Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright we are going to call this meeting to order. The board of adjustment is a seven member board which has the power to hear requests for variances and special exceptions. The concurring vote of two thirds of full membership is necessary for approval of any action by the board. A seven member board requires five votes, a six member board requires five votes and a five member board requires five votes. In accordance with Robert's rules of order we require a motion to approve a request before the request can be debated as a matter of policy all motions are made in positive.

The board under specific powers granted it by the state shall authorize variances from the zoning requirements where special conditions existing on the land will result in unnecessary hardship for the applicant Financial disadvantage to the property owner shall not constitute proof of unnecessary hardship. With that Ryan can you call roll?

Roll is noted with all present.

Thank you and we need approval of the agenda. Is there a motion and a second to approve the agenda? So moved, so on. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed. We need a motion to approve discussion on the minutes? Should have said that about the agenda as well, sorry. Okay, all in favor of approving the minutes say aye. Aye.

All opposed? Alright, we'll move on to item four, which is open forum. At this time, any member of the public may make a brief announcement or invitation or request time on the agenda for an item that is not listed. Alright. Seeing none, we'll move on to item five a variance.

Notice is hereby given that Chris Weibel has made a request for variance on Lot 29 Of Ridger River Ridge Addition also known as 3334 Aspen Avenue. The request is for a reduced side yard setback. The minimum required side yard setback in the joint jurisdiction residence JJR one b single family district is eight feet. Ryan, can you introduce the topic?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The first item is a variance for reduced side yard setback at 3334 Aspen Avenue. The applicant is Chris Weibold, the property owner. This is located in the joint jurisdiction R1B single family district.

Request is for reduced side yard setback at a minimum of five feet three and a quarter inches. Required setback in that district is eight feet. Staff recommendation on the variance is denial and the Board of Adjustment to Action would be to approve, amend or deny. For variances, the Board of Adjustment will review these variances due to special conditions, little enforcement of the provisions of the ordinance will result in unnecessary hardship and a variance shall not violate the spirit of the ordinance and substantial justice may be achieved as a result of the variance. Unique circumstances apply to the property which do not apply to other properties in the same vicinity or district.

The variance is necessary for the preservation of a property right that is substantially the same as that possessed by owners of other property in the same district. The variance requested is the minimum variance which would alleviate the hardship and reasonable use of the property is not permitted under the terms of this chapter. Property in question is 3334 Aspen Avenue shown on the map with the blue box around it. This is a proposed site plan of the garage extension. So it would be an attached garage extension to the current two stall garage.

The orientation here, the north is on the right, so this would be an extension of the garage on the south side of the property, roughly a 10 foot garage addition. And with that proposed addition, you'll see on that southwest corner on the top left, that's where the minimum setback request would be the five foot 3.5 inches. Here is a photo of the existing home on the top along with a rendering of the requested addition on the bottom. So the addition would go on that south side on the left side of the property where you see a current area of gravel just to the south of the garage. And with that, staff will end its report and stand for any questions.

Thank you. Ryan, at this time, I'll call for a motion and second.

I'll move to approve. Solemn.

Is applicant present would like like to speak on this? If you come up and state your name and resident, city or residence.

My name is Chris Wibel. I currently reside at

3304

Aspen Avenue, the location in discussion. I wanted to note that originally the city planning board has offered or recommended denial of the variance. And my understanding that is based off of the valuation of like properties within the River Ridge addition. It was also based on presidents that this type of variance just hadn't been approved in the past. So we just don't have previous approvals to base this off of.

This last year, my wife and I were lucky enough to have a child and we want to continue to grow into this home. And if anyone here has children, there's a lot of items that come with them. So we're hoping to gain some storage and to grow into this home and have the home grow with us. I have done a lot of due diligence in terms of planning for the proposed addition. Working with Hamlin Building Center, I think we are on like this was our fifth revision, keeping in mind the setback requirements.

But for us to get a usable space, we ended up requesting this variance to do so. Within the process, I also had an official site survey completed. This allowed me to have a very nice conversation with my neighbor to the south who would be adjacent to the addition. Talking through the plan with him, he did not have any initial concerns. I don't see him here tonight.

But the main reason there was no concerns is the trees there. I'm guessing people have questions. The pine trees on the south side are in fact on his side of the property line. They're very close to the the property line itself. But with the design in mind, the trees can stay as is.

If there's need to trim the tree or something that would be the most aggressive approach we'd have to take. Living in River Ridge, I've really come to enjoy the space. We have all beautiful lots. We have wonderful privacy and it's nice being located outside of city limits. I'm really seeking approval because it hurts me to think that this property is limited in its growth due to the original placement of the structures on the property.

Unfortunately, we have 18 feet of setback clearance on the north side and we have 15 and a half about on the south. So perhaps there was a little bit of lack of foresight when the structure was originally put on the property in terms of expansion, but that's where I'm hoping that people see that perhaps this is a qualified variance. Again,

thank you

for your time. Respect whatever decision the board comes to.

Yes, thank you very much. At this time we'll see if there's anyone else that would like to speak in favor of this item and maybe the commissioners will have questions for you later. So you can go ahead and sit down. Is there anyone else present that would like to speak in favor of this item? Seeing none is there anyone that would like to speak in opposition?

Alright seeing none we'll open it up to board questions. Right, so I have to close the public testimony which I will do now. Thank you. And open it up to board questions and comments.

I'm unaware of any. I don't know if that would have come up in the survey potentially. Might It be something you wanted to run by the applicant. This was in the joint jurisdiction. So we wouldn't have a record of this plat that I'm aware of, which is typically where we would find utilities. I can see if we have anything on our GIS, but I'm not aware of any utilities.

Any other comments or questions?

I do have a question for the applicant if you want to come back up. So I do see that it's graveled what is this space being used for right now?

Currently it's River Rock They're on the south side of the house. There that's how it was when I bought it. I think the previous homeowner may have parked a vehicle there. I just added gravel to make it look a little nicer. So really there's not any current use for it I guess.

And you're talking about this is a garage expansion. I guess help me understand like why that part over there is needed for the garage. You've got ample room in the back. You're talking about expansion for your family.

Yes. Just we're an outdoor family, bikes, canoes, camping equipment. So the idea was that we would be able to store some of those things in the garage just just to keep things within and avoiding to have to store things off-site.

Great. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I have a question for the applicant while he's up here. It's hard to tell from the photos and I didn't make it out to the property but is there much of a great difference in between your neighbor to the south and your property?

The question is about the grade difference,

is Yes, that

is there like drainage swale or anything between the properties? In

my opinion, the grading on the south side there is relatively flat. Typically during like a rainstorm, the water on this property flows from south to north. The lowest point is on the north side of my property. So the water typically flows there between the neighbor to the north.

Okay. And

the garage expansion would be at the same grade as the existing garage as it goes out? It wouldn't step up or

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, in response to Commissioner Schmeichel's question about easements, I was able to find a plat. There is no easement along the side property lines. It's on the a five foot easement along the front and rear property lines. So no easements are in place on the side property lines.

Thanks Mike. Anything else? I would just add that sympathetic to the request I failed to see a real hardship here especially given the size of the lot in general. If there's nothing else, Ryan can you call the vote? Jameson?

No. Speer? No. Heinrich? No. Braun? No. Letty? No. Solem? No. Bacon? No. The motion fails.

Okay. We'll move on to item six b, This is a rezone request. Notice is hereby given that access holdings LLC has submitted a petition to rezone the following described real estate in the city of Brookings in Brookings County South Dakota Block 1 of mills third edition in the Northwest Quarter excluding H 1 and H 2 thereof section six dash one zero nine dash four nine the request is to rezone the above described real estate from a residential r three a apartments mobile homes manufactured housing district to a business b two district. Ryan can you introduce the topic.

Thank you mister chair. This first planning commission item is a petition to rezone block one of mills third edition.

We' going to start by convening as a city planning commission. I' call this meeting to order as a planning commission welcome those in attendance. The city planning commission is a nine member commission whose function is it is to make recommendations of the city commission regarding request for land use classification changes subdivision plats conditional use permit zoning ordinance amendments and other matters the commission makes their recommendations based upon the adopted comprehensive plan for the physical development of the city of Brookings and the surrounding area. As a matter of policy all motions are made in the positive. After a motion is moved and seconded it is open for debate.

Those supporting the motion shall in turn give their reasons. Those opposing the motion shall then offer their reasons. After everyone is given a chance to be heard, the commission shall review the testimony and information presented, make findings of fact and forward the recommendations to the city commission. And we'll go back to Ryan introducing the topic.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This petition to rezone is being applied for by the property owner access holdings LLC. Property is again Block one Mills third edition, currently zoned R3A residence, multifamily and manufactured housing. The petition is to rezone this to B2, which is our general business district.

The property is located in an area that is a future land use map of urban high intensity which would support the B2 zoning district. The staff recommendation is to approve, planning commission's action would be to approve, amend or deny, and that action would be a recommendation that's made to the city council. The property in question is located just Southwest of the 20th Street and Interstate 29 interchange, the area outlined in yellow. The current zoning map shows this and currently in a R3A zoning district. There is R1A zoning just to the north across 20th Street South, the golf course.

And there is adjacent business zoning to the west at B3 at the corner of 20th Street and 22nd Avenue. The future land use map shows the area within that red circle. It does show in the urban high area. For those commission members that were here a year or so ago, this was one of our areas that we examined on a large group of areas along 20th Street South where we did change this area from open space and residential to that urban high, which does now support this business B2 district. And that would end staff's report and we'll stand for any questions.

Thank you Ryan entertain a motion and a second. So moved.

Second.

Alright thank you with that the applicant would like to introduce the topic themselves would be appreciated.

Good evening, mister chair, members planning and mission. My name is Jacob Mills representing Excess Holdings. Happy to answer any questions. The brief intro that I would just give on this is we recently annexed this property about a month or two ago and and this is sort of just a continuation of that process. We're largely in the process of exploring, infrastructure planning, because this area lacks, public sewer utilities which is part of why some of this is necessary. So there's no imminent project that we're planning. It just seemed like a good time to do it and the zoning, seemed appropriate to what the plan was. But happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in attendance that would like to speak in favor?

Good evening. My name is Nancy Stewart. And I live out at Western Estates and am on this list of homes. And I just wanted to double check because that those homes are actually excluded from this. Is that correct? Am I understanding that right? That you're only talking about the yellow area?

That is correct. Just the the yellow area. None of the homes within Western Estates would be included in any rezone area.

Okay, good. And then because I noticed on that other map you have the red circle that is that?

Is just kind of a loose area of so the actual rezone areas kind of if follow my cursor here, that area would be the rezone. But it's within what I called the urban high intensity future land use. That's part of our comprehensive Brooks comprehensive plan, but that would not impact the petition to rezone here. It is just that yellow box.

Correct. Currently. Okay. So we will not be asked to move in the near future like the next year or so.

The property won't your your property would not be rezoned with this rezoning.

You.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak in favor or anyone else who would like to speak in opposition to this. Seeing none we'92ll close the public testimony and open it up to board questions and comments.

Mr. Chair I have a question to Jacob. I drive by this lot every day, and I'm wondering, access to this piece of property, would that be on the Service Road, which the opening is further to the west? Or would you, somewhere along, plan on on making another, I I call it a curb cut or or approach off 20th Street South?

Would love for a curb cut that's controlled by the DOT and through the interchange process, we we lost the access that we had because there used to be an access kind of in the Northwest corner of this property. But there's a minimum distance from a turning lane or something like that. It's like 550 feet from the trailing edge of the turning lane. So to my understanding, I think we could apply for an access, but that would be controlled by the DOT, and I would assume we would be denied. So we do have an access agreement recorded on that service road that crosses from the 20th over on whatever that Horseshoe Bend or whatever that road is.

I forget what it's called.

Okay thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Okay seeing none we'll call the vote.

Schmeichel? Yes. Limmer? Yes. Jamison? Yes. Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich? Yes. Braun? Yes. Leddy? Yes. Solem? Yes. Aiken? Yes. Motion passes.

Alright thank you we will move on to item 6b rezone request, notices hereby given that legacy storage condos LLC has submitted a petition to rezone the following described real estate in the city of Brookings in Brookings County South Dakota lot one of Clark second edition. The request is to rezone the above described real estate from an agricultural district district to an industrial I one light district. Ryan can you introduce the topic?

Thank you Mr. Chair. The next item is another rezone of this of lot one of Clark's second edition. The applicant is Legacy Storage Condos LLC. Current zoning is AG and the proposed zoning is I-one Light Industrial.

Future land use map for this area is classified as a business parklight industry which would support the I-one Light Industrial Zoning District. Staff's recommendation is to approve, Planning Commission's action would be to approve amend or deny and that would be a recommendation made to the city council. The property in question here is outlined in blue, it's just east of 34th Avenue, east of the Dakota Bank Center, North of US Highway 14. The current zoning map shows this as joint jurisdiction ag. It was recently annexed in, so it now come with the city's ag zoning district.

Adjacent properties to the west are zoned I-one industrial along 34th Avenue. There are a few properties to the West, kind of Southwest that are zoned B3 and B2. And then to the North and east would retain the ag zoning, but there is compatible zoning in proximity with I-one and B-three to the East and South. Here is the future land use map, does show this area within that business park, future land use category. And staff will stand for any questions.

Thank you Ryan. Entertain a motion and a second. So moved. Second. Alright we'll open public testimony if the applicant is here would like to address commission.

Thank you, mister chair and commission members. My name is Justin Booker with Banner Associates representing the developer. I think Ryan covered pretty much everything that we wanted to express to the commission so I guess I can stand for any questions.

Thank you. I don't think this is going to be relevant. Is there anyone else that would like to speak in favor or opposition to this to this item? Okay. In that case we'll close public testimony as well stay for a second and open to board questions or comments.

Alright. Seeing none. Ryan, can you call the vote?

Speer?

Yes.

Heinrich? Yes. Braun? Yes. Leddy? Yes. Solem? Yes. Aiken? Yes. Schmeichel? Yes. Jameson? Yes. Limmer? Yes. Motion passes.

Move on to item 6C amendments to section 94 dash three six two home occupations. Ryan can you introduce the topic?

Thank you Mr. Chair. These next two items are some discussion items on proposed ordinance changes, ordinance amendments. The first one that we'll cover are a series of changes that we are proposing to the home occupations section of city ordinance. We've had a lot of requests come through the Planning Commission and City Council related to home occupations, specifically quite a few that were for major home occupations that maybe didn't need to necessarily go through those steps.

So we took look at our home occupation ordinance and tried to figure out if there's a better way to classify or organize or treat home occupations. So the primary, there's a couple of primary changes that were made here. One, we did propose a new type of home occupation. Previously we had minor home occupations and major home occupations. We did add what's called a no impact home occupation.

And I'll go through all this in detail, but just kind of want to summarize a couple of the major changes. We added the no home occupation or the no impact home occupation. We did a little reorganization, and we did remove all of the kind of itemizing of types of actual home occupations that were kind of outdated and hard to manage. We get new types of home occupations with all the work from home and remote working. So, those are kind of the major changes.

But, I'll walk through the changes kind of line by line. And these are for discussion. Tonight, we're not doing a hearing and we're voting on it, so please stop us at any time with discussion or questions. It's just a discussion item. So, on the description of the home occupations, made no changes in that first paragraph until the bottom where we did add in the necessity to categorize home occupations as no impact, home occupations, minor home occupations, and major home occupations.

We did add a line at the end that all home occupations, whether they're no impact, minor home or major home, are not transferable to subsequent property owners or applicants. That's something that we had been adding on as a condition on quite a few of our major home occupations like the in home hair salons or the recent gunsmithing home occupations, wood shops, those sorts of things. We're basically adding that condition onto most of them, so why not just add it as a condition for all home occupations, non transferable. We added a subsection B as no impact home occupation. A no impact home occupation would not require a permit.

It's basically an allowable by right home occupation, and shall be allowed upon a prevances provided that the occupation complies with the following. One, such home occupation is entirely computer and or Internet based. Two, such home occupation does not cause on street parking or substantial increase in traffic in the neighborhood. Three, such home occupation does not include on-site sales of merchandise or on-site training. Four, such home occupation does not include any of the prohibited activities included in Section 90 four-three 92 H, which we'll look at that later.

That is a new section that we're kind of doing some reorganization in. Any questions on the no impact section? Mr. Ryan, I have Go ahead. You sure Roger?

You made noise first.

Very good. Where you mentioned in B2 substantial increase in traffic in neighborhood. How do you define substantial?

Right now, we don't have a definition or a way to, I guess, monitor that. So, that would be a good question. We don't have a percent increase or a number increase. And this would be a buy right allowance. We wouldn't have a permit necessarily in any of these to be able to go out and monitor that. So that is a good question. We may not necessarily know if these are occurring to know if there is an increase.

Before Roger goes, I'd follow-up to that because that was one of my questions is if we're saying that they don't need a permit, they basically can do this, it's computer work, then why even call out increase in traffic?

That is a great question. Mean we want to make sure that these are indeed no impact on occupations so I guess.

Because we're saying it does not cause on street parking or substantial increase in traffic. Just, seems like an oxymoron.

Yeah, It's kind of more reiterating the idea that this would be a no impact. We can certainly look at removing that if that's something the Planning Commission would like to clean up at this point.

Mr. Chair?

Just go on top of that. If we have no mechanism to enforce it, I would say remove it. I mean, if we don't have I'm in favor of most of things in government if you don't have a way of enforcing it there it shouldn't be in the ordinance. That's just my opinion.

And that would apply to number two? The traffic. Yeah.

Because this if I'm reading this I'm going well maybe I can increase the traffic a little bit, but just not substantially.

We'll take a look at removing that.

The question I would have is, is it just removing the traffic, substantial traffic and leaving the no on street parking thing? Okay. Typically, have in our subdivision regulations, we have single family dwelling typically generates, I think it is, 10 vehicle trips per day or something is what's associated with it. So if you start to see that a particular residence, it's more of a complaint basis. But if they come in and they're asking questions, they're like, oh yeah, I can comply with all these things.

Then And all of a sudden that provision isn't in there and all of a sudden we're starting to see that one house is generating 20 or 25 trips per day. We may have to look into it further to see, but I'm fine with removing the traffic portion as long as we keep the on street parking. I think in general, looking at updating these home occupations was necessary because technology has changed how business is conducted. In addition, I think the old standards were based a lot upon more delivery vehicles going into neighborhoods and delivering products to a house and that would then take it out for distribution. Any more with online shopping and I mean, just yesterday, I had two FedEx trucks on my residential street passing each other and just there's a substantial traffic that's generated just with the way shopping patterns happen these days.

Have a question. If there were a business that was mostly 90% of it was computer Internet, Say it's somebody who is designing some sort of a pamphlet for someone, but then the client has to come and pick it up, and all they do is come and pick it up. Would that be a no impact? Would that be a low impact?

I believe that would fit within the minor home occupation section, which we would get to next, and it would still be an administrative approved permit, but it would not fit within the no impact. So in Section three, I guess we're discussing sales, but we will get into that on the minor home occupation. So any other questions on the no impact? All right, we'll move on to the minor home occupation changes. So, minor home occupation.

This one would still require a zoning and use permit, a ZERP. It's just an administrative review of their application for a home occupation. And as long as I meet the criteria, they pay their permit fee and get a permit without having to go through the Planning Commission City Council. So, the occupation must be conducted entirely within the principal or accessory building. Previously we did not allow it to be within an accessory building and that was one that kind of was an automatic, it moved them on into a major home occupation.

Recently we had I think, I know we had a wood shopping example and a gunsmithing example that they did in the garage and so it kicked him into the major home occupation. So, we would, in this proposed changes, allow the minor home occupation to also occur in the accessory building. The occupation is clearly incidental and secondary to the principal use of the dwelling unit for residential purposes. We did remove that item there. We added below no advertising or display signs shall be permitted other than a nameplate attached to the dwelling.

The nameplate should not be illuminated and shall be more than one square foot in area. No off premise signs shall be used. That's consistent with signs that would be allowed in the residential district, although I think it's slightly less than would be allowed in the residential district. I think currently they would be allowed two square feet for like a single family home. Number five, no external alterations are permitted except for a separate entrance located on the side or rear of the dwelling provided it maintains residential character, complies with building codes, and does not create a retail appearance.

We removed there shall be no exterior display storage or other exterior indication of home occupations. That actually will get moved to that 90 Four-392H that I mentioned above as part of our reorganization. Number seven, also removed and moved into that 392H. Toxic explosive flammable combustible that is moved to another area. Any process that causes offensive dust odors, noise glare removed added on to a later section.

We'll get to that. The occupation shall not generate additional pedestrian or vehicular traffic beyond that normal to the district in which it is located. We removed nor additional vehicular traffic vehicular parking in the neighborhood and added any need for parking generated by such use shall be met on the same lot containing the customary home occupation and not within the required front yard. Number eight, client and customer visits shall be by appointment only and only one client may be present at a time. So, Commissioner Spear, that's I think where your question would come into play.

So, if they did have somebody come to pick something up, they could do that under the minor home occupation, but they would need that minor home occupation permit to do that type of activity. Number nine, we removed no on-site sales of merchandise and replaced it with only incidental sales are permitted as part of a home occupation. Incidental sales must be subordinate to the primary business and comply with the following: A, the primary activity is a service or production, not retail sales occur only by appointment or as part of the service B, inventory is limited to small quantities, no bulk storage of or wholesale operations. C, items sold are directly related to the home occupation. So, for a hair salon, they can have a limited number of hair products but not have their entire garage full of hair products on like a wholesale level.

D, online or mail order sales are allowed if no bulk storage occurs and no retail storefront is established. And lastly, number 10, such home occupation does not include any of the prohibited activities included in ninety four-two eighty two. So again, those items that you remove, like the toxic and offensive stuff, those get removed above but then added in that 90 three-two H. We did remove all of the itemized activities that would have been considered minor home occupations. So, tutoring, counseling, mail order, all that.

We removed all that. And if they meet those requirements, a minor home occupation is a minor home occupation regardless of what the business is. Any questions on the minor home occupation changes?

I have a couple. The first would be for number four for the signs. I think it mentions later something about the hours between 6AM and 9PM or something, then maybe that's just listed under the major occupation. But the point is we live in a state where it's currently dark outside right now. So should there be some opportunity to allow a little bit of lighting just to make sure that whatever client may be visiting has some proper wayfinding?

So we have hours of operation mentioned in that new section, four-three 92 H, the prohibited occupation activities. Here it does say employees, clients, customers, or activity that would be visible to adjacent neighbors between the hours of 9PM and 6AM. So, I guess the allowable hours operation would be between six a. M. And nine p. M. Anything beyond that wouldn't be. Does that answer the question?

Well, yeah, like right now you'd have between five p. M. And nine p. M. Of nighttime? Yep. Of theoretically ill?

Yep. So home occupation could still do their business from now until 9PM?

I think Right.

So I'm asking about having some type of signage that can be lit or can be whatever to allow people to be able to see it when they're trying to find said place.

So the question is about the signage, not the hours of operation. I

think Yes, thing Specifically about a lit sign.

I think if I may speak chair is one of the things to keep in consideration is this is a residential neighborhood and we typically don't allow lighting of signs in a residential neighborhood.

But you're required to have some type of

You're not required to have a sign Like a for your house

number that

should be uniquely lit.

Correct. But you can have like a light above

Right, it the house can be illuminated, it just can't be self illuminated? Is that the question? You're trying

to You

can have a light pointed at a sign, you just can't have it

be lit. Might be something to clarify in language here. Think the intent was no like digital signs.

No terminology, see no that's I'm offense to Daktronics,

but yeah.

So, that would just be the question, is just making sure that there is sufficient lighting for like, way finding and safety.

Yeah.

So, maybe just the distinction of it being illuminated versus self illuminated, I. E. LED or whatever. Neon, although neon signs would be kind of cool, right?

And maybe limited to business hours.

Yeah.

And then the other question that I have is just, yeah, that maybe we need like a definition of what defines bulk storage. That would be 9D, online or mail order sales are allowed if no bulk storage occurs.

So, question is on the just what defines bulk? Yeah. Like I said, the kind of the example would be, you know, reasonable amount of product on hand for displaying it and selling it, like in a hair salon, but not taking up an entire garage accessory building with a warehouse of product. We don't have a certain set amount that would fit the description of bulk or, again, really many ways to inspect that. But the idea is just to ensure that it's not occupying all their required parking in the garage or they're not building an accessory structure for storage.

But no. So is the idea more of like bulk storage of a pallet sitting outside of somebody's house? No

outdoor storage would be required or would be allowed. So we wouldn't allow the outdoor storage, but it's more so kind of reducing the amount of impact within the dwelling. Previously, we had a square foot requirement on we still have it. It does not occupy more than 500 square feet of gross floor area. So I guess that would include the activity and storage in my mind. So if they started storing and using their entire garage for storage space, then that counts towards their square foot of that home occupation. So I guess that's one way we could

Yes, like maybe saying the occupation and accessory storage of occupation should not exceed 500 square feet and then you wouldn't necessarily need to say bulk storage simply because there isn't a definition and it gives somebody an opportunity to say, oh, no, one case of this product or something is considered bulk.

We could add a section there, the occupation and associated storage. It doesn't occupy more than 500 square feet. We can look at that.

Mr. Chair, while we're on Item D, I had a question about that one as well. And mine I more read that and interpret it as trying to control online sales or mail mail yeah, mail order sales. My question was, is that is it enforceable? Is that something that we should be trying to control with the ordinance, I guess? It seems like many things that are shipped out would be shipped out from another location? I guess I don't I'm just wondering what the intent is, I guess.

It's just a pretty common business potentially to have in a home occupation setting. But maintaining it or unfortunately, that does continue being just a mail order and online and not allowing for any of the retail portion of that to occur out of the house was the intent of this.

Theoretically online or mail order sales can happen with no impact.

That could be a possibility.

Seems like if Commissioner Jameson was saying if it was limited to 500 square feet the idea of bulk is kind of irrelevant because you can only store so much stuff. If you're Amazon's eBay seller and you sell pens you could have 10,000 of them and does that qualify as bulk? I mean I think you maybe don't need to make that distinction because then in major home occupations you have a lot more room. Right? So if you needed more space. Yes Mike?

If I may speak to this. One of the things we want to be concerned about is truck traffic that's generated in these residential areas. So I will give you an example is we did have to enforce on a home occupation. They weren't actually permitted as home occupation, but they were getting bulk storage. They were having semis come into a residential cul de sac.

They had lifts. They were getting pallets of material, and they were rolling them up the driveway with a jack and dropping the pallets in the driveway and then they were or they were rolling them into their garage. And they were getting multiple pallets. In that particular case, that's considered bulk storage because they're displacing the parking abilities within the residential garage. And you typically wouldn't associate routine deliveries of a semi into a residential cul de sac, and they were getting pallets of materials delivered.

I also looked into our sign ordinance. Right now in a residential area, no illumination is allowed on signs. So if we're looking at lighting up a sign, that would contrary to our sign regulations in the residential district. So we do allow, like, lighting on the house, and it can shine on the address and such. In this case, I'd be careful about allowing illumination on signage because that's not typically associated with the residential area.

If somebody were to hang a neon sign in the window and say, hey, I want to put this up and it's one square foot. Foot. Or I think you got to keep in mind is they're asking for kind of an exception to a residential dwelling area to operate a business. And we're okay with it as long as they still maintain that residential feel. And so how many people are gonna put up a sign for a business on their house and try and advertise it.

And my guess is most people are probably going to, if they have a potential client or customer, they're gonna know the specific address or use Google. They're not going to be looking for a sign. They're going to be looking for the address on their phone to get them pointed in the right direction. I'd be a little cautious about opening up residential areas for illumination for sign purposes because that's not typically associated with a residential area.

I mean, so I think you can get self illuminated numbers on a house, things like that. I think that's what I'm maybe getting at is making sure there is a distinction of a light lighting something and something having its own power source and being illuminated.

I could also say to your point about even just exterior landscape lighting to like on a path. It is dark. Yeah. To what you're saying, not even to know, yeah I know where the house is, but

Yeah, I mean just

Safety like you were saying, landscape lighting.

I get pizza delivery guys coming knocking on my door going, hey, are you this house? Like, no, the giant numbers on my house show, clearly show you that it's not. So, like, people already get confused. So, the point I'm trying to make is, it being, what is the wording? That it can be, it can have light on it just making the distinction that it's not self illuminated or power operated or glowy or whatever.

Because to me when I read it, it made me think that it's, can't have a light on it either. It's just how I read it. As written, yeah, would

be no illumination. We do have in our definitions different types of illumination in our sign ordinance, we'd wanna clarify in here. If preference or desire is to allow external elimination, we'd just have to clean up our ordinance here to state no internal elimination, if that's something that the commission feels would be acceptable.

Ryan before we move on there was one potential addition where it talks about 500 square feet. Correct, so the occupation does not occupy more than 500 square feet of the gross floor area of one story, do we need to add or accessory building since we're calling out that it can be either now?

That crossed my mind too.

I

don't know if you would want to say or because accessory structures could be pretty small.

Yeah, I think because number one says the occupation must be conducted within the principal building or accessory building, the occupation then doesn't take more than 500 square feet. So that would be for either or both or whatever.

Location.

Maybe we want to look at doing no more than 500 square feet of the gross floor area of principal and extra structure combined potentially to?

Yes.

Does that make more sense?

That does.

You could probably just combine those into one sentence.

All right, any other questions on the minor section?

Mr. Chair, I do have one more on this. Just as an example because it says mechanical equipment which is not customarily or ordinarily used for household or hobby purposes is prohibited. So is that for like a trucking company that works out of their home that parks their semi on the street? Is that what you're thinking on that? Is a vending machine company that has their trailer and truck with product. Is that what that's kind of there for? Think it's

more so for actual mechanical equipment on the home itself and not necessarily related to parking. Like if somebody had like a drive through window on the side of their home, that'd be a mechanical item, it's not customary to a household. That's my interpretation of that, Mike.

I would agree. It's more if you have to make modifications to your mechanical system, whether it be for ventilation purposes.

So a commercial kitchen or a device or mechanical device or something on the house, on or in the house. All right. So, the last section then, let's see, permit from minor. All right, so major home occupations. Changes we made here were less substantial, more reorganization.

Number two, the occupation is clearly incidental clearly incidental and secondary to the principal use of the dwelling for residential purposes. That was moved to our new prohibited Section six and seven. There shall be no exterior display, exterior storage or other exterior indication of home occupation except for a sign. Seven, no occupation shall require substantial interior external alterations or involve construction features not customary to any dwelling unit. That was moved.

Nine and ten are the toxic flammable explosive. 10 is the offensive odors dust glare. Those were moved. We added at a section seven, the home occupation may have two clients' customers at any one time. An example of that would be, you know, like if you do have, well, previously, we would have required that as like a condition of like a hair salon.

So we would continue that treatment for any home occupations that are become major and have clients there. So we're limited to two clientscustomers at any one time. No changes to eight through 10. And we added on, again, that reorganization item of prohibited uses. We eliminated all the itemized businesses.

Permit would still be required through a conditional use permit. Article five of this chapter, that's the conditional use permit section. And then, as I mentioned, that section prohibited home occupations, so the following are prohibited for all home occupations. One, the use of property as a business in which the business activities are the primary use of the property. Two, exterior displays, exterior storage, or other exterior indication of the home occupation three, internal alterations or construction features not customary in a dwelling unit Four, toxic, explosive, flammable, combustible, corrosive, radioactive, or other restricted materials are prohibited.

Five, any process or activity which causes offensive odors, dust glare, noise, smoke, heat, or vibration detectable to normal senses off the property, and any equipment or process which creates visible or audible interference in radio or television receivers. And six, those hours of operation, employees, clients, customers, or activity that would be visible to adjacent neighbors between the hours of nine p. M. And six a. M, those would all be prohibited for any of the uses, minor, no impact, or major.

And then, I guess, the last item that we added, compliance with state and federal laws. All home occupations shall comply with applicable state and federal regulations, including but not limited to licensing, taxation, health and safety standards, and any industry specific requirements. The issuance of a permit under this section does not exempt the applicant from obtaining other permits or approvals required by law. This came up most recently with a couple of gunsmithing businesses, gun cleaning, gun fixing, where they are required to have their state and federal permits. So, this just kind of cleans that up and applies it to all home occupations, rather than adding as a condition.

Any final questions on those sections?

Sorry Ryan did say did I miss anything about parking parking was called out in other places and traffic did I miss it in this one?

Parking is not called out in the prohibited H there, we just have it mentioned in other sections individually where they are. So like in the no impact, We would maintain it in the no impact based off of our discussion.

That's a

minor right?

Okay major home ownership was two on premises

parking spaces. Oh you're major? Yeah.

Two on premises in addition to those required for the dwelling unit that still maintains for the major.

Okay and then I guess where my math is working is if we say that two clients can be there at the same time And then we call out at the end that employees, are we putting any number of employee count on this? It's at the very bottom.

Number three.

So number three here, residents of the dwelling unit and one person who does not reside in the dwelling unit may be employed or participate in the home occupation, so it would be limited to two. Well I guess residents could be multiple residents plus one additional non resident.

So now if I've got an employee and two clients somebody's got to fight for a parking spot?

So yeah, is a home occupation, a single family dwelling would require two spaces for the homeowners, so those would be their parking spaces, employee parking would essentially be the homeowner.

And then

the two would be for the two clients or or customers.

My

question would just be general. Are there unintended consequences for no oversight on no impact home occupation and I would point to the previous application with the gunsmith next to the school it' my understanding that this had been adopted prior to that that wouldn'92t have even been administratively approved is that accurate?

The one next to the school. Yes. Because in that case, they actually did not do any on-site training or merchandise. That was one of the requirements was that they had to do everything off-site. So in that case, they would have had no on-site I guess they didn't have on-site sales. They were doing sales, and employees were picking them up. There was no training on-site.

So, yeah, think there would be no impact.

Think with

that would have to look at the sales component of it. If there is on-site sales

I believe with that business, he had to do the point of sale at another licensed distributors or sale. He couldn't actually do them on his premise. So he'd have to team up with another licensed retailer of firearms and do the point of sale at that location.

So if there's no on-site sales, there's no on-site training, then that would be one that would qualify as a no impact.

Yeah, I'm not trying to create more work or undo regulation, it's worth considering maybe the city can comment on how burdensome administrative approval will be for no impact home occupation. If it makes sense to allow it to be done without any oversight by the city.

I think we need to go back to the no impact. And so is it entirely computer or Internet based? Does it cause any on street parking? Doesn't include on-site sales, and it's not a prohibited activity in March. I mean if it meets those, know, to a certain point, it's just like when somebody goes through our zoning ordinance and it's a permitted use, you know, they provide us the information, we review it.

If it meets all the criteria of a permitted use, it's really not heavily regulated until you get complaints. And then we investigate it. So, like, if they check the boxes and say they're doing all these things of a no impact, and they basically, submit the application and it's approved. And then if there are concerns that are raised after the fact through monitoring, then we could go in and enforce if we observe that they're in violation of one of those things.

So maybe I misunderstood. They a person would still have to apply

There'd be for kind of a checklist that we'd go through. They would have to check to okay, this is what we're proposing. Does it is it computer Internet based? Yes or no. Are you doing you know, requiring any on street parking? Are you requiring are you having any on-site sales? You kind of go through that checklist and answer the questions. It's similar to like our minor major home occupation right now. We have a checklist that they go through and they fill it out and answer the questions. We'd have to do something similar for the no impact, the minor and the major.

So is there something else that could be added to this just so this is purely supposed to be somebody working on a computer basically at their own home right essentially so I know that guy had no I'm just going to use this as an example because it was brought up he had no on-site sales or on-site training but there was a bunch of stuff shipped there to be sold off-site right he was receiving parts at that location which I would say that would potentially up the traffic I' just trying to think of like this to me that generated probably more discussion due to the location next to the school and you know the questions that were had and I didn' have a problem with it but I would be a little bit concerned with that just going without and I guess I guess I would just say if he' having if they're having a bunch of stuff that's being shipped to their home that's being sold off-site I would think that would be an impact to the neighborhood and not in the spirit of the no impact category.

In that particular case, in that example, you'd still have to get his state and federal license requirements.

I also think that is no longer purely computer based at that point, right?

That's kind of what I was getting at. It's not just a computer based business. So there, it's not in the spirit of that no impact because you're having parts shipped on-site that just because it's not being sold there, s a instead of just no on-site sales or on-site training maybe there' a I don' know you' have to figure out how you would word that with the city attorney but I would say if you' having parts shipped to your home that are being taken somewhere else and sold that is not in the spirit of the no impact home occupation and that' in my opinion.

I agree with you and I wonder if there is something like why are we even talking about sales. Is it a service that's provided? I could see that but I'm having a hard time with that one because I do go back to that conversation and that makes me think that that could just get approved through here.

I'm just thinking about, I have ADHD and way too many hobbies. I probably get more packages than a lot of people do even if he's assembling some parts or whatever. It's, I don't know how to necessarily define it, yeah, you get to a point where you have so many packages or so many deliveries or something that you were getting complaints, then maybe revisit it. But yeah, how many packages are you receiving because of a hobby or a side hustle or whatever and doesn't necessarily need to be entirely computer based. It's maybe just about the quantity of like, yeah sure I get a package of something every once in a while but it's not freight shipments on a semi, you know.

Going back to my point, you know I trust the judgment of the city, But, if I understand this correctly, if I were to want a home occupation, I get to look at this and say, I don't qualify as minor. I'm gonna I'm gonna be no impact. I decide I'm no impact. And, I don't even need to contact you, the city. Right?

I would assume that that occurs currently as it is. Yep. We'd, I would imagine there's many minor home occupations out there that are operating that never went through the process. And as long as we don't receive a complaint, how do we know about it? So it's already occurring that way.

Can't really control that. It would probably continue as is for these changes as well. The difference would be if we do get a complaint and then we investigated it and if it did meet the no impact occupation, we would just complete our investigation by saying you're allowed to do this by right. If it did fall under the minor home occupation requirement, we would require them to then fill out their zoning permit to get their minor home occupation.

Would it make it more clear if under the no impact it was one, such home occupation is entirely computer and or Internet based, and then underneath one, you did A, B, and C, input two, three, and four, change it to A, B, and C. So you strictly have to be computer Internet based for no impact. And then in addition to be computer Internet based, these other three categories fall underneath that or these other three provisions fall underneath that Internet computer based, so that we don't have this confusion. So the example with that, I guess we called it a gunsmithing out by the school, is that would then be moved into a minor.

I I think you're onto I mean because that first one. I mean, if you don't meet that one, then there's no way you can meet the others.

Right. Would that make sense to make it clear? I think what we're trying to do is simplify the process because what we learned from COVID is how you conduct business now is entirely different. And just about every one of our staff in the city would be in violation because we work from home occasionally. And it's we're just computer think of all the people that work off of just simply a laptop, whether it be in a coffee shop, at home, whatnot, that they can conduct their business that that don't need to go into a traditional office setting anymore. And we're trying to allow those individuals to do what they're already doing without a heavy permitting process.

Yeah, that answers my questions.

Okay.

Yep, thank you.

So the current idea is that somebody who works from home for a company is a home occupation?

Well, it's just to clarify, yeah, because their place of business is somewhere else but they are working from home. I mean there are people that never go into an office.

Right. But I was more I more thought of this as like I am a sole proprietor. I own the company. The address of my company is my house. That would be a home occupation.

We do

We're working for my current company, but just working from home, I feel like is different because my work address is, yeah, somewhere else, you know?

Not necessarily because I know people that they never go to a physical address. They have their desk, their computer, their telephone.

But they don't own the company. They're not responsible. They don't have any legal requirements or They whatever in terms of like

have changed the use of their home. Now that is their place of business.

But it's not their business.

Guess an example here would be their work. You know, say there's say you're an online teacher. You don't own the school, but you're an online teacher. It's all completely online. Now, if you start offering like study sessions or work sessions where you're inviting your students to come and meet with you on office hours or something like that, You know, it's no longer completely remote or Internet based, but

have had people that have had to get a minor home occupation permit because they simply needed to put an address to qualify for grants. They run everything off of their computer. But in this particular case, we'd say it's a no impact. We wouldn't even make them go through the ZERP process. They're simply doing it to comply with the federal grant requirement.

I mean I think we can move on but

I actually have questions about the

major. I do think COVID did change a lot of how we work but my occupation is to my company. And so now you probably have several houses on every block where somebody's working from home.

That's why we're trying to clean this up so we don't have to send them through a whole process. They could do that by right.

Which seems like a given.

Yeah I think I think the home occupation should be defined as like you are a business owner or something or somebody working from, because, so is a stay at home mother, is that home occupation? Because that's a hard job to have.

I think you're going over the extreme there, but when somebody is converting a room to an office for a business located off-site, I know people that do not set foot in the place of business where they are technically employed. They do not even have a location they can physically go to. So now they have converted bedrooms to offices and have changed the use of their home for their occupation. We're just trying to streamline this so that we Yes. Don't

I'm make just confused about like how the current unchanged situation defines that. But I get that there needs to be something for that, but I don't think that somebody just working from home for a company,

like a I just want to mention center, like that's I just want to mention that the county planning and zoning does start at 07:00, so we'll probably have to move our second discussion item on to February. Okay. We don't need to we're about getting to that last item. We're to wrap up the discussion on home occupations. We still have few minutes, but we're not going get to that last item. I think Mike has one final comment, too, when we adjourn. So feel free to wrap up the discussion here on home occupations. We're not going to get to subdivision.

Yeah, so yeah, I apologize, I wanna get back to questions that I had about the major home occupation. So, number three, so one person residence of the dwelling unit plus one person, whatever, that one person at a time? Or just one employee ever that can set foot?

That's one. One at a time. So if you have the number of residents in a dwelling, so if it's a family of three, you know, it's a family business and all three of them work in the business, and then they bring in, they can bring in one at any time that does not reside in the dwelling unit. So if their family grows to four, they could have five employees, the

What four I'm more getting at is me as a designer, I wanted, if I needed an intern, but one intern was only available on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but there was another intern available on Thursdays and Fridays, or Tuesdays and Fridays, whatever, to where there was never more than one at one time, but there were technically two employees.

It's one employee at a time. I think as long as they're not stepping foot in the home, you're probably never going to know the difference. I think the intent is that it's the employees that are in the dwelling. So, the family, and if you had one intern come in physically, and then that changed from Tuesday to Thursday, as long as it's one intern, I think that would probably be just fine. They both couldn't come in at the same time.

Think we'd probably need to have more discussion on that because I would disagree. Because I certainly don't want a landscape company that's got 20 employees and you're allowed to have 20 different people come at different times of the day to the house because that's not typical with a residential setting. So I think we have to probably clarify that and make a determination on that because we still need to keep in mind the primary purpose is a residential structure for residential living and you've got residential neighbors, and that the commercial business is completely secondary. And so I think we need to make sure we're protecting the integrity of residential neighborhoods, But still allowing individuals to work from their homes but without you know creating a negative impact into that residential setting.

So major home occupation would still come to this board though for approval, right? So, we'd be looking at all those things.

Through a conditional use process.

Yes. Yeah. So, it's not like it'd be administrative. So, I mean, do you have to have the language absolutely air tight on it, I guess is

Yes, because another question was going to be regarding the parking. If somebody came in with what would be otherwise considered a major home occupation, but they had in some way, shape or form a way to show that they don't have any need for parking, do they still have to have two parking spaces?

For a major home occupation, they would need to have, they would need to prove on their site plan that they have two off street parking spaces in addition to the parking spaces required for the residential dwelling. They would need to confirm that on their site plan.

If they can't, I guess they could pursue the route of conditional use and variance to the parking requirements, which now that the Planning Commission acts as the Board of Adjustment, you would see all of that. In a previous world when they were two separate boards, we ran into that quite a bit where they would come and show a site plan saying they meet all the requirements for conditional use, get approved, and then turn around and go to the Board of Adjustment as a separate body and get a variance because they couldn't meet the requirements that they just told the Planning Commission and City Council that they could meet. Now that we're one in the same body, you would see all of that. So they have to be a little bit more upfront and honest on their application and submittals.

So, I think in order to get out on time, maybe one or more one or two more questions, if anyone has them. And we'll adjourn and let Mike make his announcement. Okay entertain a motion and second to adjourn. So moved. We're adjourned. Mike?

My one thing is we're trying to set up a training session with the city attorney. I'd like to do a training session with the city council planning commission and historic preservation. Those are our three most public serving bodies. They're looking at a potential study session on January 20, if we can pull enough people together. So if that date works, what I can also do is we can send out an email tomorrow, just a quick poll to see if you're available on that particular date.

We may be looking at an additional option is maybe the February 17, but it was gonna be I think the city attorney was gonna provide a conflict of interest type training session for our three most publicly facing bodies. Study sessions, I think let me verify. But I think they started five or 05:30. I can verify the time. We just gotta see who's available and since we had a was it was brought up at like 04:55 today.

So, I'm like, we got a meeting tonight. BHPC meets Thursday and they're talking with the council members this week to see if they can get enough in attendance. If not, I said we could at least record it. It would be typically, study sessions are next door, so it would still be recorded, and we could put it on the team site for planning commission members to see. But sometimes it's nice to attend those because if you have questions you can kind of do a Q and A with the city attorney on that. Just to keep in mind we'll send out an email tomorrow too. Just wanted to see if there'd be one interest and two potentially try and keep that date opening if you're available. So, thank you.

Thanks everybody. I think these are actually gonna be for Scott. Scott, can I grab your signatures one last time please?