer subdivision. So, I I I would I would look at it, you know, I'd look at it individually in individual zoning areas. Those are good ideas. And um and one of you said something about overlays and and I I think that would be uh an approach that um would

help along the lines of what Steve was uh discussing. I will say just on the other end of the spectrum, you know, I have heard when I'm out in the community, I do talk to people that have asked, "How do we incentivize the development of more premier housing?" You know, I I do I do hear that. And so they've asked, are there zoning regulations you can do that would make the construction of, you know, higherend housing even, you know, become, you know, occur? And you know there are you know one of the things that has always that always sticks out in my mind is you know you'll you'll drive through sub subdivisions neighborhoods sometimes really anywhere um and they will prohibit front-facing garages that immediately increases the cost of a home right that so that's you know those are the those are types of things that can result in higher priced housing I know that hasn't always been the conversation at our level. But there are people that when I talk to them, you know, say, you know, bigger homes, bigger lots, more, you know, you know, expensive. There are there is there is a sentiment out there for that. And so there if you're talking about like different zoning districts, again, there are ways to accomplish that as well. So, I just wanted to give you the full spectrum. Not that I'm advocating for it, but there h it has been brought up before. I I just want to follow up with that. Wouldn't wouldn't, for example, the ridge be I mean that's a higher end and they don't they have internal covenants that that they you know that enhance their guidelines. So that I mean those those houses definitely are at a different level of value in the ridge. Where is that? The ridge by the golf

course. Oh, by the golf course. Yeah. Thanks. So, I mean, I think, you know, that's something we could talk about different zoning districts and different regulations and that would that would be opposite ends of the spectrum because I'm sure there's there's need for for those houses, too. They're just not being built. Yeah. We just don't we don't and just I know Steve knows this but we don't enforce private covenants. So they they they do exist. Um but if you want it would have to be incorporated into some kind of city regulation because Troy likely gets calls about people not complying with covenants and we we just kind of tell them that's we don't we don't enforce private covenants. They do exist in different neighborhoods throughout the throughout the city. Um, but just so everyone is aware, um, we don't play a part in in enforcing those covenants. Um, if they're not part of our code, we leave it to a private homeowners association or or other group that um, is responsible for those enforcements and consider it a civil matter. But um, I know you knew that, Steve. I just wanted to make it known for everybody else. Um, there were uh there were two specific um items that I wanted to ask about that weren't on the list in in the memo or in the bulk covenants, but that have come up multiple times before the planning commission. U the first would be apartment size. Um, we've had more than one request to have uh I I'm blanking on the term, but studio studio. Well, sorry. A It's not a variance, but

a variance in the code. Oh, a PDD kind of a Yeah, a relaxation. Yeah, we've had multiple times where people have have asked about having less than an 800 square foot apartment. um you know is that and I know the like I said the complexity of the issue is not lost on me but is that a change that that would be worth considering dropping a minimum from 800 down to I don't know 600 or 500 but saying the overall development has to have an 800 foot average or something like that. We certainly could look at that. Yes. Um, I think when the zoning code was developed, it was never really contemplated that someone would want to build something with studio apartments or apartments of that size, but we have started receiving, you know, more interest in in things of that nature. Um, and it does provide, you know, another housing product that we are that we may be deficient in. So I think we definitely could look at the, you know, minimum apartment size requirement and instead either reduce that minimum size or make it the average apartment size must be larger than I think we certainly could look at that. Yeah. the uh the the second one that the planning commission has gotten several times in recent history. Um the uh parking requirements and separate from those requests even just getting to permeable versus impermeable surfaces. I've kind of always thought that cities in general have parking requirements that are probably more than they need to be in in several cases. Um, again, we've gotten several requests over the years for that to be relaxed. Is that another one that would make sense to potentially revisit that? I think we certainly can. I'd have to confirm this again because it's been a few months since I looked at it, but I believe we do have the highest per unit

apartment uh parking requirement in Jefferson County among cities and villages because I think we're at two and a half plus one guest. half a guest. Half a half. So, we're at two per unit plus half per guest. So, two and a half per, I think, is our requirement. I believe that is at the uh very at the high end of the spectrum of the county as far as parking requirements. And then you throw that in with our requirement of how many of them have to be covered and and things of that nature. We do have um we do have one of the more um ownorous parking requirements for multifamily development. I think that's a really intriguing idea and I appreci appreciate that you brought that up because as Mr. Hullman was saying the cost of concrete and then you consider the environmental impacts of that having more impervious surface and if it's really not needed. I mean, I I'm not an expert in that, but there are people that probably have done those kind of studies to see how much parking is really needed. Um, or what, you know, that kind of multif family development, how much parking is really what what is the demand? You know, we could probably rightsize that a little bit better. Yeah. And could this is a question for Troy, but or Drake. Um, with the impervious, couldn't we like implement something like that is still dustless like recycled black top or something on? Right now, it's it's pretty much calls for a hard surface. So, it it calls for a hard surface right now. So, um I meant if we went to imperous surface. That's what I'm saying. It It's calling for has to be hard surface, you know, um a concrete and asphalt, the pavers. But I said the wrong word. Yeah. But I guess but I guess you know saying that you know could you could you say hey we're

going to do a recycled black top that's you know more dustfree. Sure. Um if you guys remember we just did um those uh on Jefferson Street 730 Jefferson those um storage units couldn't think of it. They got approved um pvious asphalt which it's an engineered asphalt that needs to be maintained and there's you know it's got to be cleaned but it's designed to absorb moisture but yet it's still uh robust enough to park on drive on. So there is some new stuff that's coming out but again is it cost prohibitive? I I I couldn't answer that. But I I know every municipality I've been in is getting away from gravel and recycled black tub. They just um erosion and dust and there, you know, that seems to be more more harm than good. You know, the cost obviously is much less to put in a driveway or a parking spot, but it seems to always create some sort of problem down the road. I have one more question. um about like elderly community, uh like assisted living, things like that. Um a lot of times on on like social media, people will say like, "Well, why don't we just put something like that here?" Um, and I think it's probably similar to why uh my question about Century, but like I'm curious like if you could talk a little bit about that market that you see and and why um those kinds of things just don't pop up um out of the ground. Yeah, I think Troy can attest to this. Every developer that I speak to that comes in with a proposal or an idea or asks is the city amendable to something like this or what does the city want to see? I usually open with if you can bring in a 55 and older development, I think that you will get a resounding

reception at um uh at plan commission and city council and it they never proceed down that path. So, the market must be telling them something that building a 55 and older restricted community is not in their financial best interest. um to do right now. Um it's in our comprehensive plan that we want to see it. Staff tells it to developers that it's something that the city is interested in in seeing. Um, when people come and they ask about, you know, zoning changes or or other things like that on on lots that may not be currently slotted for multifamily, we kind of bring up, you know, that's not what the plan is for this parcel. But if you would consider, you know, 55 and older, that may be uh of enough value that the the plan commission and city council would consider a change to future land use or to um zoning. and we've never gotten any takers on it right now. So, as to why um I have to imagine that their market analysis tells them that restricting their potential tenants to a senior living um clientele is not penciling out for them. Mhm. So, talking about um developers um in general, are they coming to you and asking about development in Lake Mills and in general and in particular um the development across the highway? We have not gotten an inquiry into development north of the interstate in some time. Um, we have had, you know, general

inquiries regarding it in my tenure here over the last two and a half years. Um, there's been kind of starts and stops and conversations. Most of the land recently sold. Um, you know, the 99 acres out there that's been for sale for a while has recently sold to a um a new and there's a new owner. whether it's I don't I'm not familiar with the owner or if it's an investment group or anything like that. So I recently there has not been um conversations regarding development out there. So where's the 99 acres? Uh it's the the old Olsen farm. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my feeling is if if you have a lot of developers coming in and asking to build in like mills, they're going to dictate pretty much what they want to do and what we say, you know, we say anything we want, right? You know, but yeah, if if infrastructure was ready north of the interstate, I believe we would be seeing it develop at a robust pace right now. Um, it's just going to takes it's going to take the right developer who wants to that has a portfolio of a variety of different development types or is willing to do the work to partner with and collect other developers for different types of development. um and has a multi-year buildout plan um and wants to engage in that um that level of investment and that level of commitment to build that out over a number of years because it's going to take you know to extend even if the city says well we'll we'll we will provide tiff assistance to you to do it it's still there's still

going to be a payback period there and there's still going to be guarantees and there's still going to be performance metrics that they have to hit um under whatever development agreement would be executed uh with them. And so I think it will go. I think it is still um one of the most desirable locations on the I94 corridor. Um and I think when it goes, it will it will go in a big way. Um we just we have not hit that point yet where it's it's going to happen imminently. So is that whole area annexed by the city a or a good chunk the 99 acres are annexed into the city? There's a chunk of of undeveloped land out there that is annexed in um so not the entire not all of it. Um but a good a good amount of it is annexed but it can be Yes. later. Yeah. And the land only goes up in value after utilities get extended. And so that then incentivizes people who may be waiting to sell until that happens because they know that their property will be worth more once it starts. I guess I had just uh noticed something. I've been traveling through Johnson Creek quite a bit lately and uh they're developing that that hillside now u by the fireman's park. Looks like they're planning some infrastructure in there. However, if you go behind the mall, the uh big industrial area that's been just had that motel on and it's been vacant for a long time. So, you know, people even there seeking housing.

um not so much industrial land there at least. And there's regional influence as well. Um there may be more, you know, people may be more aggressive in seeking land to develop as the Amazon facility in Cottage Grove gets closer to completion. I've heard that's 1,200 to 1500 employees. You know, they they need to live somewhere and we are not all that far away. it's an easy drive, you know, to that location. And so there and then any t, you know, secondary or tertiary development that occurs, you know, as that goes on as well. We don't we don't know what that looks like, but as the corridor continues to develop, it only becomes more desirable land for somebody to do something with. Is the thought that the north side is would pop up before the south side because it just seems like the the infrastructure is all there for that south has some south side has some infrastructure impediments as well. Um not all of that is annexed into the city yet either. So it would take land owners um selling or requesting to be annexed in. There is there's a hill over there that we need to get up and over that probably requires some boosting of water, a booster station out there. Those are I'm guessing half a million dollars, maybe maybe more. I'm not sure. Um it was half a million dollars five years ago, so I'm not sure what it might be now. Um, and so, you know, as Tyrannina Point gets built out, I think that there might be interest still in in more development out there if land owners are prepared to sell. Um, so there's just those pieces of it. There will require more infrastructure

extension, but obviously at a lower cost than what North Side is looking at. So both the south side of Lake Mills and the north of Lake Mills are kind of what we consider to be growth areas. Um and then in conjunction with you know the Brookstone Meadows subdivision which still has one more phase to be built out um before the initial plat that was created 25 years ago now is is brought to completion. So we still have growth areas identified and the southside is one of them. Are there any other um observations that um you want to uh or or uh perceptions that you want to um talk about before we um adjourn the the special meeting? I guess I have a question just for the plan commission. How how do you see us proceeding on this as far as the the the communication? Um how and when you know with sometimes the summer meeting schedule gets heavy until fall and you know we've in the past did a couple of work work sessions um where we got some odd business done. I guess what's what's you know it's one thing to come here and get all this information and talk about it and I mean I did my share of nodding tonight. Um, but what about substance? When when as a group do you envision us talking this more through and trying to come up with some things to to go over with, you know, viable questions to go over with staff because these are, you know, us as a group is hard to really know the viability of it without having

the staff's input. So, I mean, what do you see some kind of timeline? I'm just curious more than anything. I just would hate to over the course of years, we've talked about things and not revisited for two years. Um, and this is a little more immediate need. So, just a question. I think there's it's a difficult question to answer but when you're talking about blanket changes right and I know there's been conversation about which route is blanket changes are easier to implement right we just change the code as it exists but if you're talking about development of new districts um development of you know overlays of existing districts and and changing that we're talking about become it becomes a more substantive amendment to our zoning code. And that likely requires some um outside assistance to write some of to write some of that and go through it to make sure that we're not we're not creating some kind of unintended consequence by changing this piece but forgetting about this piece. And so, um, if the plan commission at some point came up with some type of scope of work that they were interested in exploring, I could put together a budget initiative for the city council during their annual budget um, deliberations to ensure that we had the resources to assist us. Um because it's not it's not something that you know you have existing staff in house that can just dedicate all of that time to rewriting a a section of code. Um that's not something we're equipped to do. But if we know what your goals

are, I can get pricing on, you know, what that looks like and bring forward, you know, a product, something to the council to provide funds for it. And if we obtain funds, then it would be sometime next year that we would that we would have a something for review. So, it's it's not immediate, but if we're talking substantial significant amendments to the zoning code, we probably need some resources in order to help us accomplish that. I appreciate you asking that, Steve, because it's sort of like, you know, what are our next steps? You're like, now what do we do? And as I'm reflecting on tonight's conversation, I can identify maybe four different areas that we've talked about. One is the table of bulk regulations as it applies to single family. And that sounds like you're saying, Drake, some revision to that would maybe maybe fit in the category of easy um to do an ordinance amendment. Creating the missing middle or something like that. That's would be a little more complicated, but that's kind of a second area. Um then Mr. Coots brought up some ideas about multifamily. that would be maybe relatively easy to look at. Um, oh shoot, now what was the fourth one? I had four in my mind. Um, oh, the over like an something like an overlay district or something for the historic neighborhoods. And that one again maybe would sounds like it would fall in the more more complex category. You'd really want to think about what you write and what properties it applies to. So I have never really seen one so I don't really know. Yeah. And I think with any of those, I personally would like to think a little bit more about is that, you know, is that the direction we want to go? What would we want that to

look like before having our staff invest in writing them? And I don't know, do we need more data from, you know, Dr. Mason, you brought up at the very beginning of the meeting like what are other communities doing and is that are they finding that successful? It might be helpful to know that. Um, we heard a little bit on the multifamily issues that Mr. Coots brought up about, you know, what other communities are doing, but in the other stuff, I don't have a sense of you know, are a lot of other communities reducing their bulk regulations and then is that helping them? I don't know. So, anyway, that's just kind of my thinking about it. Seems like we've sort of touched on four areas, some of which are maybe a little easier to address than others. Would it make sense to just put it on the next agenda and people can kind of rattle around in their brains and and have a followup then just do baby steps? Would that be helpful? I mean, at least something that we could agree on. Yeah, I I I think so because um otherwise um you know it doesn't it doesn't have a a good future if we don't um if we don't uh revisit on a regular basis and and keep going and we'll make progress in our um our the concepts that um we might want to see going forward. And then ultimately we would be able to um we would be able to comment and um and recommend on on a scope of work uh towards the the things that we're interested in seeing. So, um, plan commissioners, would you like to see that's included in um on the agendas in the future? Now, we

realize that we might be um very heavy with public hearings in which case we may not have time uh for that, but if it's there, then um it's we continue going forward. Does that sound all right? Yeah. Okay. Well, that's uh I just have a question on an agenda item like that. Um can can we uh I don't know how to put it, but can we put some kind of uh time time limit on the amount of time we spend on that? Then at least we could do it sooner than sooner than later. Is there such a thing? I mean, you know, we got into a pretty long long- winded um everybody's input discussion tonight. Mhm. Um but if we're if we're attacking, you know, small issues, could we, you know, limit it to the like a half an hour at at you know as a last agenda item so we don't hold up public hearings, etc. I just it's just a question. I don't know better. That would be you can't you could by unanimous consent set a time limit on discussion. um you couldn't absent unanimous consent if someone objected you by Robert's rules you could make a motion to end debate but I don't think that's really what you're looking for but you know I think if the plan commission said and everyone was amendable to it we're going to spend 30 minutes on this at the end of a meeting no more than yes I think you can do that sure I've I've I think since I met you Steve, this was important to you. And that was 6 years ago. It's been a long time. I think his what I'm hearing is is that there's a sense of urgency around this. And I think that open meeting requirements and

things like that uh don't allow for immediate action. Um kind of scrunch it up and spit it out and then people forget and things like that. So I I'm I'm whatever you need to do. I kind of need your leadership, I think. So, I would say like if I would actually defer to you, like what do you think we need to do in order to move this forward? Well, just just uh from from past experiences back when the Bartles Beach issue was before the plan commission, there was a a time where we kind of just held up um anything and it was in an area, I believe. So, I I think, you know, I I really think that uh the the overlay the overlay district thing is is easier, not harder, because it when you look at the zoning map from uh aerial view of it, it's it's really it's really quite quite defined. So, I think we could, you know, we could start start thinking about just the boundaries of, you know, I just call it the older part of town. I I just I live in the older part of town. I I don't know how else to put it. Um it's not like the existing or the you know it's just the older part of town. It would not you know this overlay district wouldn't not apply to to newer and I'm talking like you know 70s and newer um subdivisions. So I think it's pretty easil easily defined. Even if we could just get it defined and then we would know what we're talking about the area as a small issue. Can I ask a question on the over? So in the older homes when they have problems like that like he was talking about the garage setback or whatever, what do homeowners do when when that happens? then we look for a solution for them if

one exists or sometimes the answer is no okay so there's not like a okay we can figure this out and I mean we found we have found creative solutions before um I think Troy brought you know brought up one time there was a garage that they wanted to be constructed but it was a detached garage but under our code if you connect it with a breezeway that then makes it an attached garage which changes the regular regulations surrounding it. So, there are sometimes solutions that we can find to help homeowners get to what they want to do while complying with the code. Okay. Um there are times where what the property owner wants to do, you're like the code is simply just cannot be accomplished under what the rules and regulations are. And then the answer is you can apply for a variance. that'll be difficult for you to achieve based on the legal standard of issuing a variance or you got to come up with another solution or the answer is just you can't do this. Okay. Okay. I heard somebody suggest to put this on the agenda. So, you know, if there is a conditional use or something like that, we would attend to those first and then assuming it's not too late, we could say, "Yeah, let's spend 30 minutes on this." Or if the meeting's already gone for a couple hours, we could say, "Oh, let's bump that to the next meeting." But at least it's it's on there and it gives us opportunity to talk about it further. Yeah, I I think I think we're all agreeing that that would be what we we should do to continue u developing this. Okay. Okay. there uh any anything else uh that we

should uh talk about this evening? Um Mr. Coots would make a motion to adjurnn. I Mr. Coots has moved and Dr. Mason has uh seconded to adjourn the meeting. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. One who does not agree. Meeting adjourned.