Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good. Uh, call to order. Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, December 2nd, 2025. Um, first item, approval of the agenda. Seeking a motion for approval of the agenda. Motion second. Motion and second. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Hearing none. Uh, next on the agenda, approval of minutes from November 4th planning and planning commission meeting. hasn't. Did I hear a motion? Yep. I'll second. Motion in second. All in favor say I. I. I.

All opposed. Hearing none. Motion passes. Item number four, a minor subdivision of property located at 404th Street Northeast in order to divide portion of the lot where the division is to permit the adding of a parcel of land to property at 325 Ridge Road so that no additional lots are created and both new lots conform to zoning ordinance minimum standards. John,

yeah, so we have a minor subdivision request. This is kind of uh an easier way than doing a full-blown subdivision. In this case, the proposal meets the requirements of a minor subdivision. And basically, we have two neighboring properties. Uh um 404 Street Northeast, which is the northern property there on the screen, is going to subdivide a chunk of land off the rear of the lot. Um and that's going to be combined with 325 Ridge Road, which is the house kind of on the corner there. This will give a little bit more room to the left or the sideyard of that house. Um there's the survey up on the screen. and it kind of shows what's being split and exchanged. Um, basically uh the split there will be no nonconformities created with this uh proposal. So the lots still all meet the the width, size, you know, setback requirements, all that stuff. So nothing is being created here that would be a nonconformity which is one of the criteria. Um the properties are zoned R1 lowdensity residential district and that's the criteria we looked at. Uh there also in the final plat there was no drainage utility easements that would be affected. Um so basically nothing has to be vacated from that standpoint which makes this a little bit simpler as well. Um and basically we're looking for a recommendation um for approval or denial to the city council. Uh these do come to the planning commission for review and then go to council for final action. They do not require a public hearing like a plumary plat would. So, um, basically it's done with staff review. You guys take a look at it and go from there. And we basically have, uh, three conditions listed. If you recommend approval, one that the city engineer review it there, no comments from the city engineer. Uh, second, that it has to be recorded and the the parcel that's being split from 404 street has to be combined with the other one. So, we're not creating this remnant parcel out there. And then number three, um, uh, no building permits are issued on this

property or either property until, uh, the split is finalized. And I don't think there's any building permits being proposed, but if something were to be, we'd want to make sure this is squared away. So, pretty straightforward. Yeah. One thing I should also note, you can look on the survey there, there's kind of like a dash line through the middle. There used to be an alleyway that is was previously vacated. um that alleyway was, you know, provided to the neighboring properties. So, it does show up there, but it has vacated, no longer in play. So, I recommend that we approve it. Okay. Yeah. Takes a recommend recommendation. Motion to approve the minor subdivision subject to conditions.

Okay. Yeah. Second. Second. Seconded. All right. I have a motion and a second. All in favor of the motion say I. I I all opposed none heard. The motion passes and this will go to the next council meeting for final review. So next item we have zoning ordinance update final review.

Yes. So in the packet um if you remember we've gone through over the last you know handful of months the whole zoning ordinance kind of gone section by section. We have a full document now at this point and I went through uh since the last meeting and put that together uh submitted that for your guys' final review. Um this is kind of the last time we'll sit down as a planning commission as a joint meeting here to discuss this. I did put a little memo together and just highlighted a bunch of items that were specifically talked about throughout the the last handful of meetings, things that were asked or requested by the planning commission or or you know, whoever. Um, so basically those items were all addressed, you know, within the draft ordinance. And if everything looks good tonight or if there's nothing that needs to be discussed any further, uh, I would recommend that a public hearing is called for in January. And at that January planning commission meeting, we'd actually hold the real public hearing to officially recommend approval to adopt the zoning ordinance updates. Um, so I'll kind of just go through uh the items in the the staff report real quick. Um, you know, basically, you know, we added there over the last handful of years, we've talked about things like, um, storage units or storage containers, uh, different things of that nature. We've had other issues come up with like the the driveways and and paving those, but I'll just kind of touched on, how many are there here total? Uh, 16 of them. First one was we added an animal definition uh to, you know, some of this was, you know, creating, you know, so it wasn't conflicting somewhere else in the code. So we just basically amended that to match other ordinance areas of the zoning ordinance. Uh in section 51 or 152027 single family dwelling requirements all single all detached single family dwelling units were required to have a two stall attached garage. I remember talking about that a few months back. Um, under section 152050, non-conforming building structures and uses, language was added

to for an additional extension of up to 180 days for the applicant to get a building permit if the structure is destroyed. And what this has to do with if there's say a tornado or a fire or something of that nature or the building's destroyed and they need to get a permit and it's a non-conforming structure, by state statute, uh, they legally have 180 days to apply for that building permit and get that. Now, every once in a while, for whatever reason, maybe it's insurance issue or whatever, they're waiting for money, uh they get delayed and it goes past 180. This gives uh the ability to that applicant to ask for an extra extension for another 180 days that the city council can grant. Um so, it's just something that was talked about at one of the meetings that we just added that in there. Uh not a big deal. The odds of it, you know, pretty rare to actually have to enforce something of this nature anyways, but uh it is in there now. Um the next one 152051 home occupations home offices were added to the allowed uses and daycarees were added to the accessory use. So um a a daycare you know can be um you know the principal use of the structure is a a residence but a daycare can be that home occupation. So, we we went through that uh temporary structures uh section got a typo there, but 152052 uh site plan review was required for temporary structures instead of an administrative permit to be consistent with other language in the uh zoning orders. This is something that we caught at one of the meetings where there was a a conflict with another section of the code. So, we just changed that to make it consistent throughout. Um number six was an institutional definition was added to the definition section. Uh if you remember we have the public institutional zoning district which is you know out there. Uh there wasn't an institutional definition in the code and there are some places in the code that reference institutional uses. So we just added that definition to be clear with everything. Uh seven was the recreational facilities were exempted

from screening requirements um under the section 15255 screening. So this could be like for potentially your parks and things like that. uh we just want to make sure that because it's on a a public institutional type lot or city property, we're not screening park equipment from a neighboring residential use. So that stuff was exempted out um from that screening requirement where items like you know structures or businesses or whatever you does have to screen next to residential uses. So um also uses across the street from residential properties were exempted from streeting requirements. We just clarified that. So, if you have a um you know industrial or business type use on one side of the street and you got residential uses across, you don't necessarily have to screen the front yard to prevent that from across the street. So, we just it's kind of assumed, but we just added language to clarify it to make sure it's clear. Um let's see here. Maximum height requirement for accessory structures. Uh this is something we've had a couple of here over the last year or so where we've had an accessory building come in. They've needed to get a variance for height. So we have changed that from 17 to 20 feet. Uh one thing to make uh sure everyone's aware of in the agricultural district we do exempt um you know agricultural buildings like silos and barns are can be taller and there is a higher requirement in that district as well than the 20 foot I think it's 25 recall correctly. So so we did change that just to be you know consistent with what we've been seeing as a city here lately. Um the flood plane management overlay district, something we talked about last month. Uh that is currently in the city code under a different area. This is technically kind of like the shoreland district or something of that nature. So we incorporated that into the zoning ordinance under its own section. We really didn't adjust the language other than making sure it was consistent with all the, you know, section numbers and things of that nature. So that language is there basically the same as it was before. Uh under landscaping requirements in uh section 152056,

motor vehicle sales were exempted from having to plant trees along the property line. We talked about this as well. Um you know, if you have bird droppings, you know, with the trees and you're trying to sell cars. So there is some exemption uh dealing with the motor vehicle cells. Um landscape islands were removed as a requirement for off- streetet parking lots in some uh instances. So we had talked about that as well. Um section 152071 sign regulations. Uh the landscape requirement around the base of freestanding signs was removed. Um that's something that's currently in there where they had to do a certain amount of plannings based on the size of the sign. Uh that is no longer a requirement. Uh the sign section, by the way, wasn't really adjusted too much. It pretty much is the same language that was there, but the sign section was like 12 or 15 different sections in this current zoning ordinance. So we just combined it all into one section now. So, it's kind of a little more clear to to fit with the code itself, the zoning ordinance itself. Um, language was added for the discussion to allow for River Rock to be used for a semi-improved parking pad along the garage side and rear yard. Um, River Rock shall contain a sand base and the edge shall be delineated. This was added to section 152067 off street parking and driveway requirements. Uh, parking pad section. Um this item, you know, a few years ago, a couple two, three years ago was addressed and the city uh went through a quite lengthy process and actually the council ultimately approved requiring paved or uh fully improved surfaces for these parking pads. I know it's been talked about a lot and I know Chad has brought it up a few times. Um he's not here tonight, but we did look at adding um for a river rock with delaned edging for these parking pads. So, we just want to see what your opinion is kind of one last time on that, I guess. So, I don't know if anyone has any comments or thoughts right now, but currently it's a paved requirement, whether that's concrete or patuminous or paver stones

or something of that nature. So, with the pave, does it mess with your hard cover then? It does mess with hard cover. Um, and it's very possible that river rock will also be considered hard cover potentially. I'm not the engineer, but I know after a while if it gets compacted into that sand and gets hardened, that ends up acting just like, you know, like class 5 gravel or Okay. surface. So, I don't know if that really changes that. I think we'd have to get a response from the engineer. Okay. I would say so, too.

But is are you guys okay with that requirement or do you want to keep it still as paved? I mean, ultimately that would be something that would have to be addressed and the council could have, you know, decisions on it as well, but I know previously the council voted not to allow it. Well, as it's like you said, have edging and looks presentable and it's not just thrown on the ground and here you go type thing. I mean, right. It's long as it's done well and it's done correctly, not just thrown out because it's convenient. Yeah. And you know, the the thought was, you know, only allow the river rock to help with the uh the water runoff, but you know, class five

um that obviously gets compacted, but I know that's considered, you know, like a gravel surface. Obviously, the driveway itself still has to be paved. It would be the parking pad along the side or somebody has one in the rear of the structure or something like that. Now, nothing's allowed in the front yard, like in front of the house to allow that. I know people have parked, you know, they're in the grass before. Yeah, that technically is not allowed in the city, but um yeah, you wouldn't be able to put a parking pad there either other than your driveway to your garage. So, it's kind of per case basis, too. I mean, if you don't meet um hard cover, you can't put it down anyhow. So,

yeah. So, it comes down if you don't meet the hard cover, and I know when we originally did this um a couple years back, you know, it came down to right away we're having what about this guy? He can't do it. I'm like, and the and the reality was there's some lots it just doesn't fit on. You don't meet the setbacks. It's just not allowed on some lots and it just, you know, it is what it is, you know. So, you can't have one on every property. So, obviously, it's a case by case basis. And

I guess that was kind of the one of the things that kept keeps coming up over the years here. So, but right now it currently is not allowed to place river rock. It has to be a paved surface or hard cover surface. And forgive me if we've discussed this already, but is it possible to where we put it in there that it needs to come to planning for approval? So, we can say yes or no or it meets requirements or I mean, you could. I don't know if that's really needed. I mean, it's if you allow it one place, you need to allow it everywhere else. So, it's not really whether it's a case by case on are we going to allow it here or not allow it here. If it's River Rocks going to be allowed, it's going to be allowed. Yep.

And that's, you know, something staff can review and shouldn't have any problems with it. Now, if they're trying to do something where, you know, it's still got to be set back 5T from your property line and, you know, allow for drainage along the sideyard and not run off onto your neighbor's property and stuff like that. So, it has to meet normal code setbacks, hard cover. Yeah. And if you're fine with that, then it should be fine. And I guess from my standpoint, like I said, I'm not the engineer, but from what I've seen in other communities, this is still going to be considered hard surface. So it doesn't really get you around the lot coverage requirement. Um, so yeah. So then is the only benefit. It's just cheaper. Yep. I think that's what we're saying.

Yep. Gives a second option. It won't really be applicable for any of the newer narrow lots anyway. Yeah. I mean, the narrower lots, you know, depends. Sometimes they place the house right in the middle or they place it, you know, one side where the garage is right up against the property line. You know, if they don't do that, I mean, if they do that up front, you know, then it's some of these houses are limited. Um, if they plan for it down the road, you know, that can be done. Um, I guess it comes down to is the city want this other option. And if that's what you do, you know, we got language we can have in there for that. I guess I think I'm open to I don't know if is this is the pretty much the same council as it was when it was discussed before.

The mayor was there. I think there's one or two differences if I remember right, but I think it's a bit different from Yeah. Yeah. So, uh was before I was here.

Yeah. I just I just remember that um one of the comments um at the time from a member was, you know, there's been a lot of people that we've required to do this because paving was the requirement even before the update a couple years ago. It's always been required to be paved. Um, and one of the comments was, "We've required everybody that does this to pave it. Why are we going to change it back to allow gravel now?" And all these people may wanted to put gravel in previously. So, they did agree that that they wanted to keep it paved because that was the the existing requirement at the time as well, which is still the the current requirement. So, we are going a different direction than it's been for a long time, for years actually. So, um, and I know since then we've had I've have no major issues. I don't know if we've had anything that you can recall where this has been a big issue, I guess, but nothing too major.

Uh, it's it's it's more on the whispered side than the outright. Yeah, there are plenty of places in town which are non-conforming. This would bring be help go towards bringing some into conformance. Yeah. But a lot a lot of the enforcement uh that we're looking at doing, we knew this zoning code update was coming down the pike. So like before we go too hard on everybody the requirement, let's see what may or may not happen.

Yeah. And I and I know um you know with the the sideyard parking um you know it's it's there's a lot of cities that require it be paved. I mean, there's some out there that don't, but most, you know, well, I say developing on communities that have some sort of growth or new developments, you know, that they're they're they're requiring paving for the most part because your driveway has to be paved, but not everywhere does. So, it's there is no real right or wrong. It's just what fits the community, I guess. So

I mean if since we set the standard of it being paved and I understand your point Nick you know for the unconforming but what do we if we keep it paved how are we going to talk to the people that are unconforming issue letters and force corrections. Okay. It's either either tear it up or pave it or don't park on it. Don't park on it because the only thing with the river rock then you have weeds depending on how people take care of things. Yep. It looks gets pretty nasty pretty quick depending on weather and summer and whether you're keeping up with it.

Yep. That's the other thing that you know in the in the thought process of what do you want to do I guess. So I mean like I said we're not making a final decision here tonight either. I mean, this is one of the items we wanted to discuss and like I said, the public hearing is still just a recommendation from the planning commission. Ultimately, the council makes the final call, but um yeah, I feel I mean I feel guilty saying it because it doesn't affect me anyway, but uh I would I' I'd keep it paved. I'd keep it the way it is. Yeah. Yeah. And it was And just so you know, it was that way prior to the previous amendment being approved. Yeah. So,

so for the LA, so what what was amended if it was already requiring um we added some specific I think we added like a true driveway definition versus what a parking pad definition is.

Um there, you know, there's some some clarifications what can go in the front yard, sideyard, rear yard. We added uh language such as I think it was semi-improved. I don't remember the exact wording without looking but it was like you know one was like just a grass service which is like landscaping because people were parking on the grass in certain situations. Semi-improved would be like a gravel type surface or river rock and then the fully improved was the um you know like paved or concrete or pa bricks or something of that nature. So we kind of clarified what was what and how that was done. And I think we added some language about it can't just be paved where the tires are. So there's grass in between or underneath the vehicle. Had to be fully paved, you know, that sort of stuff. So clean it up a little bit, but they ultimately kept the paving requirement as is. And that whole thing came about due to a violation remember, but um that got called or reported and that ultimately caused the whole deal. So

I think our biggest proponent for the gravel is not here, right? Yeah. So don't worry about if if this is what this is what came out of the end of that discussion last time. I mean hopefully Chad's here when we have the public hearing, but maybe it can come up then and hash it out. Yeah, hash out then. I'm kind of open to right now the language is proposed to be in there for River Rock. I mean it could be pulled up pretty easily, but

you know it's it's one of them items that I don't know if we've ever really got a clear answer one way or the other. You know, I mean a consensus I'll maybe say. So I think as far as between now and public hearing, I'd almost rather keep it in there because we can have the same discussion with it's a lot easier to take it out potentially an audience or with and then versus oh that's gone now. I'm sure Chad will want to have a talk, you know, mention if we're talk Yeah. make a decision after that. Yep. Even if all four of us leaned against it in the end, at least Chad would have his have his say. Yep. I like it.

Okay. So, we'll we'll leave that alone for now. Um and then, uh the next one, uh obviously we had some discussion on storage units and what we ended up doing was putting in a true definition of LANC containers, which is pretty standard throughout other communities. Uh that was added to um the outside storage section um in the code. And in this case, we had some language previously drafted in our previous discussions. I think it was about a year or two ago that we kind of put on hold until the zoning ordinance was uh in place and basically kind of just took that language and everyone seemed to agree that that was good language and we just added it. So there wasn't a ton of new stuff from what we'd previously discussed. So that was add in there. And then another one uh under the landscaping section, we actually added some tree preservation standards. Uh this would be for like new development or say somebody buys a lot that's fully wooded, you know, they have to do the tree inventory to see what's being removed. There are some thresholds where you can remove up to a certain amount of trees before you're actually required to um you know put in replacement trees. So ultimately you can remove some stuff and um but if you want to just come in and clear cut the entire parcel, yeah, you may maybe can do that, but you ultimately have to replace trees which can you know trees are den anymore to put in a two and a half inch tree. So So that was added. Um other than that there was a lot of other little uh things. Now, these are some of the main ones that we had talked about specifically at the planning commission meetings, but the rest of the ordinance, there's a lot of um coordinating things and you know, there's conflicting language here and there. Uh just kind of redoing the sections, getting everything where it should be. You know, for instance, uh the sign stuff was kind of all spread around and different things like that. We still kept a uh in the zoning ordinance, uh we kept the um what do you call it? The standards table. So, that's been updated. We added the the um light industrial district. Uh added an extra

residential district. So now we have an R1, an R2, R3, and R4. So they kind of in 10, you know, the R1's basically a straight single family. The R2 is like a two family, single family district. R3 is like a town home um two family type district and R4 is like the true multif family. we have apartments and condos and you know some some large scale town home stuff could be in there as well. So, so yeah. So unless there's anything else um I try to touch on the high points if anyone else has something that they have issues with or want to add or amend or change still and we still have time and that's kind of why we're here tonight to see if anyone had any thoughts.

I don't really have anything sticking in my craw. I don't. Okay. Well, that being said, if everything's good, there's no action required tonight other than just discussion. Um, yeah, we'll get the planning our public hearing scheduled for is it January 6th? January 6 being our next meeting. Oh, here I say agenda. Yeah, January 6th. Yep. So, that'd be the public hearing. Everything goes well at that point, uh, go to council for in January potentially for final approval. then it can be incorporated into the city code. One other thing and I think we've talked about this but would they when that gets incorporated in would you incorporate the subdivision in at that time on the online stuff?

Yes, we get that incorporated in because right now it just says reference or whatever. Was a little costly from the company to do it but Oh, really? It's good to have on there. I was thinking if they're doing this they could do that same time probably. I suppose uh maybe at a better rate. We'll see if I can control them into doing it. Yeah.

All right. Then next item is next meeting Tuesday, January 6 with a public hearing commissioner report. Anything to report? Nope. Um I heard rumors that the east of Fieldstone did sell or is that not the case?

Uh under contract hasn't closed. So they're they haven't really submitted anything officially yet. Um other than just discussion, but we expect probably a concept plan soon. I would say probably this month. So that might be something that you might see in January, too. You got any more any more emails or anything on that? No. Okay. Not anything fresh. So far it's all on their side and they're working on the I meant from like field stone residents. No, nothing from field stone residents. If they're listening in as soon as we get those concepts are good to go. We'll make sure we get those out as part of our plan review process. Perfect.

Yeah. Yeah, the biggest item that's been discussed is the trunk highway 25 bypass corridor and what that ultimately is going to be in the long run. Is it going to be a county, state, city road? What's the rightway with? What's the side of the street? What type of access is going to be allowed? So, so yeah, Mindot's kind of washed their hands of it and said we're not even going to deal with it because it's so far out of our picture at this point, but the county Yeah. is looking to have something there for a long-term possibility. So, okay. Uh, last item would be a motion to adjurnn. Do I have a motion? Motion second. Motion and second. All in favor?

I I hearing none. We're ajourned.