Planning & Zoning - Regular Meeting

we live now can't see can't see any name address this clock is off so we'll use this one here seconds remind I've to ask questions about what get 160 good two minutes that clock is off oh it's this one okay all right I'm going to call the meeting to order um this the January 2025 meeting of the Republic Planning and Zoning commission uh Patrick or Chris one of you call the role please commissioner Alexander here commissioner de braa here commissioner Ellis here commissioner means here commissioner Haider commissioner man here commissioner Bridges here okay um first item of business is the approval of the agenda has anyone have any changes or suggested changes to the agenda motion to approve I have a motion to approve is anybody second second I have

a second call the roll commissioner Bridges hi commissioner man I commissioner means hi commissioner Ellis I commissioner de braa I commissioner Alexander I okay next item of business is the approval of the minutes from the 12 to 24 meeting anyone have any changes that need to go to that motion to approve thank you Jo your second second call the RO please commissioner means I commissioner man I commissioner Bridges I commissioner Ellis I commissioner de braa I commissioner Alexander abstain okay next item uh we have uh three public hearings and because of that we will I need Patrick is it Patrick tonight Patrick uh will read the meeting procedures for everyone thank you the Planning and Zoning commission holds public hearings as required by law and provides recommendations to City Council on matters relating to land use planning zoning and the subdivision of land any person who has an interest in the subject matter of a hearing will have the opportunity to provide testimony and present evidence to the commission during the public hearing speakers are required to conduct themselves in an orderly and respectful manner disruptive behavior including Applause yelling speaking out a turn or other inappropriate behaviors will not be tolerated Additionally the following applies to any person addressing the commission speakers are limited to 5 minutes unless authorized additional time by the chairperson speakers must speak at the podium unless previous Arrangements have been made at The Chair by the chairperson speakers must legibly print their name and address on the signin sheet at the

podium prior to speaking speakers must begin by stating their name and address and lastly speaker should speak clearly and into the microphone the chairperson will announce the subject of the hearing followed by a report from staff the chairperson will then open the public hearing to the applicant followed by those in favor of the application and those opposed to the application the chairperson will close the public hearing during this time the commission will will discuss amongst themselves the public may not address the commission after to close of the public hearing unless requested by the chairperson the Planning and Zoning commission shall base the recommendation and her decision on information and evidence presented during the public hearing this decision if required by the application will be forwarded in writing to city council for further consideration thank you Patrick uh the first call to call the first uh public hearing that's o 25-1 public hearing and possible vote to recommend the approval of amendments to sections 45.02 and 45. 670 Chris has this uh would you uh please tell us about it thank you Chris Taber principal planner city of Republic staff is requesting the approval of amendments to section 45.02 definitions of article 4051 in general and section 45. 670 generally of article 405 seven I'm sorry eight special use regulations the intent of these ordinance changes is to prepare the municipal code for the possibility of future incoming special uses not currently accounted for specifically data centers and vehicular tow yards in addition it is preferable also to build in some flexibility to the code that allows city council to consider uses not specifically called out by the ordinance but which have been judged to meet the intent of the article 4058 special use regulations to this effect staff is proposing the following definition iions

to section 45.02 one data center a facility whose primary service is data processing and is used to house computer systems and Associated components such as telecommunications and storage systems including but not limited to web hosting organizations and internet service organizations a server Farm Telecom Hotel carrier hotel telea housee collocation or any other term applicable to facilities which are used for these specific purposes shall be deemed to be a data center two vehicular towy yard a secured site used for the temporary storage of vehicles that have been towed due to the due to being abandoned illegally parked involved in an accident or otherwise impounded this may also include the storage of vehicles by private individuals or businesses on a rental basis staff has then added those uses under the preferred zoning districts as well as the more General use allowance to section 4056 70 vehicular tow yards located in a C2 C3 M1 or M2 zoning District Data Centers located in an M2 zoning district and other uses not specifically listed in this chapter that the city council determines to be of a similar nature and character to the uses permitted in the applicable zoning district and that are not contrary to public interest the general or the general intent of this chapter the special use permit process allows city council to allow certain uses where preferred where preferred while also considering added limitations or restrictions on the project sites through the accompanied required development plan the two spe specified uses are possibilities staff expects we could see in the future data centers are becoming more common across the area and have po the potential to create nuisances for adjacent properties if not carefully considered the vehicular tow yard use provide some flexibility for certain properties located around areas of the city that are not easily occupiable by other uses due to constraints on a given site's utility access and the mix of the surrounding uses tow yards are currently only

possible in the heavy industrial M2 zoning District adding this as a potential special use allows the permitting of those activities as appropriate based on a case-by casee analysis of locations where staff would or would not support a reone to M2 staff is recommending approval of the referenced amendments thank you Chris uh I assume this is uh an ordinance brought by the city yes the city itself is the applicant on this great thank you uh is there anyone else here who wishes to speak in favor of this application if so come forward give us your name and tell us what we need to know don't have anybody coming forward um anyone that is opposed to this application who wishes to speak in this hearing please come forward give us your name and tell us what we need to know not seeing anyone coming forward I'm going to close the public hearing uh we will this time then discuss this um as a as a commission thoughts adding in vehicle tow yards to things as low as C to all of these being special permit that would mean each and each one of these that would want to go in would have to come through for a vote specifically as a special project correct or would it so it would come in through the public notification process a notice would be posted in the paper it would come through the Planning and Zoning commission and then two reads of the city council also required um unlike a unlike a rezone a special use permit requires a development plan in cases where we would desire one which can lay out like very specific limitations to a site and actually require the site be planned out and where where specific

uses happen on the site um prior to adoption so we're not just going to throw one next to Culver or something like that that is not the goal the goal is that there are certain places in the city that are not appropriate for M2 um we would not want to rezone that because of the types of uses that could show up there that are you know potentially Troublesome um but are currently or easily zoned to Something in the commercial like C2 um in some of these sites they simply don't have the utility requirements that we would we would require for a rezone to M2 um so we we don't want to we don't want to encourage a rezone in those cases where it's not necessary this is uh something that we view as a more easily controlled uh method and also gives a lot of flexibility to what city council requires on a specific property okay thank you what's the difference between the what I think you're trying to do with this as a Data Center and a business that has a bank of computers in the back operating its own for its own purposes so I mean is there some threshold that you can be under and not get involved with this special permit ultimately there'll be some amount of discretion in determining what exactly meets the definition you know there's no um like count of how many of those Banks of computers the goal would be to ensure that those uses that are um potential nuisances are not allowable in that area um but anything that fell under this definition cleanly would require a special use permit tell me how would be um an annoyance um so there's in some of these cases there's a large amount of noise associated with some of the cooling systems that are there um these

buildings can be really large they can be campuses we would want to like regulate spacing between adjacent properties as best as we could those are the immediate ways I can think of that screening potentially and because because you're putting it in M zoning is that in part because of the draw of electricity that it would get so it's uh it's mostly because of where we would anticipate um the city the city planning best uh where our infrastructure and where our preference for those sites are um those uses are most appropriate not along somewhere like 60 um but more along somewhere in the mm area where we you know that's kind of our industrial Corridor at this time the city kind of chooses uh you know its zoning plan is sort of based on um where where different uses should be best located for the city and some of that is related to what the city sees as profitable by you know sales tax related things and some of that is just where other things are located all of our Comm all of our commercial you know is located in a particular area and all of our industrial is as well so we would want to you know relegate those over in that area especially if they create a potential nuisance okay one final question famous last words but one final question um what if the property the the data center gets started before outside the city of Republic and then is annexed in how do you handle that so what would happen if the city annexed a property the city would take in the zoning that is most appropriate based on

what the county has so if the County's zoning was like a commercial zoning that allowed this um we would bring in that property in as annexed in the closest commercial zoning so we would then require the rezone and and I would assume the special use we've not been in that situation so i' you know i' defer to legal counsel I'm just I'm just looking at the potential problems that could happen from this one uh very well-meaning U change in the ordinance and the ordinance of course can always get changed back but it becomes extremely difficult to do that obviously if it comes in place then you have one that's already gotten the permit the city is not required to take in an Annex St applicant so I mean that alone would give us some amount of leeway as to whether we wanted that within the city or not also the county is usually very good about cooperating and bringing the city into to a lot of these decisions we often work hand inand when there's anything close to our boundaries for this for this particular use too I might note that uh they are typically large utility draws so it is most likely that they would not be located in a jurisdiction such as Green County County where there was not Municipal utility um already in place to serve that particular type of function I would expect any type of data center to require both Municipal Water Service sewer sewer service and large um available resources on the electric side okay that raises other questions in my mind but they're not involved in this so I'm good any other questions from anybody concerns Google come into Republic we have not talked come into

Republic the city has not received an application for a Google building Microsoft has yet to uh Microsoft Works too we would be happy to receive an application from either company though motion to vote on the approval of ordinance 25 001 thank you call the RO please commissioner Ellis I commissioner man I commissioner Alexander I commissioner de Brava I commissioner means I commissioner Bridges I thank you um next public hearing is uh Vaca 25- there one recommending the approval of an application to vacate a sanitary sewer easement located at Lots one and two of the Town East minor subdivision Patrick's got it thank you um before I start on the report I just wanted to make you aware that we provided a new packet with some minor changes to the legal descriptions for both of these vacations um it's not content change it's more formatting so that it matches exactly the easement that was recorded uh previously um so for the first one the bills department is requesting the vacation of approximately 5,928 ft of sanitary sewer resment located at Lots one and two of the Town East minor subdivision the bills dep department is requesting the vacation of the sanitary sewer currently present on the site land owned by Town East Center LLC or lot one and blue current Credit Union Lot 2 the reference sanitary sewer eement is currently on use for the intended purpose of construction and maintenance of infrastructure related to the sanitary sewer uh system the city has no utilities occupying this easement and has no plans for future utilities to occupy this easement uh vacating this

easement would provide more flexibility of development on vacant property uh to the North Lot two once vacated the easement will return the associated rights to the property owners of Town East Center LLC and blue credit blue current Credit Union the builds Department recommends approval of the requested sanitary sewer easement vacation okay is the applicant here uh the city was the applicant for both of these the city thank you um and you probably said that and I dismissed it uh okay so is there anyone else here who wishes to who is in favor of this uh this change who wishes to speak no one comes forward is there anyone here that is opposed to this requested change who wishes to speak see no one come forward I'm going to close the hearing and we will discuss motion to vote on the approval of vacation 25-1 second thank you call the row commissioner Bridges hi commissioner Alexander hi commissioner man hi commissioner de Brava I commissioner means hi commissioner Ellis hi let's move to the third public hearing it's uh Vaca 25-2 recommending the approval of an application to vacate a San sewer easement located at Lots one and three of town east minor subdivision now

is this where there was a change was there both of them had some small minor formatting issues that were changing but not the but not the easement numbers the lot numbers no okay um so the builds department is requesting the vacation of approximately 8,1 18 square ft of sanitary sewer easement currently present on the site of the land owned by Town East Center LLC and that's in within Lots one and three of the Town East minor subdivision uh the reference sanitary sewer easement is currently on use for the intended purpose of construction and maintenance of infrastructure related to the sanitary sewer system um the city has no occupy has no utilities occupying this easement and has no plans for future utilities to occupy this easement as well um vacating this easement would provide more flexibility of development on the vacant property to the Southwest or lot 3 um once vacated the easement will return the associated rights to the property owner Town East Center LLC the builds department is recommends approval of the requested sanitary sewer easement vacation thank you Christopher Christopher thank you Patrick okay um is there anyone that is is in favor of this application that wishes to speak no one forward coming forward is there anyone that's opposed to the application who wishes to no one coming forward we're going to close that hearing and discuss motion to approve vacation 25-2 second I have a motion in second to approve the application call the RO please commissioner de Brava I commissioner man I commissioner means hi commissioner Alexander hi commissioner

Ellis hi commissioner Bridges hi I do have a side question on it are you going to have to take the uh the uh Porta Poots too it's a joke move on it's a sanitary sewer no more sanitary sewer you know yeah okay okay other business is there other business no other business everybody sh can know citizen participation is there anyone here that wishes to speak to us about any manner of things other than the things that we have already discussed tonight come forward and tell us who you are and tell us what we need to know can't tce anybody to the Das so we'll move on um Community the ever Popular Community devel Department Development Department update I just want to welcome everybody to the building for the first uh meeting in the new council chambers and just remind everybody this is where we'll be meeting for the foreseeable future it's beautiful I especially like the fact that you put the the little fence out there so that I didn't wander all over the building trying to figure out where it was after I passed it it's loud we'll know if you go through it okay uh I'd hear a motion I'd entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second thank you call the rooll commissioner Alexander I commissioner de braa I commissioner Alis I commissioner means I commissioner man I commissioner Bridges hi thank you all