Board of Zoning Appeals and City of Madison Plan Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. All right. We will call the March planning commission meeting to um be open. And uh so with that, Amy, you want to do roll call? Yes. Just double check. All right. Patrick here. Joel Storm here. Josh Goldberg here. Jerry Rosson. Okay. Absent. Uh, Van Croftton is absent as well. Mike Armstrong here. Carl England here. Rick Ferris is absent. And Zach is also absent.

All right. All right. Everybody should have received last month's Let's see. We had last month's meeting and then we also had the special meeting. Um, I don't I assume you guys will be okay doing a motion for both. Are is anybody any problems with doing that? Any changes, additions, deletions? And if not, I'll accept a motion to approve the minutes and the special minutes. I move that we approve the minutes, special minutes as well. All right. Do we have a second? I'll second the motion. All right. All in favor say I. I.

I. All oppose, same sign. All right. Uh we have no tabled applications and no new applications for this evening. Um, what we do have is new business. The first thing on the agenda is the updated PC rules and procedures. [snorts] Um, yes, I'll do you want to talk about those some of those? Okay, go ahead and walk through some.

Um, I was trying to pull up another document that was not wanting to uh come up for your fees as well if Excel wasn't opening. Um, so right now, um, the plane commission, I'm assuming you have rules, summer, but they could not be found by a lot of folks. Um, so we figured this is a perfect time, uh, to go ahead and adopt new rules and procedures. BCA is also looking at the same thing. Very, very similar rules and procedures as well. Um, those are in your packets. And let's see if I can get my mouse over there. I'll scroll down for you guys. Um, let's do this and this and I can kind of just run through and do some highlights of these. Yeah, that's fine.

The idea is that these are really just are how you guys function as an entity, an organization um and outline all of those those items on there. So, our first page um and this is on tab two I believe or three three

um is just our kind of statutory authority, our powers and duties and and delegation of that authority to administrative staff. Um, so that's just pretty standard within again state statute. Section 1.2 outlines your membership. I always think a little table like this at the bottom of the page is helpful and handy so that you can kind of see, do you meet up with those things? Uh, you know, staff can verify those as well. Um, so again, this is kind of your your nine board member or nine member board, excuse me. Um, and outlines that membership according to state statute. And again, you guys do have a buffer, so you get the two extra members as well on there. Um, the following page just goes through again removal of those members if someone is not showing up consistently. Um, and officers as well as our committees as well. So, we have a technical review committee and then your historic board. Um, we reference them as a committee just like the ordinance does just so we can use them um, and their resources. We also go through conflicts of interest and then the plan commission staff and legal counsel and kind of what their roles are. In 1.3 we go through and talk about actions and decisions. So this is I think also a good resource for newer members. You can hand it to them and be like can you read through this? You can understand like what we're supposed to do and whatnot. Um so it talks about our quorum which is five. We have quorum tonight. Uh it talks about votes and written commitments. those are conditions or whatn not that are recorded with a deed. Um on the following page on seven it talks about continuence and tableabling. Um so this outlines in in in particular kind of if we don't have improper notice that can be a tabled item. Um automatic continuence if we don't have enough members to actually vote if we don't have a quorum and then also can be requested to have it continued to the next meeting. Um, and it outlines those three ways as well as what happens if a

application is withdrawn or dismissed. Um, and then the following page has a table and this is I think just a helpful little cheat sheet too. Um, it tells you all the applications or the the types of decisions you might make, right? From a comp plan all the way down to plats, right? Um and it tells you what staff role should be, what that kind of technical or you know historic board role should be and then also um what action this board takes and what action council takes if any. Right? So plats stay here. They end with the decision ends here with plats but anything that talks about a reasoning or amendment to the ordinances that goes to council. It's just a recommendation. Um so that kind of I think helps to be a little easy cheat sheet there. And then 1.4 goes through our meetings and hearings. So, scheduling of those meetings and your minutes and records, it's all pretty standard. Um, the order of business, we generally kept that the same flow, but we're documenting that now. Um, procedures for those applications. So, this is a little bit of a a a diff um on page 10D. So, we give the applicant five minutes. It can be extended by the president if needed. We have questions by you all then. No time limit for that. Uh then press uh presentations by our interested parties. Those are the adjoining parties, right? So they each get three minutes. Um and then presentations by what you guys call nonparties, that's anybody else, right? Um so if it's a the UDO, right? Everybody's an interested party. But if it's an application for a specific parcel, those adjoining parcels get three minutes each and then the everybody else can get a minute um at the discretion of the president. And so again, you can kind of sometimes boards will gauge timing on that if we've, you know, had 20 adjoining property owners. Maybe we we're we're starting to hear kind of what the thoughts are. Um then administrative staff can give any, you

know, presentation they need or follow up for that discussion with you guys and then you would close that and take your action. So that's a little bit I wanted to point that out as a definition, right? Because right now I don't think those are defined very at all. So you did define it for your last special meeting though. Um and then orderly contact conduct and then following that page we go through public comments. So again the time limits um be courteous, let's not repeat people, that sort of thing. And then 1.5 goes through your applications. So, it just talks about again um filing those applications or amending them and if it was previously denied, what happens um that you guys have a right to make some site visits that you should be looking at those those sites prior to um and that the applicant needs to attend those meetings to answer questions or you know validate anything. 1.6 is also your interested parties and public notice. So this lies in your rules now, not in your ordinance because our state statute says it should be adopted by rule. And so that's where we're adopting that by rule here. Um we are not changing kind of what what's happening today. Your interested parties are still anybody abuing the property. Um so it's all those you know adjoining properties. Um we are going to still do a mailed notice by the applicant and a newspaper publication by staff. So that's what we do today, but now it's defined in our rules here. Um the other advantage of it being defined in your rules versus statute or in the ordinance. Um if there is a need, you can suspend rules. You can't suspend ordinances. So um again wouldn't necessarily recommend that on a normal basis, but there are unique situations where um it might arise. Um and then we no 1.7. There you go. Suspension and amendment of rules. So that outlines uh that and then the last section 1.8 is just the certification of

that. So um if you do have questions I can definitely uh walk through any of that too. I I don't necessarily have a question. I have more of a comment on the the comment the page 11 which public comment at hearings. I just think it should be put in the time limits that what we did decide on last meeting which was three minutes up to three minutes for public comment to have that in there. Yes. So it I know it's on the page prior, but I think it would be on which page are you, Josh? I believe you put on procedures for applications right here. Right. Presentations by interested parties, which I kind of looked their interested an interested party, but I would put it here as well just to make sure.

Yeah, I'd put it there as well just to make sure that it's restated because that would be probably where I would go if I was looking up, you know, how long do I have? That would be where I would look. Do you think so? Under We're under F1 on page 11. Yes. In F1. Um, what happens if I put time limits at and then I reference this back section only because I don't I always hate putting the same information two times in fear of it gets amended in one place and not the other in the future. Um, it's up to you or just move these. You could put, you know, uh, reference, you know, D, um, I believe D and 1 C, is it right? Um, so I'll see.

Yeah, I know they usually do that at council meetings. My understanding is I don't think you guys have always done that at plane commission meetings. We have not always done them. It's been when we've had this kind of more the special hearings to Yeah, it it's been very helpful for the special hearings so we could make sure everybody got a chance and it's not, you know, uh, something like that. it if it's not in here just leave it at at the discretion of the president to that way for a normal meeting we don't need to bother with it but for the suggest that we put at the discretion of the president on that and are you in let me see where are you just to make sure I'm catching the right page what page are you on on that I think still you could use page 11 for that okay

um so at the discretion of the president um you can use the signup sheet yes basically I'm going to put that under um probably like 2 a or somewhere in that range. I think Yeah, I think that's probably good. 2A would be good. Yeah. And also, you know, like Connie coming up here to the mic, you know, with what the need of electronics and and everything being trans. We're always reminding people don't don't speak from the audience. Yeah, we have that problem at council, too.

Good point. Okay. So, I added at the discretion of the president, a person may be required to sign off on the signup sheet. Yep. And then I added the um under one I'll add time limits um [snorts] are restricted to those in section reference D1 C. Yeah, I had a question on uh page three for the city council appointments to plan commission. Is there a statutory requirement that they must be elected or appointed city officials or city employees?

Yes. So what you see under uh must be elected or appointed city officials or city uh employees. Yes. Okay. That's statutory. Okay. It's kind of crazy. Yeah. That kind of it limits if three of them people on the council don't want to do it. [laughter] You got to I don't know how that works. I don't know how that's addressed. What's that? If there's not three people in the council, you sit there until somebody says yes. [laughter] Okay. So, I've got those two amendments to it. Is that correct? Any other amendments or questions? All right. I think we can move on to our next We do need a motion. Oh, we do. That's right. And then if that's

all right. So with that accept a motion to approve a motion. We approve the we adopt the procedures presented tonight with those two changes. There we go. I'll second the motion. Who was that? All right. So Carl and then Patrick for second. Okay. I thought that sounded like you. You do roll call. Sure thing. Patrick Teanol. Yes. Joel Storm. Yes. Josh Wilbur. Yes. Mike Armstrong. Yes. Carl England. Yeah. All right. Carries 5-0. Nice. All right. We will move on to next item.

Our uh next item which is the updated fee schedule. And I've got some additional um things that I I put one extra sheet in your packet just for reference. So that last tab if you look there is the proposed fee schedule. And then I did also include a comparison. um printed as big as I could get it on an 8 and half by 11. So I also have it on the computer we can zoom into um just to save somebody's eyes here.

So as we're moving through here um updating the uh UDO it's important that we take a look at our fees and from time to time. I think a couple things that I want to just reference. One, we we know the pressure that's being placed on tax dollars because of the past uh recent implementations, SB1 uh and those on the city council know that and I think the mayor's done a really good job with trying to help educate the community on that. Uh, and two, just recently, uh, the new Senate Bill 101, it's a House bill, House Bill 101,

um, just, uh, is requiring a number of things for plan commissions. One of that is to set fees and not, um, be able to change those for 5 years. And so it was really important for us to take this opportunity to pause a little bit and uh really give a thorough review of our fees and to really look at trying to have the applicant covering as much of those costs as possible, not having the taxpayers covering of those reviews and those processes. So Amy, can you pull up the spreadsheet? Yes, the with the hours. With the hours, please.

Yeah, absolutely. So, we went through here, uh, if you look on the screen, we went through a really extensive process of of taking, um, [snorts] uh, Amy's knowledge and and the the knowledge of our staff and really thinking through what we believe, um, the time it takes to get the process, uh, an application for the specific task through the process. And that could be meeting with them a couple times prior to the submission. It's the process prepping for the meeting. It's the process of doing the work potentially after the meeting and then any follow-up. So, if you want to Amy, I can run through some of those. Yeah, pick up a couple. We'll just go through

one thing. Again, I was say it's up to ultimately this is taking and just making a res recommendation to council. So, um one note I wrote on Josh's agenda is we don't actually need a resolution. Um I thought you guys were doing resolutions. Some do resolutions for anything that goes to council. Um so, it's just a recommendation. council is going to take action on this, but our state statute says that you plane commission may adopt fees to defay cost. Um, and so that's where it's coming to you guys's first kind of a vetting of this. Um, the second thing I always kind of try to just again it's a decision point of your elected officials of development and every application has a cost related to that, right? Um, so there's the indirect cost sometimes people don't realize is the staff's salaries. Most planning departments are not self-sufficient and we understand that. Um but the time it takes to process these applications as Tony was saying does put a burden on um you know you're you're ultimately it's either coming out of your general budget or we're going to be able to uh hope to sustain some of that from your actual fees. So whether you want to subsidize it with general budget or not. Um so this is just a worksheet I've got that kind of run through. I put a salary in there and put Nicole's I rounded her old salary. It still probably doesn't cover your benefits and stuff, but um you know, and we do things like legal fees or recording fees and that sort of thing in those. And then I just have each application type and I run through again an average planner that you're probably going to get with that experience level, right? You get someone with more experience. Yes, they're going to do this probably faster, but also their salary is going to be higher. So, it's kind of a sliding scale there. And that's a current that's a current

current salary that's a current 2025 2026 probably a low so I I use 70,000 as the base salary and again not knowing where that hits not where your benefits and everything else come into play you know the actual cost of that employee I'm going [snorts]

once is in effect. Well, and again, once that house bill is in effect, that's where But again, you don't want to be amending these any but once that goes into effect. Yes. [snorts] Yes. Okay. Let's look at this. Okay. general wage increase in the next four or five years then you know should should we be looking at it like that rather than my question

well that's a great question and I think one of the things we tried to to deal with was finding the right balance of from our current fees to the to the new fees and and I think you can see that in the um fee schedule and on the left column you'll see the current fees and the proposed fees trying not to I mean trying not to shock a bit of a And this is again it's it's up to you guys. It was just what was kind of proposed um on there. But this sheet again I have every application type in here. And again that's kind of how we come up with these is making sure we have a reasonable basis for these fees.

Um there's not right now. Um I don't know how you guys treat other things. Again I know economic development might have agreements with you know what I mean things of that nature. Um but no not right now it's unless they got waved for some

yeah in some cases we have we have wave uh permit fees or tap fees as a part of an economic development um agreement. Um again you know what I have found working with folks coming to town for developments they you know they ask for our fees or our tap fee and they say did you not add a zero to that? I mean it's like we we are very reasonable uh and very friendly. What we don't want to do is get our fees in a position not to be friendly for our residents first and foremost but uh also for those who want to come and invest in our community but we certainly should be you know trying to balance out covering those costs for review of the applications and and I think we we feel really really good about going through this now whether we should have projected out and taken them you know the average and gone two and a half years out and all that we have not done that this is getting us from where we are in the past few years uh to where we think we would go. So,

and one example is like your variances for development standards, right? For residential, sometimes those are less controversial that you don't, you know, it's maybe going to be a more streamlined. So, I think I have like 4.75 total hours from very beginning to documenting it and recording that and you know, everything attending the meeting, that sort of thing. Um versus a non-residential was at $400. That's twice the hours usually because, um there's always going to be a variation. Like even when we talk about special exceptions, there's a there's a variation in those. You get the one chair salon is going to be a lot easier than um last month we had one that was a lot of public comment and staff received a lot of calls and every time Yeah, exactly. So, um but we try to keep that one as low as possible. It probably could be higher, but just because that's a you know a frequent property owner one, not necessarily maybe a developer coming in too. I [snorts] understand. I just what I'm worried about is our time.

Well, let me let's go through some of the comparisons just so you can see those next. Those are the last and it's it's the last page. the they're pretty small, but I I think one of the things that we the first the first group of of communities and we looked at was Jefferson County and you might uh pull that up. We wanted to at least try to understand where they were and for the most part um except for the things that uh they don't do a lot of, we're in line with what Jefferson County currently is charging. Um you know there are a few exceptions Indiana. Yeah.

So, I know that their solar was recent. Um, the I'd say in the last six months or eight monthsish. Um, other than that, I'm not positive. I just know the solar was there. Um, and that was on the building permit side, which we're not touching here, but it was also on like the development plan side and special exception side. So those the the development plan and the um or the uh special exception that mirrored the counties.

Yeah. No, you're fine. Good question. Um so you can see that uh use variances are a little higher and development standards are a little higher because they don't tend to do a lot of those in the county where we tend to do a lot of those uh locally. Um if you look at we looked at Clark County um um very active county. Uh we also looked at then Scottsburg, Jeffersonville, and Sersburg, which we felt were um and you'll notice that we're actually less uh in many categories than Scottsburg uh by sometimes twice. Um and then um roughly in the same ballpark. Uh again, we're sort of all over the map. Uh the plan unit development fees are less in in most of those communities. Uh but certainly ours ours did go up quite a bit from 515 to 750. So again putting putting a little bit of that burden more on the developer not on the taxpayers and trying to figure that out there.

And the ones with um the solar that says development plan they have not adopted specific ones yet for that. Um just as a side note on that one. Do we have any reference? What was the last time? So, the one I found was 2016. Yeah, it's um but it was it seems like it was it may be amended a few of these, but it was really looking at your building permit fees and your building permit fees don't seem to there was some fee adjustments done in 2023. I believe maybe to those two permit fee in 2023. I'm not sure. 2016 is a bigger overhaul, right? Yeah, I I think there was some adjustments to the building permit fees. Yeah,

those building permit fees seem pretty in line with where you maybe need to be, but for um you know, looking at like $100 for a variance or special exception, you're not getting a lot of uh staff time, you know what I mean, for that. And again, that's a that's a community decision whether you want that to be subsidized out of the general budget with through salaries or if you want to help that development, you know, sustain itself or, you know, pay for its own costs. [snorts] and some of my concern with the the big fee increases and I know I was able to email briefly with you guys behind this.

I understand the logic of covering the cost per hour and and all of that time, but at the same time I'm looking at this too that taxpayers are already subsidizing these costs with their property taxes. If we weren't paying property taxes, yeah, absolutely. You know, we need to to do that. But and I'm I'm I'm less concerned about fees for large developments. um as I am for things that would be used for for residential stuff. Um you for variances uh special exceptions and that that sort of thing. More more the bez development standards variance and your special exception are going to be your most common just homeowner, you know what I mean? Wanting something. Um and that's where again the trying to aim the residential districts on the variances. Um, and maybe you could do something like that even on the special exception or take them all down. It's, you know, again, um, completely up to you. Right now,

well, and I would also just remind everybody that the special exceptions now are with the property. So, they don't come back. They don't come back annually. So, we won't be having we won't be having an annual fee that has to and I think currently it's um what was it? I'm sorry. I don't have Oh, you the current annual fee. I think it's 75. $75. So just realize that they're coming once and that stays with that property. So it's not a it's not an annual expense anymore coming forward. So I would just make sure we're reminded of that. So

So yeah, it's up to you guys for you know what I mean what you might may or may not want to do. I know that we did advertise this as a public hearing just to make sure that it was open to the public. council will do the same thing. Um, so yeah, we can kind of forward whatever [snorts] we Are there any other questions from the board for Amy right now?

Or Tony, I guess. Well, and I mean, you know, again, we're we're more than happy to go back and and do additional uh research or work through these if necessary. You guys are more than welcome to to make amendments tonight if you'd like. uh if you want us to do uh more research, we certainly can do that and come back in next month. General ideas they're trying they're very kind of dated and we need to bring them at least and with the UDO we think passing here shortly at the city council we would hope and we want to try to align all this stuff up so that the website

the fees the new applications are all all getting updated and so that the public's educated [snorts] uh all with the new approach to our planning and zoning in the city. So again, we're open open for comments, suggestions. Uh but if you do feel comfortable, um an uh recommendation to city council on the fees proposed would be uh what we'd be asking for tonight or other other options. Personally, I would feel more comfortable if if we were able to break down the uh the fees to to reduce for for residential type applicants. Do you want to do residential zoning districts or um

kind of across the board for for residential? I mean even even if you're changing around the plat on your your property or something. Um and if it's an exempt plat, which we do have some like so in the new UDO, there's two parcel lines and I'm just going to shift it over one way or other. You know, again, it has to comply with all the standards. It's exempt. They don't even have to go through this and pay anything. So that's that's good. Um, right. If I have one parcel and I would divide it into three, that would be your minor plat, which is the $300 flat fee now. Okay.

So, there's a little uh I feel like we we've moved a little bit more in the friendly direction in the process, too. But hopefully, um, instead of them paying 115 plus 25 and then 115 plus the engineering fee, it's just $300. Now, do we have uh any kind of data on which service within these offers offerings is used the most? Because if you know, we might be able to create that fungeibility that you're talking about by transferring it to ones that maybe are more popular, less popular, and shifting those.

I would say you're just my my gut is that your um variances and special exceptions are by far your BCA has a much bigger agenda on a day on [snorts] a monthly basis than planning commission. um and they won't necessarily moving forward because again that's a big change. Hopefully we're taking care of some of those issues that are always granted, right? That was kind of the goal. If it's always going to be granted, then it needs to be in the ordinance. So, we should hopefully be decreasing that anyway. I mean, we're we're certainly hold uh fees uh for those use variances. Um

yeah, used variances are one that take a little more time because they really should they should be sparingly used, right? Because they really should be reszoning in almost all cases, right? Versus asking to vary from the rules. Um so when you do get a use fairance application, a lot of times, again, there's there's exceptions for sure, but you should only get a couple a year. Um, a lot of times they end up if it's not something simple, it becomes a more of a a heated debated topic. But the but to Patrick's point, I mean, if that's the case, and that's where a lot of our residents might might come in, whether they do a use variance or they do a zone map change, it's still $500

the right. So yes, so if we think they should go to zone map change instead, you know, does zone map change take as much time as a, you know, well something use variance? And then if not, then maybe we ought to take that. They're probably similar in my opinion from like a staff stand. to me you something at least the way I'm kind of processing this in my head a zoning change would kind of push you outside of residential type applications generally unless it unless you're going from one type of like a to R1 yeah because I think I think we had some recently I think it was up on Michigan road and it went from GB GB

yeah GB to residential a so something like that you know I I I I would I a situation. That was a developer, by the way. Well, no, there was a home. Oh, there was a homeowner on the other side. You're right. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Not the not the not the one. Yeah. I think this was south of the firehouse. South of the fire. Um, so situations kind of like that. I I would like to to see something where we could have a reduced fee for for strictly residential type type applicants. Um,

yeah. I mean you could have again residential zoning districts or you could say residential and our rural the new rural districts which is your a RA those districts you could say that it's again could you asterize it and just say for a change to from one from a from one zone to a residential zoning by a home owner not a yeah not a not a developer developer you know could you say that we need to probably verify with Joe on Not that I feel like that's getting into a little bit of a too gray area on just you know okay based on the applicant type it might be a little more questionable

maybe a legal thing okay or just uh I mean I I I I do like how it's just res like for uh development standards variance residential districts just because a lot of times it's like your fence location or it's it's something that's a lot more simple than when my industrial wants to come in and they want to do something taller or you know I mean if if you know maybe if we had just broke it down for use variance and special exception as well residential districts other districts it would at least like like you do in development standards. Yeah.

I mean we can you could do it even for use variance development standards variance and special exception make it all one of it's 200 for residential and rural districts which is your A and RA and then it's 400 for other districts for all other districts. So, it would make your special exception go up a little bit, which is probably okay in the those other districts because again, those special exceptions in industrial are sometimes a little more um need a little more time. Oh, yeah. And you know, the other thing too, I think, um if uh and we all think about this, I think in any of our normal daily purchases, right? If you're sort of on the fence and you know, does it really do I really need to do it? You know, we're not looking for a bunch of special exceptions coming in. We're not looking for

Yeah. [snorts] a bunch of variances development standards. So I will come back annually. Yeah. And so I just think you you know we need to think about that a little bit that you want it to be the person have to think a little bit about coming in and asking for those things too. Sure. So right now I have the idea of doing residential rule districts for the use variance development standard variance and special exception and making that one and then all other districts um would be another if that's something I think that might help alleviate. Yeah, I mean I I think it seems like a good a good suggestion and we're certainly willing to to you know Yeah, I think that that would okay that that would help help me with

Are you looking Do you want to do like the two and four or two? Yeah, I think the two and four would be a fair I'm on board with that. Do you want to see if there is any public comment just Yeah, I got you. [laughter] I want to make sure we're done here and then Yes. Yeah, I have to. Perfect. All right. So, is there any public comment on this matter? All right. Hearing none at this point, I'll accept a recommendation a motion for recommendation. Should I should I do a make a motion on these fee increases or changes? With the Yes. With those changes. Yes. Yeah. Um what

do I need a motion separately from that or could that be included with the recommendation? I would just put it I would put it with the recommendation. Okay. And then and then if no one wants to do it then of course then we get back. Okay. Okay. If you want me to state those Patrick I can. Okay. So the the amendment to it would be for a use variance development standards variance and special exception. The proposed fee would be $200 for residential and rural zoning districts which includes your A and RA in the rule and it would be 400 for all other districts for those three application types. So those are the amendments. I I would move that we provide a favorable recommendation for the fee schedule as amended. Do we have a second?

All right. All right. Do do roll or do I can just do Okay. All right. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Same sign. All right. And your new rules do say that you can just do a voice vote unless you want a roll. Yeah. So that's sorry that's going to take a little time on things [laughter] that getting used to. All right. Is there anything else from the board? Amy, anything else? All right. With that, I'll accept a motion to adjurnn. Second. Have a second. Second. All right. All in favor say I. I. All right. Thank you guys.