Planning and Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Everyone, I'm going to call this meeting to order uh for the March 5th, 2026 uh planning and zoning commission meeting for the city of Waverly. When you two help us with the roll call. David Larson, present. John Meyer, present. Pete Fuller, present. Stephanie Garner, David Huer, present. Kate Payne, Kathy Olsen, present. All right, perfect. That's enough for a quorum. So, we'll continue. Uh, first item is approval for tonight's agenda. I would ask for a motion. Second. All right. Been moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I. Hearing none opposed. That motion passes.

Item D on our agenda is approval as printed of our last meeting, February 5th, 2026. I ask for a motion there. Um there are some things that need to be I think there most of them were changed on the ones you got in hand but the one was posted uh the number of yes votes all the votes need to be changed because it says there were seven yeses or six yeses and one absent. So we got too many people. Uh and also on page two

uh the first the complete paragraph if you go up one two three four lines it begins notes I found the minutes are speaking in the first person I see that now it's highlighted here on mine I uh yeah if you just take out that I it all makes sense you guys have Grammarly

no so what h well with the votes What happened is when Tim got added in for our new council leaison, the system just pulled him into a voting member rather than the staff. So, we switched that. Um, but no, as far as the grammar, typically try to put it into like an editing software, but we still miss him every with those changes, I would move it be approved. Second. All right. Excellent. Thank you for those comments. Uh all in favor say I. I. Hearing none opposed. That passes as well.

It is just a little misleading there to list Tim. If you look at what Dave has as the corrected minutes, he got voted down. Yep. For some reason, he was got added into here as if he was a member.

Excellent. Okay. Um, so we're on to item E, which is our public hearing for a special provisional use amendment. Uh, so I'll just go over the basics here. So basically, I'll open a public hearing. I ask that anyone that has a comment for the commission or for uh the people on at home here I guess on video you could come to the podium state your name and address uh walk us through whatever your statements are and then once everybody's had a chance to speak I'll close the public hearing and then we'll move into some discussion on our side. So saying that I will now open the public hearing for the special provisional use amendment at 1900 Heritage Way 1902 Night Avenue by Dave Kathy. Nice to see you guys still on the board. Um I uh kind of got the runaround today from the city and the county and the um city manager uh all kind of saying not my job. Um the plan that was shown in the paper this uh today is a plan that there's no way it can be built that way. The layout is totally uh has major um issues with code. And um to just to give you two examples, uh residential buildings or residential bedrooms and buildings according to the international residential code, chapter 4 says that all bedrooms need to have

natural light. That would be a minimum clear glass area of at least 8 to 10% of the floor area. At least three to uh almost half of the bedrooms on each floor here are interior totally. There is no natural light. [snorts]

The other thing is um according to again the international residential code as well as the fire code, you're required to have one exit door to the hallway for every bedroom plus one operable emergency escape and rescue opening in every sleeping room. Those bedrooms have one exit only. So, you know, to to use this plan is just there's no way it's going to work. It's going to take a major renovation, revitalization of that whole plan. So, I don't say how you can approve something that it can't be built the way they're telling you.

[snorts]

All right. Any other members here want to make some comments here tonight for us? Yeah, feel free. Thank you. Sure. Uh West Hole Camp. I'm with the Barker Group.

Okay. Um yeah, we came here last year and did the the first remodel of this hotel um into apartments and yeah, now we have a second phase, I guess you want to call it. Um I do have my architect here that can speak upon all that if you would like. Um but uh we think it's a great plan. Um I do see what she's saying, but there are some codes that do allow what's going on there. Um, so I guess I can have Dan come up and speak up on a couple of those if he would feel up to it. Absolutely. If you would, we appreciate it.

Good afternoon or good evening. Uh, Dan Rice with Vantage Architects um [clears throat] out of Cedar Rapids. Um, to sort of respond to some of those, we have we have [clears throat] done some similar types of units like this uh in other municipalities. Um certainly we can have some conversation with the city whether that's something that they would look at approving. Uh we'd certainly want to meet code and and and make sure that we're we're we're making those that one of the other options would be to make those studio apartments where we do have a couple of the units that have some interior uh [clears throat] bedrooms. Uh so then we kind of eliminate the uh the need there for having a second means of egress. Uh but we obviously intend to make sure it meets all uh building codes and and uh would uh would pass any inspection and and plan review uh that that would be required. [clears throat] I don't know if there's any other architectural questions while I'm up here. Um we I think we did submit um some elevations and such. We obviously the building would remain fairly [clears throat] unchanged on the exterior other than adding some metal panels similar to what they did on the other piece to provide some some relief and some character. But uh and we we've put some additional windows on the south side uh um which will have some great views out, you know, 8 foot tall windows uh to the floor. So, it's uh we think we've got some really good uh units in that the southern section. So, happy to answer any other questions you guys might have.

Okay, I don't see any yet. [clears throat] All right. Any other comments from anyone in the audience here with us tonight? You can come back. It's okay.

I'm confused as to why the architect doesn't know what the city code is, the building code. There may be other codes that allow what he's saying, but the first thing an architect does is find out what the pertinent code requirements are. Okay. So, we have some stuff to talk about. Any other comments from the public? Speak now or I'll clo I'm going to close the public hearing now and move to our side of the discussion um with the commission. Well, um, when I looked at this, I considered this a a conceptual drawings, certainly not final design plans, and I agree that it needs to meet all the codes that apply to the city of Waverly. Um, that's something the architect and the building official are going to have to work through. planning and zoning in my mind and I think that's we are talking about land use. Should this be a multifamily conversion or not? That's the special use provision. Um so that's my mindset and frankly I think it's a good thing to do. We need those kinds of dwelling units. um the amount of remodel it takes to make it meet the code. You know, the first step is to get the special provisional use and they're going to have to decide after that whether it's economical or not. So, you

know, that's that's the way I feel about it. So, I would I would support the change. [snorts] um obviously conditioned upon um that it meeting all applicable building codes for the city of Waverly. Uh the only other comment I would I would make with the approval of this um it's no longer going to become a hotel and event center and I would like to see the sign get changed. There are some uneducated people that uh pull up to the door and they think they're going to get a pizza and they don't know. You know, I I would hope that if it gets approved through the board of adjustment that the sign, you know, if they want to call it the Red Fox Apartments or Red Fox in something or other, but that the hotel event center gets removed and the restaurant signs get removed. Okay. But that's the way I feel.

Okay, Dave, you look like you have a a little frown on your face. Are you studying something? No, I'm just I'm just [clears throat] listening. What's going on? I'm just looking at it. Sorry, I didn't. Yeah. Um, so a question I typically ask here, I guess, have we, Paige, did you uh receive any correspondence um from the 250 ft notification? No, there were no other comments. She did come in and speak um to staff earlier today.

Okay. So what would be the next step that you would take uh from an architectural perspective uh to bring this to code? We're you know responding a little bit to are you aware of the code? Are you not aware of what the city code is? [clears throat]

I think it's a great question. Um, and I I would agree that the these are pretty conceptual plans at this point. We're trying to this is one of the very first steps in this process. Um, so we wanted to provide some layout so we could understand the number of units that were needed etc. [clears throat] So that kind of gave us that for sort of first step. uh with approval tonight, we would obviously start a communication with the the the city and uh building officials there to kind of move this forward and do some preliminary review to make sure that we're in compliance or if we if there's something there that we we need to adjust, we're happy to do that. So, we obviously want to need to and will build it to uh building code. So how how many units do you have right now uh that are apartments as opposed to hotels and how in the end [clears throat] how many

so apartments would you when completed uh this this concept as we show show now has 81 units total um and I believe there's 34 in the east building um we're going to do on the north side I don't remember how many exist right now on the on the last. I think we've got the numbers list total right now when we go up to Yeah. So, we're going to add 12 more on the north side and then we'll have 14 I think on the south side

on the second page of the draw up there. It's got a tabulation. Well, I would be willing to put a motion on the floor uh move that the planning and zoning commission recommend approval of the special provisional use amendment at 1900 Heritage Heritage Way to the board of adjustment uh subject to compliance to all applicable building codes and uh the removal of the sign in 60 90 I don't know some number of days, 90 days, let's say, or modification of the sign.

Yeah, I think our code once you know for sure that business is gone and not coming, I think it's is it 30 days? Yeah, I believe it's 30 days that you're supposed to have to sign that. Does anybody know a sign company close that comply with all applicable provisions of code? Thank you. Second motion. All right, we have a motion that's been moved and seconded on this. I would ask for a vote. So, all in favor of John's comments for the motion, please say I. I. Hearing none opposed, that motion passes with those changes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Board of adjustment meets when? Monday. Monday. [clears throat]

Okay. Moving on to item F in our regular business section. It's a vacation of an alleyway between 500 West Premier Avenue and 117 5th Street Northwest Waverly. Paige, could you walk us through that agenda memo?

Yeah, so this is an alleyway that [clears throat] um staff identified that is no longer being used as an alleyway. Um confirming with public works department, we haven't even been accessing it for garbage recycling, anything like that, snow removal. I think they even the prior owner did snow removal, everything like that. Um so we're in the process of looking to vacate that and then convey to the adjoining owner. Um we will create an easement for the public utilities and retain that prior to conveyance. I thought we did that back when uh it was sold to uh when the car wash went out and it was sold to Quickstar.

I was pretty we had discussion at that time but I thought it was taken but that's fine but I we're sure that that wasn't already done. Yeah. Or maybe it never got filed, you know, too. It could be. I guess it's kind of like also all those all the pieces that Bill Worer identified just before he left, you know. This falls into that same Y category list that we I thought we had everything pretty well covered.

Yep. This one was not on that one. Um and there's a sewer main. There's um overhead utility lines, things like that. So, that might be why it was not included. Um, but we're working with our attorneys and if this gets forwarded on, then we'll have them create that easement. Make sure somebody records the deed. We will. [laughter] We will, you know, if if it gets approved. Yes. Make a motion that the planning and zoning commission recommend approval of the vacation of the alleyway between 500 West Breamer and 117 Fth Street Northwest Waverly.