Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the Town of East Troy Planning Commission for the month of July. I'd like the record to show that Commissioner Gordon has been excused, and we have Commissioner Scott Nelson sitting in for us as well. How we work is we have a format where we'll have the applicant come up, state their name and address for the record, tell us what they're looking for, give us a brief description. The commission will then ask some questions of the applicant before we let you sit down. Then the applicant sits down. We have a short discussion. Then we open it up to the audience. If anybody in the audience would like to speak in favor of the proposal, if anybody would like to speak against the proposal, and then if necessary, the applicant could have a short rebuttal. Um, we then have our discussion and, um, most likely we will at least make a decision tonight, assuming we have all the information we need. If not, it will adjourn till next month's meeting. First item on the agenda is to review and approve the plan commission meeting minutes. I know they came out kind of late. Did everybody have a chance to take a peek at them?

Yes.

Anybody have any issues? No. Take a motion. I make a motion that we approve the Planning Commission minutes. We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second?

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next item in the agenda is a conditional use amendment at N9619 County Road, ES, McGuanagoe, 53149, parcel PA4273000001, Lauren Taff, Connie Bauer, agent, owner, Jason Mann is the applicant. Whoever would like to speak, please come up and give us a little background.

How's it going? My name is Jason Mann. I'm a real estate agent for Connie and Lauren and Tyler. Throughout the process of attempting to get their property sold, we were made aware of a conditional use permit that was granted. some years ago with the previous owners where they were to attach the house to the garage and for whatever reason this conditional use permit makes their house not legal to be lived in on their property is my understanding. Now I may not understand it 100%, but that's the way I feel I understand it. So the reason for the amendment request is just basically to make their house legal to be their property is zoned B1, but for whatever reason, the previous owners, I don't understand why they would have wanted to connect the house to the garage. I don't understand that part, but for whatever reason, it makes their house illegal, and they're not able to live in it, I guess is my understanding. So we're trying to fix that problem.

Okay. Questions for the applicant? I guess my biggest question is, well, go ahead.

Yeah, one question for the applicant. Do you intend to run a business or do you intend to occupy this as a home?

The house is under contract and it will be sold. We're literally just waiting for this conditional use amendment to go through so that the house can be a legal residence. They do own a business. They run a property management company. They have an LLC for it. I don't remember the exact name for it, but the people that are moving into the property, And they would use the office space in the barn, which should be the business area, is my understanding, for that purpose.

Okay, and then with the business, would you see customers coming and going? Is this really just a residence that you're operating, a remote-style business that's not really going to service customers?

Yeah, my understanding is that it would not have foot traffic, parking traffic, or anything like that. But I'd never even spoken with them. I just asked their agent. Do they own a business? Yes, they do own a business. She gave me the name of the business. I looked up the business on the DFI website. It exists. It has their name associated with it. Now the exact ins and outs of it, I don't 100% know. But I don't think that they're going to have any foot traffic, parking traffic, things like that.

And it's zone B1. I was just looking for just a clarification on the use of the property, really. But that's the only question I had today.

It's more like the residence is more the conditional use than the business kind of. Yeah, right. So it is kind of an interesting thing. But I guess I'm not 100% sure what you're asking for.

So there is a conditional use. The previous owners filed for a conditional use permit that one of the requirements was they needed to attach the barn to the home. They never did that. It's not attached to it. But for whatever reason, what they attempted to do made the, let's call it a mother-in-law suite, but it will be used for the office for the new owners. It made that the legal residence. And the house, not a legal residence. The house is considered the business caretaker's I don't want to use the word residence, I guess, but that's the word that I saw on the document was the house is considered like the caretaker of the businesses. I guess I'm going to have to use residence because I don't have a better word.

Okay. I guess the only concern I would have is as long as it's not going to be multifamily where I've run into where, okay, here's, this is just the mother-in-law suite, but then you have a separate engine separate. Now it's a two family. Now it's not our one. Again, this is, this is B1. So yeah. Again, a different animal, not that we'd want multifamily and B1 anyway, but I guess to me it's kind of a correction of a previous, or really it's almost like taking that previous conditional use away.

To me, that's what it seems like. It seems like they intended to do something that they never went through with, and this is just correcting the problem, in my opinion.

Does that outbuilding have facilities within a bathroom? Is it effectively an in-house?

It was previously used as the break room for a water company, is my understanding. Someone that owned a water company ended up selling it to the... I don't know all these details, but yes, there are facilities out there. There's a bathroom. There's a sink to wash your hands. They used it as a break room. Kitchenette. Yeah, kitchenette, yep.

And of course, we're not getting any information from the potential buyer. And the information that we received tonight says there will be no outdoor storage, there will be no material storage of any kind, and there'll be just vehicles inside the building itself. So. I'm just a little confused and questioning as to what we could possibly do here. This is unconventional, but would a split zoning of this parcel be what they're looking for and actually make part of it R1, part of it B2 or B1? I mean, this is beyond confusing. I read it three times, looked things up, and no offense, but then the description is every time you say, I don't know what they want to do, I don't know how to make a judgment on what the potential buyer wants to do when we don't know what they're going to do with this. I just, go right ahead.

Okay. Okay.

You have to go to the microphone. Oh, I'm sorry.

I didn't know. Please help. Yeah, come on up to the microphone. Yeah, please help. It's okay. No, I appreciate it. I've never spoken with them directly.

My name is Ted Johnson. I'm an attorney over in Elkhorn. The buyer contacted us. His name is Jared Playley, but he intends to and is the one that's under contract to purchase the property. The use that he will put to it, again, they want to live in the home as their home and use the current pole building or building business structure as that for his business, which will be, as it says in the application, JCP property management property. I think the confusion for the commission here is based on, and certainly nothing that Mr. Mann has stated, but it's really the prior owner's failure to... But under B1 zoning... under the county zoning ordinance, which the town uses. It allows, obviously, the business use that our clients want to put the property to, but it also has as a conditional use, and I read number Q under conditional uses, one dwelling unit. when located outside the principal business structure so i think the confusion is that the old conditional use permit if they connected them it would have had one one structure essentially and here there's two structures that never was connected but the house will be the one business you for one dwelling unit And that's what we want it designated as. And then in addition, in the principal business structure, the amendment really seeks that there will be no residential or dwelling allowed in that business structure. And so it's one and one, but both of them are allowed in the dwelling unit. under B1 is allowed by conditional use, and that's why it's here as an amendment to the conditional use. It's not in a business park. It's not your typical storefront. It's a residence with a business property on it, but it's also a business with a residential property on it. and it just happens to be allowed under B1 as two separate structures. So hopefully that helps clarify. But I think the amendment is to say that the business structure, the pole building, if you will, will be used for business purposes only, no residential use in there, and the house will be used as the one dwelling unit allowed by conditional use. and that's what they intend to do, no resident. To your point, Chairman, that there's no intended plan to rent it out, to have another residence within the business structure. It does have a break room, refrigerator, sink, and stuff like that, but there's no overnight stays. It won't be rented as such and won't be allowed to.

That's very helpful. Thanks. Any other questions of the applicant? Or the buyer's attorney. Okay, thank you. Thank you. In my opinion, this is how it's been used. To me, it's kind of an I dotting and T crossing. It's always had a residence. It's always had, whether it was conditional use the wrong way, but again, B1 does allow for residence on B1. To me, it's pretty clear, and again, it's just more can't sell until this is cleaned up, but that's just one person's take.

And I don't think B1 allows for multifamily, so even if it was conceivably an in-law suite, that wouldn't be allowed.

Correct, correct. And I know we always try to foresee what could the next person do, and let's try to get ahead of that. But again, that's not what we're a lot. We're not approving multifamily. We're not approving a two-family. It's residence, business, separate buildings. That is what the condition you use calls for. So we're kind of bringing it back into compliance in my mind.

And I think the key word is condition.

Oh, correct.

So if it is violated... upon sale and whatnot, we always have that opportunity to go back because they're not following really what conditions a B1 allows. Correct. Correct. For that in itself, as long as the information presented here tonight is not misleading, I don't see there would be much of a problem.

Understood. Any other discussion amongst commissioners? All right. At this point, I'd open it up to the audience. Would anybody like to speak in favor of the proposal? Would anybody like to speak against the proposal? then I think we could take a motion tonight. Scott?

I will present the motion that we approve the conditional use to clear up the verbiage for parcel number PA-4273-00001 for the conditional use of a residence and a commercial business on the same parcel.

We have a motion to approve. Do we have a second? I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next item on the agenda, is there any other business amongst commissioners to discuss? Any public comment? Then I would take a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn. I second.

We have a motion that we have a second. All those in favor of adjourning, say aye. Aye. Opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you.