Planning & Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

This conference will now be recorded.

Call the meeting to order. Mr. Bruce, would you lead us in the question?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Do we have any motions to appoint a secretary?

So moved.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Congratulations, Mr. Secretary. Thank you. A few minutes from the July 2nd, 2026 meeting. Was there any additions or corrections?

Move to approve.

Okay. Second. Discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay. And the agenda, everything good there? Yep, no changes. Discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay, the motion carries. And conflicts of interest? None here. None here. Okay, good there. What is this?

Bruce, do you want to explain the first part? So this is a statewide, I do have it in your guys' packets too, and I have it up here. Commissioner saw this. last tuesday right thursday so the commissioners have already officially appointed me to accept the change of zoning applications because state law changed in july that said the auditor's office has to accept them or it can be appointed and so basically july 1st we updated what we could that we just had the email go to the auditor's office because we didn't know what else to do to meet the law And then until we could get this done. So is that a quick and dirty way of it? This is the new law. It's 11-2-28-2.

I think there was a county, East River, I think was having a problem with getting change of zoning applications. So I think it's a one-off situation that now the solution involves everybody. And so the auditor always gets the change of zoning applications now. then it's a matter of how they get communicated to the planning and zoning board and how they get communicated to the county commission and designate amber to do that in both cases so the commission's already taken action on that one we don't need to know anything but you need to move to approve yeah okay yeah second discussion basically keeping everything the way it is now but getting the law

back to where we're well the law is still in effect it's just it says that or person designated so the county commission designated me to still accept the applications and then it also says that you guys should too just to be safe so you know i'll get the application and then we'll still go through the same process we always have you won't want to see any difference yeah that's the way that's the way it always worked before just another state issue that county said to clean up yeah

And just for clarification, we appointed a planning and zoning director, not air.

That way, it doesn't matter who's there. You don't have to change it.

Is that in perpetuity forever, or do you have to do that once a year? I think that's perpetuity. Unless the law changes. Okay. Any other questions about that? Or acknowledge it, I guess, is really all we're doing. Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Congratulations, Amber. Oh, thank you.

To do what I've always done. Yeah, perfect.

All right, item number two, informational meeting for change of zoning number 374 for David Winfield.

Okay, and David is here. I'll give kind of a quick rundown of it, but if you have specific questions, he's here. You guys did see this as kind of a layout plan. It took him a little while to kind of get the rest of it together. Brad Limbaugh was planning on being here. He was planning on coming. Is he still going to- If we can jump down or- I guess there's really, it's an informational, if we wanted to wait, because Brad was, he had guard stuff come up. So he was trying to fit it in, but he didn't know if he could. I think it would be beneficial if maybe we can wait for him. So if you guys are okay with it, we can do the variances and then go back to it.

Do we need a motion on that? Nope. Let's just move back to the point when Brad gets here and then after he's here, I'll stick it in somewhere. Sounds fine.

Sound good?

Okay. All right. Item number three, recommendation meeting for variance number 224 for Dennis and Lynn Thomas.

Okay. Grab the wrong one. Hold on. This one. Okay. So Dennis and Lynn Thomas, some of you probably, Rick, you probably remember these guys, but the rest of you guys maybe not. So this was a cabin in Spearfish Canyon. It used to be the little A-frame. You remember the little A-frame? It got torn down. It's probably been 10 years ago or more. I would bet. Dennis and Lynn Thomas purchased that lot many, many years ago. It's in the floodplain. The house was pretty well damaged. It needed some lots of upgrades. So they decided to pull it down, but they left the foundation. And then they had gotten approval with a variance and some other stuff to rebuild kind of in the same location, but they had to do some stuff to make that doable. So they've started working on it again, but as part of that process, there was a detached old garage that also sat out there and it's very dilapidated. They have to do something with it. So as part of that process, they came forward, they said, okay, we're ready to finally do something with the original stuff. Oh yeah, by the way, the structure's falling down. We need to either shore it up or can we go ahead and fix it, like actually fix it and also do an addition onto it. Well, as we were going through that process, we determined that the old garage structure was never included in the original variance or the floodplain stuff that we did for the house. They just didn't think about it at the time. So they had to go back through the process. They did all the floodplain work. We've been working with them on a building permit. And when it came down to it, what we usually require, if they do any sort of an addition to a structure that is already not meeting setback, they have to bring it into compliance by getting a variance. So it's an existing structure. It's always sat there. They're adding on to the other side of it. So they're not going more into it than what was already there. But because of that, it forces them into the variance process. So what they're doing is requesting a 9.2 foot variance to the front setback requirement of 25 feet. It's a 6.9 foot variance to the side setback requirement of 10 feet and a 2.9 variance to the rear setback of 10 feet. Keep in mind, this is one of those old home stake lots that they gave to somebody with this building on it. So that's kind of where that's at. You can see 2026, we did a residential addition. It was determined at that time they would have to split the detached garage off onto its own building permit because we found out the problems with the floodplain and everything. So that's why we separated the two. I kind of went through all of that. It's an existing grandfathered structure. It's out of compliance and the variance would not be changing any of the existing front and side setbacks. Does that make sense to everybody? It's an existing structure. It's been there. We're bringing it in compliance with the variance. but at the same time, they're also doing an addition.

Can you scroll up to that map? Mm-hmm.

This is the lot right here. Oh, okay. Let's go and open that.

Would they need a variance if they built in the same footprint? No.

Yes, they would. We still require because they have to bring it into compliance if they're doing construction to it.

The hustling thing is the structure was there before Home State went around and sold these lots to everybody, and they platted them after the PAC. or during this process to get rid of them. And so Homestay could have planted a few more feet and they would have been okay, but they didn't. So if they build on to it, they're going up in here where it doesn't make a difference? Nope.

No, where this structure right here. This area. This is the old garage and the new structure.

Oh, okay. Right here. You were looking at the house. So they're going this way or this way with the addition?

Nope. This is the new, this is it. This is the footprint.

of the new structure. But they're going away from the setback is what he's asking. Yes, I'm sorry. Because you said they're building an addition there.

Yes, they're not going closer than what they already are.

Gotcha. Isn't there some provision if you build on the same existing foundation?

But they're not because they're doing an addition. So they're fixing the portion on the existing foundation, but then they're adding on to it.

There's a question though that if they were just building on the same foundation.

We would still do a variance for it, but that would be part of the staff report. So if they tore all the walls down and it was just on the foundation, you would still issue a building permit with a variance for the new structure.

There would still have to be a variance.

Yeah, usually we do.

Is the difference then that they tore it down?

They haven't torn this portion down.

Because you don't need a variance if you go up on the existing foot grant, correct?

It depends on what they're doing to it. Yeah, you could.

To get a building permit, you've got to bring it within. And a building permit includes refurbishing.

And this was one of those things because it's in the floodplain, then I have to look at the 50% rule. So basically anything, if you're adding to the structure, anything more than 50% of the value, you have to bring it into compliance. And most anything anymore is going to be more than 50%. So they're out of compliance now. And this makes it even more out of compliance or the same? It's the same because they're not moving the existing So the fact that they're expanding the platform doesn't, not really.

That's away from the bottom. Got it.

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Is there more than, sorry guys. No, it's okay. Is there more than 50% of this new structure in the floodplain that they're rebuilding?

No, not really. So if you look at the, they're actually able to remove most of it by theory of, raising it.

But if they went to the left.

They're going to go more in the floodplain.

Would they be any more in the floodplain than they are now?

Yes. The hashed area is floodplain. So it's kind of sitting in probably the best place that it could to stay the most out of it. So if you move it further, then you're just more into the floodplain. That's probably why it's sitting where it's sitting, like the existing structure.

Homestake did this to a few people. So what is the landowner to the north here and to the east?

Well, you've got the highway in this side. This is all highway. This is Elmore on this side. I don't know who that back one is.

So this is the A-frame right along the highway?

Yeah.

It's no longer an A-frame because they built onto the sidewalk. Correct. Yeah.

Yeah, it was an A-frame and then they had an addition.

Yeah. Dating myself. Quit looking at me.

Does anybody have Tom Brady's speech memorized?

Basically we just provided you, it was a home stake mining lot. They got lot 24. We did have them do, Full new trust plans, making sure it's all engineered.

Yeah, I kind of question that. So they're going up, though. They're building it up.

Here's the addition. Yeah, so they're putting a, what, second story kind of loft? No, that's going to be trust storage up there.

They're just doing 20-foot addition on the main one. Trying to make it so water flows under a roof. Oh, yeah.

But they're not doing that. So here's your... elevations of the building. Here's your footprint. They're making the existing garage bigger using the same walls except for the front. 20 feet. So here's your existing foundation is right here. Here's your new foundation right here. This was all just old to show that it's been in the tax voice.

Well, I think I'm going to stick to my normal arguments on these. The slot's not big enough for this, and we have setbacks for a reason. But I'm just going to vote.

Mr. Chairman, on page two of the staff report is the consideration of requirements for a variance.

If you are going to approve it, you should find that there's some kind of special condition or the absence thereof, right? If that makes a difference for anybody's consideration. I'm typically not in favor of variances, but it would seem to me that since this building was there before the lot line was established, the lot line went in the wrong spot.

That's a special condition.

It's a special condition, I think. Nobody built the garage violating the setback. The setback came in after the garage was built. Correct.

Mr. Chair, would you also say that the variance is not injurious to the neighborhood or detrimental to the public interest or welfare, and that to deny it would create a peculiar or exceptional practical difficulty or undue hardship?

I would say that probably, yeah.

I wouldn't have used those exact words, but something to that effect.

Can we look at the neighboring property on the back side of that again?

It's Crest Creek. It's a creek, yeah. It should be a creek, yeah. It just sits between the highway and the creek. Yeah.

There's one house towards the last street from there. The creek is here, the highway is out front.

So this is highway, that's what you're asking. And we're talking about that little corner over there. This little piece right here. Yeah. So the highway comes this way, the creek is here, there's two cabins on the other side of Spiritish Creek. And the neighbors on the other side aren't infected at all because it doesn't move them. They won't even see it because it's like down and up on that piece.

Is there a motion with no second?

No, I haven't heard a motion.

I haven't heard a motion, yeah.

I was waiting for Eric to clean his up and make it.

Director Bell, they're not going to make their motions.

I know we can deal with it later.

This will require a public hearing in front of the county commission.

Yep.

This will?

Yes. It always has. It's not the county commission. Board of Adjustments.

Board of Adjustments.

They hear all of it. Oh, yeah, because it's a very public hearing.

It'll require two-thirds majority. It'll require the supermajority.

So this board just makes a recommendation one way or another.

It'll require four out of five county commissioners to pass.

Any other questions about anything? Motions?

I make a motion, I don't know if I'm going to say it right. I make a motion that we recommend that the variants go to the Board of Adjustment.

Yeah, to the Board of Adjustment.

Based on the items that Bruce listed? Yes.

Based on the... A, B, and C?

Yeah. Special conditions, da, da, da. You got it.

Yep.

Thank you.

Okay. Do you want a second?

I'll second that.

Okay. Any other discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Aye. So you have to do a roll call. Okay, who's there? I. Don't you? Really? Oh, hi. Are you okay?

You got it?

Hi.

Everybody with an A, yeah, I, except for Shane.

Okay, motion carries. We don't normally do a roll call if there's somebody online.

Okay. Or who is specifically calling for it. Oh, that's good practice. There you go. Okay, will you help me remember?

We'll go back to item number two, the informational meeting for David Winfield.

Okay, hold on here.

Brad decided to join us. You just wanted to get out of your other job, didn't you? So we kind of started and then he said you were coming, so we waited till you got here. So basically this one is the property that you guys saw before down in Boulder Canyon. It's for a very large planned unit development. It's kind of different and changing what is down there. David had previously done some, residential development down in that area, a number of different lots, put some roads in, kind of got stuff situated. We issued a conditional use permit on a church, not quite two years ago, probably right around there. And the church is in the process of being built. It has not had a certificate of occupancy yet, but it's already down there and active. As part of that process over the last couple of years, David has come in a number of times. We've talked about his overall grand plan of what he wants to do. And as part of that process, I had suggested, I think with the different uses that he wanted, it would be better instead of just using like the normal zoning, different uses, he'd have to do multiple different changes on things to make it work with what he wanted. So it was better off to use the planned unit development district because then he could have one lump sum plan for all of the property at one time. And so that's what he has opted to do. He provided that information as a layout plan that you guys saw a while ago. And then this is kind of the more detailed, the master plan portion, what he's planning on doing, how he's planning on going through the process. And that's what you saw in here. And then as part of that, there's a full write-up in here of kind of the narrative and the planning analysis. That's what Brad put together for you guys to review. And then there's the more detailed part of it, which is what David put together, kind of explaining exactly what their overall plan is. I'm going to skip down to a map. So this kind of came up yesterday. It was just sort of missed. So I said I would bring it up. We knew the church was there because obviously we've issued the building permit on it. You guys have already approved the conditional use permit. As part of the phasing map of this whole development, basically the layer showing the parking in the church that was already approved didn't get put on this big map. And so I also added in at the very end, I just got to find it. Hold on. There was a lot of items in here. I did add this so you could see it because this is what you guys had approved as part of the conditional use permit. So you could see the layout. And then Brad was at Guards, he couldn't get you the updated bigger map, so he brought some today. So it's all together, but we kind of did a workaround because I knew he was at Guards and he couldn't get the map updated. So basically that church sits like right here. Yeah, if you want to hand that out. It sits right here. And then the rest of the phases, you can kind of see they broke it into a number of different maps. You have kind of the tiny house area. You have the overall, you can go ahead and have them, I can get it from you. You have the overall areas of single family residential, which that is what the original plan was out there, was just single family residential. So that's nothing really new. The tiny house stuff is different. Actually, this is the cleanest way. I would prefer this over most people come to me with tiny houses. Well, I just want a bunch of tiny houses on one piece of property. He's actually breaking them into separate lots. So each tiny house would have its own piece of property, which is what this is here. And then you've got the upper area right here, which I would consider kind of being the, the core kind of commercial slash school slash all the stuff, the extra stuff here that he wrote about in his plan. So the entire kind of colored area that you see is what the change of zoning would incur to the planned unit development. And then each phase of that is broken down into the different phases. So today you are approving, well, you would go through the process that's in informational today. The next meeting you would schedule a public hearing, you would have a public hearing, and you would be approving just the change of zoning first. And then as part of that change of zoning, you would have a development agreement and a master plan. Well, obviously he's submitting you the master plan so you can see what the grand scheme of everything is going to be. So that's in here already. So that kind of gives you a breakdown of what it is. Brad, you want to share any more?

Yeah, I can share a little bit. So I guess if you look at it, as you've discussed, there's kind of phase one, phase two, and phase three. Each one of those phases just kind of separates what the intent is, not necessarily timing. So they could be doing single family residential in that first phase, and they could also start doing some small tiny house lots along the west side there. And then they may be doing some things inside of the ministry area. Dave and his wife are here. They can answer questions about the ministry stuff. But they've been working in ministry their entire lives, it seems like, and significantly over the last 25, 30 years. So they've also been doing this development piece with a vision that this is going to become something that would be an option for a girl's home or a children's home and some other things that support other ministries. And so the bigger piece of that, what you're looking at on the top right of that screen, there's not really – There's a vision and there's an intent of what they want to do. But that whole structure there is a significant movement and they don't have defined architectural drawings and civil engineering and all of that thing. What we're trying to do is get to the point where they can start saying, yes, this is the direction we're going and now we can start fundraising and creating income to generate that future vision. So, I mean, as we move forward, residential is not a whole lot different than what it was. The tiny house stuff is going to help support some of the ministry operations. And, you know, as far as detailed design plans, the cost of doing a structure of that size and what it is, is a significant amount. And so what we're trying to do is get the approval to say, generally, we're going to go in this direction and you're okay with it. And as that piece comes forward, there will be designs and plans and stamps and all of those things will come with it, but it'll be over time. So I don't know if there's anything additional you want me to add or Dave wants to add anything at this time, or if you guys have any questions.

I guess our intent isn't necessarily just to sell off all these lots. That's not the plan. The plan is that they would help generate funding to be able to continue and sustain the ministry that we were designed to go there. So again, we're starting with the church and starting to walk into these ministries. Been working at it a long time and it's a slow process, but we're trying to move forward.

Judy?

So the tiny homes and the residential, the other residential, this is open to the public? Or is this somehow affiliated with the ministry? Yeah, we're maybe gonna sell off like eight of the two acre lots out of 16. But then we intend to keep the rest within the ministry to help generate rental income or whatever to continue.

A lot of that's in your write-up business.

Yeah. Brad, is part of this inside city limits, and how is that going to work?

No, so everything, so there was a development to the west of this, Buena Vista. There hasn't been a lot of movement on Buena Vista. Buena Vista, I think, is in the city, so the border city limits. But Buena Vista, they went through a restructure and a replan and redevelopment, and it's kind of dead. I think right now, essentially.

There's a tag on there, it says Majestic Heights. I just didn't know.

Yeah, so I think at one point there was some discussion that city water was going to be brought to these slots and there was kind of this plan and then the water thing fell through for the other development. And so I think they just kind of were like, okay, so how do we do what we need to do? How do we continue to move forward even though they're not? So no, it's not in the city. I don't think there's,

We do own 34 acres that is inside city limits, but it's basically not . So it's not usable or significant. It's not part of this that we're discussing now, separate.

And kind of like the stuff up to the north, if you look at that, there's a campground, there's commercial, there's things already kind of adjacent to this property that are already kind of functioning in some manner or some fashion that's not too different than what's already here. It's just different than what would be allowed with the current zones.

So, and the one thing too, I guess I should point out is this, if you can see where my cursor is, right along here, this property is mostly zoned commercial already. So there's already highway service commercial property right there. This one right here is the Whiskey Barrel Ranch property, which if you drive down there now, it's a huge building, but they have probably about 15-ish campsites. They've been a CEP for a couple of years. Right over here, this area here was the JCJ campground that burned down. Remember we permitted it as a CV and then they had the fire. So it did get burned down. So that front side where they're looking at doing mostly what I would consider semi-commercial use is already kind of a commercial area. The church is sitting right back here on this parcel here. that we've already permitted as a conditionally used permit. Now back behind here is larger lot residential pieces that have already been sold off to people. So this is other stuff that's already been sold. I think one thing too that I was going to mention that I didn't is many of you that are on the board David is not new to doing something like this. The old Girl Scout camp, which was Kinship Mountain Industries, was David's property. So that was developed 2004-ish, I'm guessing. 2004, they took the old campground, and now it is an active business within Lawrence County again. All the cabins have been refurbished, additional cabins built. But David has sold that, how I understand it, correct, that they're no longer in that, and then now they're trying to start this one. It's a big project, it's an informational today, but I think really what they were looking for is any additional concerns that have come up so they know kind of what to look at. I think for my purposes, the biggest thing is it's sometimes kind of hard to remember that this is just the plan. You're not approving individual, you're not approving the structures, you're not approving the infrastructure, you're not doing any of that at this point. This is just the change of zoning. so that then they can start coming in with kind of, you know, doing the infrastructure.

Didn't we start this process with Potterhouse Pass? Apple Springs was piecemeal. Correct. And then we asked Potterhouse Pass to come in with your master plan so we know what's coming. Yeah.

So it's following kind of that, I wouldn't say newer, but we just don't have a lot of planned unit development zoning districts. We have Potterhouse Pass. Apple Springs is pretty much this, but they still have individual zoning because we didn't have this option when that one was started. Deer Mountain Village is a planned unit development. So those would be kind of the examples of what we have that are following the same procedure. So that's all I have today. If you guys have additional questions though before they leave or concerns or anything.

Does anybody see anything that they should work on? I think it's a good point. Okay. All right. Change for the public hearing on September 3rd. And is that all we got to do on that one? Okay.

Just a second. Who gets the paperwork? Is it you or is it Dave? Sign as soon as possible. Paperwork's in here. Make sure it's certified. Return receipt. Thank you. White card and green card.

Please.

All right. Recommendation meeting for variance number 225 for Sarah Davis. Did you guys ? Yes.

Perfect.

We need to . I just didn't hear you say that you said it. Yep.

This one is, like you said, variance 225 for Sarah Davis. The parcel is 2A, located in the southeast quarter, northeast quarter of section 31, Spearfish West. It's in the joint jurisdiction area. She's requesting a 19-foot variance to the 25-foot rear setback. You can kind of see the general location. This is her property here. Here is the Westview subdivision. You kind of know where that is. These lots up here off of MN Court were part of the McGuigan Ranch when they did that development. That's what these are here. I'm actually going to start with this one.

So this is for a fence?

This is for a fence. I will explain. So we'll give you some background. I've been in this office since 2004. I have never issued a building permit on a fence. And I have never had this come up before. It is.

I'm sorry, Tina. Did you say you've never issued a building permit or a variance for a fence? Neither. Okay.

So with this, we had two, Sarah had called our office, asked if she needed a building permit. We told her no, we've never done a fence one. We knew it was for a wood panel fence. We knew it was for that. She went to the City of Spearfish following procedures. City of Spearfish had, they issued the building permit for the fence because that's under their realm because they're inside that joint jurisdiction area. So it's under their realm. And then it's a wood panel fence. We don't really have any regulations, whether it's, you know, chain link, it doesn't matter. We just look at the height. We allow, three stories for any structure. So we wouldn't have even looked at it. And then basically, depending on the height, you do have to have it engineered. So she went and had the fence engineered. The city ended up having her set it back a little bit. And I believe there was an easement of some sort in there, a power line easement or some kind of an easement along that fence line, but they set it back just to be safe. There's a chain link fence also on the neighboring lot. Most of those yards actually have a chain link fence all the way along there, right on the property line. And then they, I'm not going to go into the gist of it. I just look at, does the variance require, basically it's two neighbors that can't quite see eye to eye on things. There's a write up in there. I will let you read that. And then ultimately as part of that, the neighbor called us, was concerned with the fence. We called the city of Spearfish. We said, well, you should probably stop construction on it because, yes, the neighbor is right. Our definition of structure does have the word fence in it, even though we've never called it. It's just the way it is. So we went through that process. We would do just like we would with any other structure. If it doesn't meet setback, what is their recourse? Well, they either have to get a variance or tear it down. So we talked to Sarah about that, gave her the option. She said, well, I think I'm gonna go for a variance. That's what she did. She applied for the variance, did a survey, cause I did request like where exactly is it sitting? Can you show us? So she had a surveyor go out and show where it's located. We have pictures of it. It is a wood panel fence. So yeah, it's a wood panel fence. Then it's to you guys to decide if this constitutes, in my eyes, I did recommend approval of the variance, which normally I don't. In this scenario, I feel like this is something that warranted an ordinance fix because we have never, in all these years, we've never done it. So two-part, this is the variance. I think you almost have to act on the variance first because initially the ordinance does say offense needs building permit, but that's up to you guys, and then we'll go into it. to the next one.

Mr. Chairman. We went out and looked at this and there are other fences in the neighborhood that would also be non-compliant. And I don't know how one picks one out and not the others. And I was thinking more about this and I think essentially every agricultural fence in Lawrence County is on a property line, right? And not engineered. And not engineered. And our ordinance does not have- A lot of them are windbreaks that are taller than this. does not distinguish agricultural fences from property line fences from this or that. So it's a problem that needs to get fixed. Again, I don't know how we would single out one landowner. I think even, it looked to me like the complaining party that her fence is likely probably within the setback as well. And so I think, I obviously am not a surveyor.

I don't remember if I've ever been in favor of variance before. I would actually go beyond the normal procedures and, as chairman, make a motion to approve this variance and emphasize that it's ridiculous. I will second that.

I don't think the chairman can make a motion. Can't, we weren't supposed to. Can't. But I would make that motion and chair misplaced. No second. I'll still second that.

We have a motion and a second. Here is a picture of the fence. I just took me in that to find it.

And for all those reasons stated in the staff report, and it's appropriate, right? Yep.

I'm just curious. So the issue is that the neighbor who's complaining that the fence shouldn't be put up is a two-story looking at, I mean, we're not going to get into that. No, I know. I'm just curious because it looks like it's in the middle of nowhere. Here's the image. This is Westview subdivision. You can see fences all the way along here. There is that power line and then the fence sits on the other side. Okay. And so it's easy to clean up in between the two fences.

Here's your- If I may, Mr. Chair, I might be able to- Yeah, go ahead. So, can you introduce yourself?

Can you introduce yourself?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm Kellan Muller. I'm an attorney up in Bell. I represent Sarah Davis. And yeah, this is in part issues between neighbors. I would submit to you that good fences make good neighbors. What you have there So Sarah's property line is actually to the left in that picture. And this fence, she's already constructed a good portion of it before this complaint came up. It's still between nine and 10 feet off of the actual boundary line. And there are some utilities, as you can see the power lines overhead there. And so she's trying to have a privacy fence for reasons that we probably don't need to get into. But I think that The complaining party is reading the ordinance in a way that's not in the spirit of the ordinance itself, right? And I think you're all on board with, yeah, we're trying to get an ordinance change. My client's simply asking for the variance. She's followed all the right steps, getting the permitting, all that stuff to try and get this fence in. And so we're just asking for you to push a recommendation on this issue to the Board of Adjustments so we can have that public hearing and keep pressing on. So my client is here if you have other questions, but hopefully that helps give you a little clarity on what's going on here.

Thank you.

So I'm not 100% fond of it being a variance because I think you should just be able to build a fence. But I think that for right now to clean this up, we need to do the variance. Is that what we're looking at?

Well, yeah, I would suggest it. But then keep in mind that once the ordinance is changed, she wouldn't need the variance.

And that's right behind this. Yeah. If we don't do this in order, though, would that create a loophole to come back and say, well, you know, because we didn't do, we didn't approve the variance first before we changed the ordinance?

Bruce, do you have a suggestion?

Well, I don't know. So we need to change the ordinance, correct, right? So technically, arguably at this point, the fence is non-compliant because it doesn't need to, it falls to the definition, right? So the idea is, change the ordinance, it solves the problem. The variance may or may not be necessary. So you could hold that in advance, I suppose. But if the neighbor came back in and pointed that out to you and said, hey, at the time the ordinance was in place, the fence was non-compliant, you haven't solved it. You've solved it prospectively, but not backwards, right? So that's why we have the variance in there is to sort of add kind of the boot suspenders approach to the thing. I don't know that it matters.

If I may. Yeah. So another reason that she would like you to grant the variance is so she can go ahead and finish the fence. She's already got a substantial portion of it done, but she'd like to get it finished, especially before winter.

The City of Spearfish did put a stop work order on it until we figured out what to do. And as soon as she got it, she stopped doing it. They had not been finishing it or doing anything, so. I had stopped work two weeks before, because I'm traveling. Yeah.

So is the fence just going to be, is the Length of the fence, what's pictured on here now, or is it going to extend beyond a lot seven?

It currently is there just for template.

But are you, it says it's not finished. Is it going to be longer? No. It's just for that. So the footprint is there, basically. Correct. Okay, that's what I was asking.

In fact, our context may be, so you have an older subdivision with smaller sort of residential lots, and now it bots this newer subdivision with much larger lots and much larger homes. So that's what you're seeing there. It looks like there's a big expanse. It's a much bigger, bigger lot, right?

Yeah, and there's fences all over it.

There's some impressive fences out there. We saw one chain link that's like eight feet high and it has rolling gates and it's like call boxes. That whole thing, I'm certain, would be non-compliant.

Correct.

And that's like, I don't even know what that costs to put that in.

Yeah, so this is one of those things that just nobody ever noticed. No. No. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Any further discussion? Okay, all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, same time. Motion carries. Sorry, I'm having a problem.

Thank you all. Thank you. All right, you need to put this up on your property to show that you're going to the Board of Adjustments.

I think we should try that one next. The whole reason for setbacks is

Like, so you don't end up building a house where the road needs to expand to or something like that. But a fence, you can always take a fence out if it's in the way.

And again, it looked like the neighbor at the plane had a fence that could probably not be flying this far out.

Okay, so number five, informational meeting for Ordinance 2603 from Lawrence County.

So this is due to the last discussion. In fact, yes, the ordinance did say, among other things, structures include instead of do not include. It says it includes buildings, mobile homes, walls, fences, billboards, and poster panels. So based on the research that we did, I looked at a number of different agencies across South Dakota that, you know, how do they define a structure? So some of them were five paragraphs long. I liked this one the best, and we double checked it for the purpose of these regulations, fences, earthwork, retaining walls, concrete slabs, and utility poles are not considered structures. The reason for that is we do not issue building permits on any of those things.

And they're all movable if something arises and you need to change.

Yeah, we've never issued a permit on any of those things, and we'd like to keep it that way. We do get the question a lot about earthwork. Can people do dirt work without a permit? Yes, they can in Lawrence County. So it kind of just makes sense to put it in here.

Chairman, and Amber, as you said, this is consistent with what other jurisdictions have done as well.

Does anybody have anything they'd like to change in that wording before we set up public hearing? Thanks for taking care of it. Yeah. Okay, so we'll set the public hearing for September 3rd, 2026. All right. Thank you. Number six, informational meeting for Ordinance 2604, Lawrence Kelley.

Okay, so this one is based on what you did at the beginning of the meeting, 11-2-28-2. As we were going through this with the change and what we needed to do, we found one place in the ordinance that it used to say an application for a change or addition to the present zoning district as shown on the official map may be filed with the planning department. Well, because of the state law, it can't be filed with the planning department. The law states it's the Lawrence County Auditor now. So we're just updating it to that wording. And then we took care of it by saying that I could accept that.

Should that say Lawrence County Auditor or appointee? Or what was the word you said there? Or planning director? Or appointee?

Yeah, I don't think it has to. So I think the law requires that change of zoning petitions or applications be filed with the auditor is then who then passes the information on to the planning commission and to the county commission. Does that make sense? Okay. So that's all you're doing is designating the director of planning and zoning to be the pass-through.

Yeah, so how we updated it so everybody knows is we have an online system for change of zoning. So now what happens is when someone submits that change of zoning application, I get a copy and the auditor gets a copy. So when we meet the state law, I make sure they get a copy of it. So that's how we're doing it. So it's still getting submitted, per se, to the auditor, but then she's just saying, okay, Amber, you go ahead and take it through your regular process.

But in this section, I'm used to just say launch.

Yes. Okay.

So it's just the legislature creating another step for us. Yep.

I think it was Senator Dyer. Is that right, Amber?

Did you sponsor that?

So we had two areas. It's under change of zoning, because that's what it's specifically related to. It's the general section and then also in the application. It said it had to go to the planning department. We're changing it to the Lawrence County Auditor. So we fixed it in the two places that it had the wording.

Okay, let's send the bill to the state for having to fix your stuff once they do their thing.

I think sometimes it's really hard. And I know what their purpose is. In many counties, they don't have a planning department. They have an auditor or they have an EQ office that acts as their planning department. So I'm assuming that's Whatever county asked for this to get fixed, that's probably why.

Is it Turner County? Parker? I think it was Turner.

He's not going to say anything. But I think that's ultimately why is because a lot of places don't have a separate department. It goes through either their auditors or their BQ.

All right. Anybody have any questions about that before we set up public hearing? All right. Public hearing will be on September 3rd, 2026. All right, item number seven, discussion item for review proposed ordinance changes list from January.

Yep, so every January, I usually bring you a list of things that have happened over the last year of things that we needed to update. So I usually try to do an update-ish around now, so you know, end of the summer's coming, we start working on next budget cycle. What do I need to look at? I wanted to give you guys an update of where we're at with the list that we prepared back in January. So the first item was to amend the zoning districts to include the text after the CUP regarding the classification of unlisted uses. I put a note in here that said the board did not agree with adding that use. So I just dropped it. I'm not going to move forward with it at this time. I still like the idea of it, but it just, if that's not what the commission wants, then that's not what I'm going to go through with. I will tell you that I've had two situations in the last week that it would have been very helpful to have that language, but one of them being the church situation that we just dealt with, the church and school situation. You will see a discussion on August 25th. That'll probably tie back to this a little bit for the commissioners. Political signage, that was on our list back in January. I just gave a note here, drafted 202602. It's still in the process. It hasn't been approved yet. And then based on SB91, do we need to change any language? Well, that's the one that we just did, the 202604. And then the definition of the structure, obviously that was a new one, 202603. Data centers, solar operations, towers. Remember, we've kind of been watching those. There was a bunch of different state laws that came through. At this time, when I talked to everybody about it, we said, well, let's kind of wait and see what happens because there was no state laws in place. We didn't really know. I think we just keep watching it. I do. So in the end of August, I go to South Dakota Planning Association in Sioux Falls. And it sounds like we have a speaker there that's going to talk about some of this stuff. So it might give me a little better idea of what other entities are doing for ordinances. I don't know at this point.

I think we should keep that on the list.

Well, it'll come off the 2026 list. And then when I do the 2027 list, we would put it back on. But I think for now, I'm just, there won't be anything coming forward for the rest of this year.

For the next four months.

Yeah.

Just because I don't, I try not to, that's a big one that I don't think we want to be like, because state law is changing and all this stuff.

And then I've had this on there for quite a while. It's the administrative change of zoning process with the new zoning map. It was not budgeted for 2026. I don't feel like I can really – it is time to do a new zoning map. The last one was 2015. I don't know the date on that. It's covered up. 2015, I think. We usually try to redo the zoning map every five-ish years. We're way over that. but I don't think it makes sense to do the zoning map unless we're going to do a future land use map. That's kind of, and it didn't, you know, it didn't go into budget for 2026 again. So I would probably add it just like I have every year for the past, I don't know how many years, I'll add it to the 2027 list. It does still need to get done. It's just a matter of when we have the money available to do it. 2028 now, yeah.

Do some administrative, look at some administrative changes of zoning, just cleaning things up that are obvious they're wrong at that prior to that?

I don't know, I can't think of anything.

Well, I have a list of parcels that should be updated. I think without having a clear view of what you want in the future in different locations, it doesn't make sense because then you're just playing catch up for stuff We're already dealing with lots being non-compliant. That's just part of, you know, as growth occurs and whatever. So I think it's one of those things. Yes, we can update it, but I don't know if it's really helping us when we don't really know what the grant, you know, like what do you want to see in the future for different areas of the county? Because I think there's areas of the county that maybe is going to see future commercial development. that is currently zoned residential, but maybe they're operating, you know, a conditional use permit or have some sort of commercial type business on it. But I can't just go in and say that should be commercial because I have nothing to base it on.

Does that make sense?

Because there's not a future land use map. I don't have that. So, I mean, I can always do it. It's a budgeting issue. Change of zoning, when you do a large readoption of a map, I looked back, it was quite a few years ago that we've done it. But in 2005, when we did the big one, that was when Brandon Flanagan was still here. At that time, it was about $3,000 to do a full, because you have to literally send out mailings to people and then you put it in the paper. And I mean, it's a lengthy process. I just don't know if it makes sense to do it though, if we don't have a plan in place. I mean, it's operating fine as it is. It's just there are some areas that need to be cleaned up.

Well, for cleaning everything up, I think we could look at that just kind of on an individual, maybe work group basis type of thing, you know. But the future land use map is so up in the air to me. You know, I mean, that can change with everybody. So it's really hard to. for me to say, okay, these six people are going to think, well, this may be what they want, but that can all change so quick. I think it's kind of a waste of money. Honestly, I get it. I understand why everybody wants it, but I.

And I guess that's kind of why I'm looking at. So normally what I would do, we're getting to the end of August. I'm going into the, you know, we have a couple months of winter. Are there any small things that we can work on in a four month time period without getting into the next budget cycle? And my budget was approved for the most part. I haven't heard too much about it for 2027, but I didn't have much of these changes budgeted for 2027. So like that one particularly, it's probably $3,000 to $5,000. I'm guessing mailings are more expensive now. It's about $10 a mailing. So I didn't really budget anything for that. So that would probably move to like a 2028. schedule, I think just because of the costs associated with it. I don't really have, I don't really have anything for the 2027 list per se. So that's part of why I have you start thinking about this now, you know, and then in January of 2027, we'll make that laundry list again. Is there anything that we see that we need to be looking at or reviewing? And then usually when I come back from the August, South Dakota Planning Association, I have a general idea of like hot topics, like things that are happening or is it, do our ordinances work?

Do they not work? Do we need to do something?

So, I mean, we've done pretty good. We've gotten through most of what was on our list. So that's it. It's just kind of an update or if there's anything that you guys feel that we've missed or that we need to do in the next four months. That's it.

Data centers are interesting. I was in a presentation about data centers on Monday for Butte Electric, and the presenter said that if it wasn't for people complaining about data centers on social media, we probably wouldn't need as many deaths.

Yeah, and I will come back with an update after. I mean, I think I'll have hopefully some good information after that meeting in August to talk about what's going on in other areas. So, okay. I don't really need anything just to give you guys an update. I usually try to do that now.

Perfect. Thank you. Okay. The August 2026 read report. Nope.

Go backwards. You get two things. The First Amendment and the Master Plan.

Oh, yep. That's all for number seven? You could skip that.

It's all review of Master Plan Amendment.

Okay. I see. Yeah. Sorry. I thought we were done with that one. All right, we're going to see your interview.

This document has not been my friend. Before you get into this, I've just did a couple things on the data center.

I've got a draft legislation that's classifying the data centers.

because right now they're tying it to power usage. And if you restrict those, you're going to restrict the ventilation at the lab.

It means that type of demand, and so does the sawmill.

So we can't just tie it to power usage on restrictions. So I'm working on, I just got the draft emailed to me as I was sitting out there on different classifications of data centers. I haven't read it, but they came up with a good plan. That'll give you something to reflect on in your ordinance if you get them. classified and say this type wouldn't allow or this type would go in this type of zone. Yeah. And the international study forum, FARGO, in September is all about data centers too.

We should, do you know Corey Hammerbeck at National Olympic? Yeah. So Basin Electric has a large load schedule and we should make sure that that all kind of ties together. Yeah, perfect.

You ready? Sure. Okay. So if you remember, you guys approved a change of zoning on Deer Mountain Village last month. Yes, last month. It has had a first reading and public hearing at county commission, and then it goes to a second reading August 25th. Is that right? Yeah, August 25th. Second reading August 25th. As part of a change of zoning, the next step, and usually just your county commissioners will review this, but um we had it prepared um randy asked for a recommendation from you guys as well because this will go forward to county commission on the 25th and this is a piece of that planned unit development change of zoning because you have to have your master plan and your um final development agreement because they're actually going forward but these are both amendments because deer mountain village already has all that so if you kind of keep that in mind we added that That's 50-ish acres, 61 acres. So this is the portion bringing all of that into compliance with the rest of their initial master plan and their amendment to the development agreement. That's kind of the quick of it. It's just process. We have those processes to go through with these. This is a very large document, so bear with me. It does go through here. I was able to download it, but I know people had problems because you have to download it to your computer to open because it's just such a large document because of all the maps. It was not in your packet. It was emailed to you, but it wasn't printed because it is 140 pages. So it's sitting right there. It's a lot. It's right down there. And really what it was is because there were so many maps attached, the maps really bogged it down. The last... one with this one that's why it says amended so we can keep track of this was the original here's an amendment it kind of goes down and you can see in this one when randy redid this um i asked him to keep it redlined so that way you can see the changes like what was existing what was changing um and then the maps in there so there really wasn't much for changes other than adding that 61 acres you know into the rest of the development So we're consistent with making sure all that acreage is under the same development standards. Fair enough?

Yeah. Go for it. If I may, did you give them the letter of transmittal?

They did get both of them, yes.

That introduction is kind of an executive summary. But in the document itself, the changes are in the first 11 pages, and then it skips clear up to page 84. And there's a new set of plans in there for the road and water for this piece. That's the changes. The rest of it, as part of the existing agreement. So there's only about 35 pages of changes. 11 of them are existing pages. So you've got a total of 14 new pages. So if you go to the document, you go to page 11, if you can do that. The first 10 pages are the narrative changes. 11 is a change in them.

I even compressed this as much as I could in a PDF.

But if it would help Amber before the commission meeting, I could send those 11 pages and then the other ones separately so they can just see.

I mean, it's a red line copy so you can see what the changes are when you all do the document.

The branch map better, it's bigger. Well, this is bigger. She just printed it out by 11.

It would not, it would not let us print. It was a struggle.

This is the one we talked about where you just wanted to make sure that this was kind of a companion piece to what was going on otherwise, but had never been sort of called out.

Next meeting, we're going to have the preliminary and final

So it's one boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

So having you see this will prepare you for that.

So you're regrowing all these lots now?

We're just adding the increased average to it in the master.

But you're not changing one? But you're not changing any other lots in the master.

So you didn't have 187 lots down here before? We had more. And we did update it to what lots are platted now. Three of them combined into one.

I'll go through. 300 lots or something at one time were here. Mystic, whatever they were.

There was 448 or 480. I thought it was 489. In Mystic Minor. In that PUD. And then they were going to put in a wastewater treatment facility. And they were trying to put in a water system. So Keating's purchased an additional 120 acres, 20 acres and added it to the Mystic Miner property. So they increased it by 120 and then they decreased the number of lots to 220, 230, something like that. I don't remember the exact number. And now they brought in another 61 acres and they're planting that into a lot, a certain number of lots 22 but they only can plant 100 they only excuse me they only have 200 water taps and 13 of them are dedicated to the clubhouse area they anticipate that it'll take 10 but they have three in reserve until they understand the actual usage down so even though the master plan shows now let's say 250 lots they can only plant 180 currently So either the lots get bigger or the green cape space gets bigger or some of them never go to final plan.

Just do some off the grid lots and have them haul their own water.

Not allowed under the plan unit development because we have to have fire protection which we're offering at 1200 gallons a minute.

Isn't it true the master plan has been amended This is the companion piece to that. This is the development agreement. No, right now we're talking about the amendment to the master plan.

There are two parts to this. Yes.

The second part is the amended development agreement.

It's hard to do the amendment of the development agreement if you have the master plan amended.

We're trying to make sure that they're both called out specifically so you're considering them separately. They don't kind of get rolled together. Is that kind of the discussion that we have?

Yeah, right now we're just looking at the master plan revisions. So you can see the red line copy here. I don't see the short one. I can't find it right now, but this is why we put this in there. So it's very specific. So you can see what the changes are to the vended map.

So the strikethroughs are being removed and the reds are being inserted just to give you a process. So if you go down, keep going. So you can see there's not a lot of changes in some of them. Keep going. That must be the next sheet. So this is... Yeah, if we can get it to load. It won't load.

We've been having problems. It will, it just takes a very long time.

I guess I have a different computer. But regardless, what it showed, if I can see this, it showed the change in the lots throughout. Some of them we got like 28R, which combined. 55R combined two lots. There was five other lots that were combined in two lots. And then we added lot 2A, 4, 5, and 6. And so they're on here. So we updated all the lots to what has been submitted through all the preliminary plats that are pending

Wasn't that at the last meeting or the meeting before we voted on all those plot revisions?

And then we added this piece right up here as the 61 acres. And part of the process in the rezone was to show the maximum density, so that's what I've done. So I've shown, I've represented the maximum density on here. The key components are, there's no exceptions on here for acreage for septic systems. These are all two acre lots at large. We don't have to go into the development agreement and address that exception. So that's probably the significant change. The water system is designed, schematics are in this. There you go. 61 acres is right up top, right up here. Yeah, right there.

That's the change of zoning that was approved last month by the board.

And so in the change of zoning we submitted the road plans and the water schematics. And the water plans are just about finished. The final ones will be for the planning process. So that's where we're at. And so this document reflects adding that in and anything, any loose ends we had, basically. And if you can go to page 84.

I think it's 84 or 85.

This is the new utility, new improvements. So this shows the new layout and then go down a couple. Shows the road designs. The cross sections are after the plan profile. And then it shows a schematic of the water. And you'll see this again with . I followed what was in the earlier submittal, which was all these plans plus the statistics and the drainage analysis. I didn't do that. 30 pages that nobody reads. And then the rest stayed the same. So that's where the changes are. And so what I did is when I edited an appendix, I made it red so you knew that hadn't been changed. Otherwise they hadn't been changed.

So we would be looking for a recommendation of the master plan revisions

to just go, like I said, it's scheduled for county commission. So they just, we'd like to have that before it goes in front of the county commission.

They got, they're getting the same information.

Okay.

Anything else on that? Not on the master plan. And then the second document is the final development agreement, which again is part of the process. This would get signed by everybody at the next meeting. Well, county commission.

And this was prepared by the attorney for Bruce to review and compare. But basically it incorporates these new lots.

Did we, was this subdivision that we talked about how we were, no, that was Deer Mount where Powder House passed, but we were going to quantify multifamily housing. Yeah, that wasn't this one. So, you know, I just thought of that. If you're going to put in, I don't know, an eight unit apartment, Is that a fair example? Is that considered to be eight sort of residential units or eight development units or?

If you look at the amendments, there was on the first master plan, it talked about townhouses, multifamily. And that's been removed under this amendment. So if we did that, we would have to come back with the development plan within block A1, which is where the clubhouse is. We'd have to get that approved and we would have to work with the water with Deer Mountain Sanitary District to make sure we have the taps to support that. And if it took seven taps and we could not move forward with seven more lots.

So we kind of caught up how we already done that.

Yeah, because the difference is, is these guys already had a preexisting water agreement and they're, I mean, what they have for taps is what they have. How they choose to use those taps, I guess it wouldn't matter.

You're not going to forfeit seven of those lots to put in an apartment.

Right now, probably not. Now, it is possible that we could add a third tank and get more water, but we'd have to come back through this whole process to do that, go outside that 200 taps. So that's what gives the county a front row seat, the restriction on water.

Mr. Chair? I think similarly, this is all taken care of, it's sort of baked in, but I don't know if there's any commercial proposed, but not all commercial is created equally either, right? And so we went through that with, with the Powder House Pass about how we would classify, what was an example, a coffee shop versus something else that had a higher use of water. Car wash. But in this case, I think it's going to be taken care of because of the limitation on the water availability.

Not only that, the development plan that was approved by this board only showed the clubhouse. So we'd have to come in with a revised or a new- Of any other commercial development.

And it has a pool on the house.

And so that development plan was approved here. To do anything else commercially, the way I understand it, we'd have to get a new development plan. But it is spoke about in the master plan.

I didn't remember if there was ever any commercial activity plan for this. It's been so long ago. It's speculated on the narrative with the first master plan.

Anything else to look up?

I don't know, the only question I have, Bruce and I looked at it for the other document.

It looks good from what I've seen so far. Those are some of the questions that I had.

No, you need to make a motion on both of these items.

need to make a recommendation, so you can make a motion to recommend approval of the documents to go forward to any question, if you choose to.

So moved. I'll second that. Discussion?

Is that both documents?

Yes.

Or are we doing separate? Bruce, what would you prefer? It's all right. Okay.

Any further discussion?

Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you for your time. Now you can do the waiver report, Travis. Okay, here's the waiver report for information. We need a motion.

No, you just look at it and make sure you're okay with the leave report.

Everybody good with the leave report? I hope to approve the waiver report.

Don't need a motion. The system's working. I'd like them to do it. And I think it helps.

Okay, we've had a request for a person.

Break.

Break. Break. Break. Break. Break. Break. Okay. We are back online.

Okay. So we're on item number eight, right? Yes. For plan rate and final plot.

Very nice. This is a lot line revision. So you can kind of see the parcel right here. There's structure here, pond here. She just wants to combine the two into one lot. It was two lots, lots that combine into one lot. Really nothing new. It's just a lot like revision.

Motion that's exempt. Second. Second. Discussion on the exemption? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay, motion carries for exemption. Now for the final preliminary and final plan. Second. Discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposing, sign. Motion to approve. That's good.

We have a lot of plots, but they were pretty, just kind of fixable.

Yeah, they weren't too crazy.

This is out in Deadbrook. This is a lot line change. So here's the old lot line, kind of right in here. And they're adding this little tiny piece. from this lot to this lot because they want to build something and they couldn't beat the setback.

Perfect.

So they work together to figure it out. He is here. Oh, is that fair? Yes. Work together to figure it out.

Yeah, I love it. If you can sleep good at night, no one will have to worry about that.

So we have, it is exempt for a fire plan because they just moved the lot line, so we need an exemption and then approval of the plan.

Okay, regarding the exemption, is there a motion? So moved. Second. Discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries for exemption and on the plots. Second. Discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries.

So this goes to, this will go to County Commission next Tuesday.

I don't have to, you'll have to be,

That is always up to you. I never say if you have to or not, but if they have a question and you're not there, then they may not do anything with it. So your choice.

The world's run by those who show up. Yep. Right, right.

All right, 39. So we're on.

Wow, that was deep.

That kind of was. And he was here very early.

Okay.

Number 10.

Oh no, number nine. We just did number 10.

Oh, we did 10. You're right, nevermind. Okay.

Okay, preliminary and final plan for Wittenski. And this one, we also need to do exemption or not, and then approval and denial of compliance.

Lauren, you might have to help me with this one a little bit, maybe. So this one, they are, grab this, just a second. The owner is wishing to combine both of the lots, two lots into one. They're filing to vacate the two small portions of the existing public right-of-way and then dedicating where the actual right-of-way is located. So, you know, how it normally happens, road gets built and doesn't get built in the location that the earlier right-of-way showed. So that's what they're trying to fix with this. There is an active road district, so the road district will have to sign the plat and they may have already been in, I'm not sure on that one. And then the road district is aware of the vacation and the rededication of the right-of-way, but I'm still struggling with this one a little bit because if it's vacated public right-of-way, have they already gone through?

25th.

Okay. So then you would probably want to do a recommendation of approval with the condition because it goes in front of you guys for the vacation, but this is matching up so you can see it, so you can see what's happening. Does that make sense? But you haven't actually vacated it yet.

So if we were to make a motion to approve, we would want to include that.

You would want to include that it doesn't subject to the vacation document getting approved by the County Commission.

Everybody understand that first?

Yep. Is that right, Lauren? Right.

Then I work it all at the same time. September 25th at 8. August 25th.

So this particular one, I would almost recommend instead of it going to county commission next Tuesday, I would pull this one off and have it wait until the 25th because then that way you have the vacation on the same agenda. I think is what I would do just so that they're together.

I just had a thought, Bruce. Do we normally do the exemption before we approve or deny the plat? Should we do that in the Office of Direction? Or are we doing it the right way? I think it's okay.

It's fine. All right. Thank you, Bill. I'm just double checking. Yeah, it is the 25th at 8.5.

And then I did notice that the plat would have, you would have to update the MILR anyways, because we have to be able to write in the vacation document.

Oh, there isn't a line right in there?

There isn't a line on here, no.

So we'll just need to add the little line. Okay, no problem. So we had a 66-foot right-of-way.

Yep.

That we didn't utilize all of it. Did we extend the 66-foot right-of-way to the north? Well, it's being replanted where the actual road is. It is, okay.

Yeah, so the road is already in place and it's a 66, They're utilizing a 66-foot right-of-way. It's just not in the right place.

John Manson might have built another. Okay.

So should we deal with the exemption?

Move that as exempt.

Okay. Second. All in the discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay. Exemption is approved. And now the plots. Anybody have any other questions?

I move to approve the plat with the contingency that the County Commission approves the variance on the vacation on the 25th. We got it. You know what I mean. Okay, thank you. Any other discussion?

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign.

Motion carries.

And then, Lauren, so you heard me that I'm going to pull that plat from next Tuesday and we'll add it to the 25th.

Sorry, did I need to make that part of the motion?

No, we can just do it. Amy did say there is a line in the notes section the Register of Deeds does not want it on there. Oh, that's fine then, as long as it's where she wants it. So maybe you don't need to. She said you put it down below.

Oh, yeah. So it's okay. Okay. We're good then.

Okay. Next one.

Okay, number 12.

Oh.

Or no.

I think you're on 11. Yeah, 11. So this one is just a final plat within Wilderness Estates, which we have not seen a plat in Wilderness Estates for a while. This one, they are combining two lots into one. So Wilderness Estates is the original subdivision before Powder House Pass existed. So Wilderness Estates is actually inside Powder House Pass. So these are old, I mean, 2004, 2005 lots. But you can see there's a house and a house, and a blank lot, and this guy's plot, and they're combining it all into one. So yeah, a yard, I guess.

And since there is currently a fire plan in place, we don't need to deal with an exemption, correct? Correct. Okay. So it's just the preliminary and final plans. Move to approve. Second. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay.

This is within Powderhouse Pass again and these are existing lots within the subdivision that they are just plotting out. You can see Trent Walters did do an update for you like he normally does when a plot goes through. It's consistent with the approved preliminary plot that was already in place.

Is it consistent or

It's consistent, because sometimes they don't, they're not going to be exactly identical to the preliminary, but they're going to be close. Auburn Acres is where this one is. It's identified as Phase 4 Potterhouse development, and it is already included within the memorandum of agreement and letter of credit that are in effect. Fire plan was already submitted. Everything else is in.

Okay. And this is just the final plot, so that's all you need to know.

Thank you.

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All those in favor say aye. Motion carries. All right, number 13, preliminary and final plot for Spirit of the Hills Wildlife Sanctuary.

All right, so this one we do have, so this is one of those that we've been trying to do this along any of those major roads, Brownsville, Titton, anywhere. If there was not platted right of way, because there was an old road in there, we're asking them to plat it so that it actually designates the right of way. The highway superintendent started requesting that quite a few years ago. So that is being done on this one. Plus they're breaking out a tract that is going to be transferred from Spirit of the Hillsway Wildlife Sanctuary to Michael Chin. so I can never spell his or say his last name. How do you say it? Olchinski? Olchinski. He's still around. He is. He is now a U.S. citizen. I found that out in my home conversation. He was super excited about it. So he is breaking out that from the wildlife sanctuary. It's not this piece over here, so ignore that, because everybody keeps thinking it's that. It's over here. This is a preliminary plaque. It's right on the corner. So you have McGuigan Road, North Tintin, right on that messy corner there. It's five acres. There's a power line that runs through it. There's going to be setbacks, all of that fun stuff. And the Tintin Road is being shown on here. They're telling you exactly what the acreage is. 1.349 is dedicated public right-of-way now. And I did have a chance to talk to John Bay about it. He just kind of asked what the intent was. I have no idea. Mike can sell it. Who knows? I've had a couple of people that are obviously aware that it's being planted off that have some interest in purchasing it. There is no existing entry point. They don't have to show us, but we did make sure that he knew before you can put a driveway in, you have to go through the process with John. John did go ahead and sign it because he would have to give access, but they have not submitted anything yet because there's no house on it. There's no structure. There's nothing there right now.

Being on a curb like that, he's okay with some point on that lot having access to the road?

He signed the path, so I'm assuming that means that he is. He already signed it. It's in our office and it's signed. And we talked about it. He actually kind of likes the idea of it possibly being down here to marry up where it comes across the road there. So that it's coming to the point of two intersections versus having it maybe further down the road. Or maybe a shared driveway if there needed to be one somewhere else. They did do a fire plan. There's not much out there to keep it going.

Okay, so on this one, all I need is to approve or deny the preliminary and final plan. Any other questions?

Motions? Is Park Forest up there?

Mm-hmm.

Move to approve the preliminary and final plan. Second. Okay, any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Okay, number 14, preliminary and final thought for John.

Lot line revision, lot three is getting 0.36 more acres from lot two. Zone part four is need setbacks, fire plan exemption for a lot line revision. This is in the Timbers subdivision, so existing subdivision. You can see that little tiny, here's the little triangle. That is what is moving. I'm betting it has something to do with the structure. Yeah, I think. Just a thought.

Okay, should we go through the exemption? There should be a third one. Move to exempt. Second. There is a fire plan or do we need to make it exempt?

I think we should do exempt because the Timbers was under that weird, remember where we just got like the random letter? Just to make sure. We didn't have an actual fire plan in place like the ones now.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion on that? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Okay. Move to approve the preliminary final plan. Thank you. Second. Second. Okay, discussion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. All right.

I may not be at the next meeting. My daughter's getting married on the 4th. I'm sure being on the 3rd, there will be some kind of stuff going on. Just as a heads up, I probably won't be here. Yeah, what's your involvement? You know what, I kind of like sleeping in my own bed.

Be a man, be a man about it. Yeah, come on. Just send your typo.

She's already got that. Okay, anybody else? Okay, opportunity for public comment.

We haven't had public for quite a while, Brad.

You got to say something? Well, I can take some time if you want. Hey, we're working on that. And I heard from a city person, maybe we should just get rid of ETJ.

The last, when I get back from STPA. Because the rally's in there, i'm going to be gone and the city's staff is going to the code planners association so we decided to get back i'm really surprised that we'll change these references just a little bit that way that was the boundary line um i have one thing the i can't remember if i told you i don't know i leave august 14th i won't be back till the 21st And then I'm in the office for two days, and then I'll go down to STPA in St. Paul's. I will have my computer with me. I'll still work from those two places. I'm taking JSA down to Arizona for college, so I'm going to be down there for a week before I go to STPA. So just FYI. But I will have my phone. I'll have everything with me. That's it. And this one is any day. So we're just kind of day-to-day to see what happens if she's at her desk.

I know which day it is, so don't worry about it.

Yep.

If I have it my way, it's Sunday.

This week, preferably, is what she wants, but we told her she has to wait until after the rally. I don't know if it's going to happen. She doesn't think it's going to. So just as an FYI, I mean, I will be, it is going to be, I mean, Jessie does a lot for our office. I will tell you like this week alone, I think we have been, I can't even tell you. We are all four on the phone at the same time, pretty much all day long. I don't know what, it's been the weirdest month. It's super weird. I don't know what's going on. But without her gone, there are going to be some times that I might have to close the office. We're going to try not to, but with Jeff being pretty much out all day long, I still have to get lunches in and different things and doctor's appointments or whatever comes up. You know how that happens. If we have to close, it'll just be for a short amount of time. And then we do have a really good working relationship with the EQ office. Like if something comes up and one of us has to sneak out, we'll put a note on the door and then Nicole helps us with stuff. So she's been really good to work with.

I feel like if somebody can leave a message to call you.

Yeah, we always get back to everybody by the end of the night. So it was just kind of, It has been just nuts in our office. I don't know what is going on.

It was a little bit slow for a while.

It was, and then our timing is really off because usually like rally, we don't have, usually it's like nobody's up here, but it's been busy. It's weird. Yeah, mostly phone, not people coming in. It's just constant phone calls.

Okay.

So that's kind of what's going on there.

All right, next meeting, Thursday, September 3rd, 2026, at 1.30 p.m. All right, meeting adjourned.