Planning and Zoning Meeting - Regular Meeting

Okay.

Well, it's meeting in the planning commission order. It's Thursday, August 20th, 2026. And the time is 601 p.m. Jenny, can you please call the roll?

Matt?

Here.

Mary? Here. Seth?

Here.

Bill?

Here.

Steve?

Here.

We have a quorum.

The next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes from July 23rd, 2026. Planning Commission meeting, are there any additions or corrections? Seeing no changes, I will take a motion to approve the minutes. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. I'll second. All right. All in favor? Everybody? Anybody opposed? All right, motion is approved. We will now open the floor for public comments at 6.01 p.m. This portion is for comments on items not scheduled for public hearing this evening. Speakers are asked to state their name and address for the record. And seeing no comments, This public comments are now closed at 6.02 p.m. We have no new business. Move on to election of officers. The next item on our agenda is the election of officers. We will first elect a chairperson. Nominations are now open.

We also have one more person coming that's going to be appointed on Monday's Board of Aldermen meeting. to replace Mr. Badgley. Just to let everybody know. But I think we can still move forward with appointments because he'll be new and need to learn first.

So who wants to take my job?

Do you still want your job?

I mean, I'll do it. I mean, I care very much for this city. And doing my job will work.

Okay. Any other nominations or anyone like to nominate Matt?

I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Seeing none, that motion is approved. Congratulations to me.

Oh, boy.

We'll now proceed with the election. Secretary nominations are now open.

I nominate Steve.

Second.

All righty. Pretty easy job these days. What's that? Pretty easy job.

Well, yeah. I thought that it's a year term.

We were supposed to do them in April.

I don't think I started until February.

I think I'm sure that I didn't start. I think it was because Ruth came off maybe. And Ruth was secretary.

I don't know. Politics got in the way.

I don't know.

I can't spell.

We'll start. This will be from today until next April. It is supposed to be a year, but we were supposed to do this in April. We just forgot.

All I was told was, can you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Oh, man. Oh.

Okay, any other nominations? All right. All in favor?

We do motion second. Okay.

Anybody opposed? No. All right. Well, that motion is passed. Congratulations to you. Make it look good, okay?

You have to sign something. Sign off on it.

Sign stuff.

Yeah, that's another thing too. We usually did the, what did we do? Co-chair. Yes. And then we realized that the ordinance doesn't say to do a co-chair.

There is no co-chair in our ordinance. So that's something we probably need to fix or figure out when Matt's not here.

No, because we have to change the ordinance. So it's not that simple. That's why we didn't change it.

I know. It just doesn't say that. Do what?

We can't.

And we pressured. I want to nominate Mary to be the second.

Who's second? I think Mary does a good job. All right. we're we we are in a stage in odessa's history where we are hyper focused on what we're supposed to do not just doing things anymore so it's kind of clunky for that reason I think that can also be, we have went out for a bid for our UDO, our Unified Development Code or Unified Development Ordinance, and we've got our bids back. We received four different consulting companies that can help us with that. We'll pick one, but four bids were received. But that's something they will also be able to help us look at. That's kind of the gist of what they're doing is looking at any of our codes that are development-focused, making sure they make sense and then modernizing and improving them. So it'll be probably an entire year long process and they'll work with you. There'll be public meetings and things like that. But that's the reason why we're doing that is for things like that, that that's obviously a very small minuscule thing, but there's also large development issues that we have in our code too. We beat that on being addressed. So just give you an update on that real quick. Yeah. We might put on old business just a UDL update so we can give them what's going on each time. Okay. That's all I have for that.

We'll now continue our discussion on parking and driveways.

Okay. So what we've done is we, so we started discussing the code and going kind of plugging away at different sections of the parking code because it's, it's a very long and elaborate kind of in its piecemeal. So There'll be some things about parking under residential, some things about parking under industrial, some things about parking under parking. So what we've done was after we've had all of our conversations, you guys kind of plugged in what you guys think is necessary. In order to approve this, we will redact everything that's parking related, completely repeal it from the ordinance and then adopt a new ordinance. that puts parking all in a nice little package in all in one section instead of all over the place. So this is our attempt at a completely new structure to parking in this layout. So once we actually do approve it, when we approve it, we're going to be repealing. It's going to say like, you know, strike this, this, this and this and this and this and then adopt this. code so if you were to go look at like section 50-578 it may not be the same title anymore as what's in our old code to what we're proposing to you now so this is kind of I think we're at a good, we're at a, we're approaching the end of this conversation, hopefully where we've, we've kind of talked through all the weeds of it. And now it's just now that we've put it in completely new format and structure, this is me and Jenny working hard to do that. Does it make sense? And if we read through it, are there any issues or contradictions that we feel like maybe aren't necessary? So. I think tonight if we just go through these section by section, I know it's a lot, but it's really not the same time. And there's things that we could have totally missed. So feel free to call those out. That's the point here. It's kind of our last hurrah. And anything highlighted in yellow are things that we've discussed and you guys have landed on revision. So we've plugged those in. So this is going to be called Article 3, Off-Street Parking and Loading. And we'll just go through it. So section 50-575, purpose and intent. The purpose of this article is to ensure adequate off-street parking and loading facilities for all land uses. Two, promote safe and efficient vehicle circulation. Three, reduce congestion on public streets. Four, minimize conflicts between vehicle and pedestrians. Five, protect adjacent residential areas from adverse impacts of parking areas. Six, establish uniform standards applicable throughout the city. The requirements of this article shall apply to all zoning districts unless expressly modified by another provision of this chapter. So then we start with division one, which is just general parking standards. And then division two and three are later. So division two is required parking by land use. And division three is district specific standards and division four maintenance. So general parking standards. Off-street parking and loading facilities shall be provided for all uses established, enlarged, expanded, or substantially altered after the effective date of, and then we put a blank in there because historically we say after the effective date of this or after the passage of this ordinance. Well, then the ordinance gets passed 20 more times throughout 100 years of history, and we don't know what date. We're grandfathering people for this line. If we put the date in the ordinance, then we don't not know when the date was. So that was our thought process there. So it'll be anything before this date is then technically grandfathered. And when it comes to parking, that's where you get your grandfathered gravel. That's a prime example of that. Okay, all parking spaces shall remain available for parking purposes and shall not be reduced below the requirements of this article. No parking area shall be used for materials or vehicle storage, display, sale, or repair activities unless specifically authorized by this chapter. There's a little typo there. That next section, dash 5577, should not be an A. It should just be the next section. Location of parking areas. All parking areas shall be located on the same lot as the principal use unless otherwise permitted herein. So there was already language in there about the proximity of your parking to your parcel. And it has to be on the same parcel unless... We didn't change anything here except for maybe the highlighted area would be maybe an area that could be adjusted. So...

All.

So this could be like you have like Valero and then next to Valero there's a parking lot next to Valero. Or it could be a church and the parking lot is next to or on the same parcel or is it Caddy Corner or does it skip down the road or wherever Where is that parking lot adjacent to the parcel itself, to the main use itself? So it's the location of the parking area is the title. So that being said, they have to be located on the same lot or Offsite parking may be approved by conditional use permit when located within 200 feet. That's adjustable from the lot lines of the principal use to the closest parking stall within the parking area, exclusive of street and alley widths. Or two and and number two, it has to have direct access to a public street. So the biggest thing that we changed on this one was requiring, not requiring, but explaining that where the 200 feet is calculated from. So before I think it might have just said 200 feet from the parcel. And we're like, well, for our purposes, we need to know how we're going to measure that. Is that from the edge of the parcel, from the farthest point away from the parcel? How do we measure that? the 200 feet. So we said from the plot line to the very first parking stall that you have. It could not be more than 200 feet.

And that's just a clarification of what you had, basically.

Yes, to an extent, yeah. But it can still be changed. Anything in here can be changed if we don't agree with it. Just because it was in there before doesn't mean it was good.

How does it work downtown? Who owns the parking spots downtown?

Those are public parking spots. So it'd be like if you were to walk down Dryden, there's public parking along the street. The downtown area is the same thing. It's public parking along the street.

How does that work?

Mm-mm.

This is just off street parking. Yeah.

So this is anything that would be not on the street. You can't count the public street as your parking lot. So if you have a business that does X and you're required to have 10 parking stalls, you can't count public parking as your 10 parking stalls. You have to accommodate with 10 parking stalls on privately owned property.

Is there anybody downtown that would It has private.

No, only in the back, not in the front. There is private parking behind the downtown businesses in some areas.

Can I give the example?

Yeah.

So the old first Baptist church, they have a lot across the parking lot across the street. So that would be an example of one that would be not adjoined, not on the same lot. Wait.

There's, yeah. And then like the community service center, they have, or the senior center, I'm sorry, the senior center downtown, they have private parking in the rear of the downtown business.

But there's not a lot, but there are a few that have separate.

But the lot behind like JJ's Diner is a public lot because the city owns it. or the lot at City Hall is a public lot because the city owns it.

So if I buy one of the buildings downtown, business in that, because it has so many square feet, I have to have so many parking spots?

Yeah.

Do I have to tear apart the building now to get those?

No. Yeah, downtown would literally have to be an exception.

Yeah, that's just street. It would be a separate building away from the downtown.

Arguably, based on this code, in reality, if someone were to build new though, if they were to put new apartments that didn't exist before above their downtown business, they would have to have parking for those apartments or they'd have to seek a variance for it for the code.

We've got all that now. I'd agree to it within a year.

Yeah. Truthfully, I think the best thing to do is to have a downtown overlay district where you have almost a separate set of rules that differ from the rest of the community. We just haven't got that far yet. But there's quite a few things that are special for downtown, not just parking. that really should be kind of withdrawn from and dedicated in their own way, addressed in their own way.

Will be addressed in the UDC?

Yeah, and that's ideally when we hire the consultants, they can help us get that going. Having a downtown overlay district for those certain things.

It's technically a historic district, but we'll make it. Yeah. Right, exactly. That's true. That's true. Yeah.

And there's a lot of things that you can put in there zoning wise. Like we've talked about restricting the use of metal facade in our downtown. That's something else that could be put into that downtown overlay district just in that. It's not technically in the code. Yes, I think there was some major problems over the years because I've been told that for numerous things, but then they aren't in the actual code itself. I don't know where else they would be at.

Okay, someone can look up for sure.

But I do think like even a lot of the comprehensive plan, the 2002 comprehensive plan, there's a lot of things that it says, but it's not ordinance. So it's like we want that, but then we didn't put it in there to make it law, to make it enforceable.

They wanted to build a building on there. It was so commercial, but it was their residence.

And they wanted to put a metal shop in the back. They were going to have to put a certain type of facade on it and everything else, a certain percentage.

And if we were addressing all that, they ended up getting their building built right before all that went into place. But there was an ordinance about how much percentage of the building had to be other materials and what kind of materials to be used. It was all of that.

We will dig. we'll find it we'll try to find it and see what it says but well and i mean metal build since i've been here metal build and we've had homes go up that are metal buildings that we couldn't restrict because it's not in the code so um okay Okay, we need to double check on that for sure, because I know we have some new commercial businesses, especially in downtown, that are working towards that. So we'll make sure. Okay, so first one, all parking areas shall be located on the same lot. Two, they can be 200 feet from the site with a special permit. Parking areas shall not be located within the public right of way. So that's kind of in reality, like if you were to see a parking lot somewhere and then there's a boulevard. That's what that is. It's just you can't park cars where the public utilities would be. So that's what that one's saying. And then parking areas shall not obstruct visibility triangles at intersections. So again, you just can't be too close to the road to where then people can't turn at that intersection. Okay, minimum parking space dimensions. Standard parking space, each parking space shall contain a minimum rectangular area measuring nine feet in width and by 20 feet in length. So this was, the code already said that, and we talked about this one, and you guys felt like that was a reasonable dimensions to keep. And then this was also previously in the code, but your parking space dimensions or parking spaces in general need to have accessible parking spaces shall comply with all applicable ADA requirements and adequate maneuvering and drive aisles shall be provided. So there are standards when it comes to like the maneuvering and the drive aisles and all of that. but it gets in, it gets really in depth. So we didn't want to put anything in that we couldn't adequately and responsibly enforce, I guess. So having that in there, we can, we can tell when it's not our engineers at minimum can tell when it's not adequate maneuvering and dry vials, dry vial space. But we just didn't want to put the, the, details that way if it's not we can say hey that's not you need to at least comply with this but without saying you have to have 15 feet here and 10 feet here whatever the scenario is it got very in depth very quickly any thoughts on that section before we move to the next one okay 50 dash yes that was there previously too and that's another one too like you could put a whole nother book in here on ADA parking requirements. It's just, you have to comply with it and there are standards.

So follow the standards.

They're over 20 foot. Yes. We did have that conversation with the board and they're at an additional angle than what they currently are. So we're, Anticipating that when we get the new parking stalls in the increased angle creates longer parking stalls so longer vehicles can park there the longest is like 21 feet your standard extended cab long bed whatever is more than 21 feet so. I've said it a couple times. So there still will be some vehicles that cannot fit in their downtown stalls just like they couldn't before.

They're going to change the angle and make them longer, huh?

Yes.

That's a good idea.

Driveway and access standards. Driveways shall comply with city construction standards. Residential driveway ingress and egress widths shall not exceed 27 feet unless otherwise approved by the city engineer. We did talk about that in detail and we said specifically for residential that they shall not exceed 27 feet. So that kind of puts us on the whole like front coverage discussion that we had, like, so we don't end up with residential homes where the whole front yard is parking. So you can't exceed, you can't exceed that at the entrance of the parking lot. So.

To the width of the driveways in residential cannot be more than 27 feet.

The width of the access, the ingress. Because I think we decided to not put like an actual coverage requirement. Commercial and industrial driveway, which shall be determined based upon traffic generation and engineering standards. Again, this is where we would really lean on our engineers to make sure that that's adequate. Ingress and egress points shall be designed to minimize conflicts with adjacent streets and properties. Next section, parking surface requirements. All parking areas and driveways shall be surfaced in an all-weather dustless surface. Approved surfacing materials shall be cement, concrete, asphalt pavement, or interlocking concrete pavers. Minimum pavement specifications shall be as follows. All off-street parking and loading areas except those required for single family and duplexes shall be serviced with five inches of concrete, six inches of asphalt, or three inches of asphalt combined with eight inches of aggregate and subgrade base. This was Honestly, probably one of the hardest sections for us to try to piece together what it should be versus what it should not be and what the kind of standards are from other cities. So you could go very, very, you could lean very opposite ways here. You can make it very simple and just say five inches of concrete, six inches of asphalt, or you can be very in depth and have different base and asphalt and thicknesses and for certain types of vehicles and different types of uses for the driveway parcel so this was what most of the other cities their standard was they were almost all exactly the same and they exclude the single family and duplexes allowing for um

some versatility when it comes to residential homes so i almost wonder though if we don't need to have an event here talking about the grandfather thing because i know we mentioned it beforehand but like you know mentioning already existing yeah gravel driveways uh that I'm not going to lie I'm not going to tell you where they're at but I've seen some new utility roads that have gone into this city on people's properties of gravel but I feel like we need to add that well and like we were saying earlier with the date like when is the grandfather date yeah so if we could plug if we can determine that for sure and then plug it in that would help yeah so I feel like that just right here

maintain it and keep it if not no new ones yeah right no new ones yeah period good on your off-street off-street parking for duplexes there are no requirements for um no there's not

There are not.

Well, it's the asphalt.

Yeah, asphalt, concrete, paver brick, but that's it. There's no depth requirements.

So we don't say anything. This should probably be detailed. Minimum specifications for the interlocking concrete pavers.

Oh, yeah.

Probably. Yeah.

Well, I think our biggest problem was that we didn't find anywhere else that did put additional requirements on pavers. So we didn't know what to make it if we wanted to make that something.

But I don't have any. We've tried to research it and we don't know what that would be, what would be required for

To be the base. And then.

Should we find out? That's what I mean as far as I like, but I mean, that way we know the proper answer to the question.

But I don't think there is an answer. That's the problem. I don't think there's like a standard of this is what. You have to have across the board.

I got a gravel driveway building behind it.

If I just took back concrete, would that qualify? There would be some way to come up. There would be some kind of code or something where they know. I can't believe they're not coding. They're, again, not questioning you, but there ought to be some kind of code or some kind of answer, just like Steve said. Somebody could do that. What are you going to do? They don't say what's got, you know, they're based, yeah. Nothing else. We'll have to ask guidelines.

Yeah. Somebody was to ask.

Okay.

I don't know. That's a good question.

We can...

Take a stab at it.

I know, like, TikTok teaches me a lot of things. I know that there are a few companies that'll do interlocking breaks or pavers, and I know mostly they're in Florida, but that may be helpful to contact a company that does driveways and pass them, like, what's the minimum standard that you all like to do?

Yes, that's a good idea.

Yeah, and that way we can have a good You have to have a benchmark anyway to know what you need to do, yeah. We know best practices for right-way installers.

Okay.

Because I'm not going to lie, I have no idea. Why don't you put two inches into a corner and that's why it's busted and be a mess anyway. You're going to have to have, you know, even six, yeah.

So for interlocking pavers... papers themselves should be ASTM C936 standard specification for solid interlocking concrete paving units with a compressive strength minimum average of 8,000 psi absorption rate maximum

It would help if we could point to this standard instead of putting all of that in there and just say that you have to comply with X requirements.

Yeah. Oh, no.

I just mean like it would say like four would be interlocking or even a separate one if you want to apply it to single family and duplexes too, which I feel like that's who's going to use interlocking pavers as single family. Yeah. But it would say interlocking See, I think it's the same thing where it's saying, or paper breaks over an approved base. So that's what other cities said. But what's an approved base? And we had that conversation about what actually is an approved base. So we'll figure it out.

Standards. will reduce the streets and roadways. The ASTM standards, specifically the ASTM C936 for materials and ASTM C33 for sand aggregates. CMHA guidelines on the National Agri-Scapes Association, formerly ICPI.

Okay. We'll look.

Word. So this has three to four inches minus of crush line widths, rated aggregate, road-based, three to four inches of crush line, so the clients.

Okay.

See, I think we need to have something good in solid line, because I'm sure guaranteed contractors, if they're going to have to save some money, they wouldn't have any problem doing this or that, but you don't have something where the engineer goes, this is it. They're going to negotiate on it. Exactly. I agree. I agree.

But the other issue we have is our inspectors don't inspect driveways.

But we are trying to get one hired, so we can have them, the new guy or girl. But yeah, historically, we don't have the inspection abilities to do that. Okay. Parking areas shall be maintained to prevent dust and mud. gravel migration, standing water, and deterioration that creates hazards. So that's really in there for the enforcement perspective of it. So if a hazard is created, yep. I think our attorney changed, I can't remember, she changed the words a little bit where it says deterioration that creates hazards. Because I think we might have just said deterioration.

You put that in there because say somebody, it's a minimum one when you get on the driveway and then they park a one-time truck and they're loaded all the time. It's going to bust it down. Maybe you could have mud dead and all kinds of problems. So you're going to have to be able to tell them you got to fix this. Yeah.

And we have that problem. One thing we're also wanting to start looking at is the, like a commercial vehicle ordinance, not just a parking ordinance. So our current, our current, currently the only thing we have in there for vehicle size and parking just says that you can't, it's from like 1990 something. And it says you can't have anything larger than a pickup parked on city streets. So it's a little ambiguous. Yeah, we need something a little bit more elaborate because we do have quite a few people. I think a lot of our other surrounding communities do have vehicle weight requirements for parking in residential areas. So They can't do it in other communities, so we have kind of a high population of those that do live in Odessa because they can park their tow truck or whatever. But it hurts our streets significantly. Go ahead.

On the deterioration that creates hazards, are we going to define that further? Because let's just say I have a driveway. concrete and a part of it sinks so now it's still level but like one side's up so it's not a tripping hazard what like someone could walk on it and fall so that's what it is i think it's more so that's it's creating like a hazard in the city street Because I was going to say, like, I think we need to be more specific on that and possibly potentially like somebody with a neighbor and they wanted to complain to the city and be like, my neighbor's got to fix that. And like, let's say the neighbor can't afford to fix that. Yeah, that's a good point. You're right. That's good.

Ask the attorney how she intended it.

It fits up. Like say with my driveway, to use me as an example. If it's past the sidewalk, then unless I give you permission to come on my property, then you should trip on my janky driveway from the end of the sidewalk to the street. That's kind of fair game for people to walk, especially if you have a sidewalk. And then, of course, the whole hazard part of your ingress, you've got to pay for it.

You probably want to pump through anyway, so street water wouldn't run on your driveway anyway. You probably want it up a quarter or a half inch above the sidewalk, so your water wouldn't run in, because you're going to have to pump through all the things.

Well, yeah, I mean, you're supposed to have, you know, a lasing bag or a regular curtain. True for that. I mean, that's part of it.

Okay, so for the lighting section, there was a lighting section in there, and we've made some improvements ever so slightly, but it reads lighting intensity. So this is really for parking lots. Lighting intensity shall be designed so to not... create glare or interferences with adjacent residential districts or public streets. Light fixtures shall be shielded and directed downward where adjacent to residential districts. The city may require shielding, re-aiming, reduction in intensity, or other corrective measures as determined by the city engineer when lighting creates a nuisance or safety hazard. As determined by the chief of police. So we had in there just. As determined by the engineer. And then we're like well that doesn't make sense. To. We have to have something that is. Deeming there to be a problem. So. We brought the chief of police into it. He doesn't know yet but.

Did you say. This was.

For parking lots. Yeah. We might have to define that.

I can see. Or try security on the driveway. The neighbor didn't like it across the street. Yeah.

Because it's got that motion sensor on it. It comes on all night.

Yeah.

I have one concern with the chief of police when we're putting that on one person's shoulders. If for some reason there's a vacancy or

I don't want to bring up the past, but... We can say, or a delegate.

Yeah. A representative. Yeah, we need to make sure that when we're writing this, we're not putting ourselves into a problem to where they're, for some reason, like, I don't want the chief to go anywhere, but he did leave and there was a vacancy and it took us four months to hire someone.

Agreed.

Yeah, and that would be good because you might have somebody from fire station or the hand list department or something that would say that we need something different on the lighting.

Okay. Landscaping and screening. Parking lot areas containing more than six spaces adjacent to residential property shall provide screening consistent of decorative fencing, masonry walls, evergreen hedge, or earth berm. Screening height shall not be less than five feet and not more than six feet at the time of insulation.

Insulation. Yeah, because that's addressing like you can't put a little shrub. Yeah.

I think that's why the five and six is convenient. Anyway, parking lot landscaping shall be maintained in healthy conditions year round. Thoughts?

We say for advanced. Did we talk about this?

Yeah.

I feel like this is a little extreme for five feet for over six spaces.

Well, it's six spaces because our definition of parking lot is anything over six spaces.

If I remember right.

That's like

I could buy an 80-billion air train. I'd be like, oh, well, I put this here, and it's going to grow. But in between those years, it'll grow.

I had a point. Sorry, I didn't read the residential part. Sorry. I remember that when we talked about it. But I was like, I don't see the residential parking. Yeah. I was just thinking like, well, that's going to be like downtown, like, Odessa.

All fenced in.

Yeah.

Do you have any parking permits?

Probably, yeah.

Well, you use the old Baptist church parking. Wouldn't that have to have a fence around it?

No, no.

technically city hall there's a fence we have a fence up between us and residential but there's a residential on the other side of us it's plastic yeah it's decorative fencing prior to that'll organically do that but decorative fencing are we missing anything I guess is the question I think the only thing that I can think of is like people would unless we're intentionally doing this but there's the like chain link with the privacy screens on it unless we are not intentionally not wanting that

Well, because, I mean, that's the other thing. Like, if we had somebody that built, I don't know, like, a junkyard on the other side, like, and they just put up a chain-link fence with a little screen. But also, like, the other thing is, like, if we're trying to hide this or, like, change the view, could someone, as a decorator,

and see right through it is that the point to hide the view or is it yeah I don't know I feel like I mean does that mean to say maybe decorative fence is not the right word maybe it should be privacy fencing meaning you can't see through it because arguably I would say what's at city hall is privacy fencing because you cannot see through it in any way

I think we should remove decorative fencing. Well, I think if you guys want that or not. A lot of times that

you can still see through it or they'll do like the screen where it's like the most tinted.

That's not maybe the best word for it, but.

If we even just said solid privacy fencing.

Just because of like where we're talking about. big parking lot and then we're saying they need to build a giant wood fence on the other side would a business want to try to clean although we're not telling them they have to build a fence they put trees up well and maybe we is there a certain distance from so for this thinking of that scenario

that land that you're talking about has residential here, the usable land is down here. So if they have a parking lot, their parking lot's going to be down here. So should we allow for an exception to say if your parking lot is, but they're not really, oh no, we're not contradicting.

You're right, the elevation distance from up there down here, you couldn't get it.

Just a general distance from residential parking lot.

We have a giant something coming.

Are they going to want to run 200 feet of fencing? Yeah, because then they'd be like, oh, we go to main city where they don't have this.

problem with planning and zoning in general yeah I think if there's a distance then it is it could it should be excluded but your typical setbacks are going to be minimum 25 feet are we thinking more than that your front yard setback is going to be 25 sides are less than that if not zero so are we wanting distance between the parking lot and the residential. I'm just saying, if the parking lot is X amount of feet away from the next residential parcel, then you don't have to have a six-foot fence. If their parking lot was right next to those houses, then they would have to have a fence. Yes. But should we give them an exception if their parking lot is

Way to the rear and there's nothing back there. Maybe back up to railroad tracks or something like that. Right, I can understand that. That makes sense, yes.

Is the gym, is that back up to residential or is that back up to... No, it doesn't. Well, actually... No, nothing that's prior to this would...

would count. It'd all be grand pocket.

Say we did this today and the gym was built tomorrow. There's nothing behind it, but there is a possibility of houses being built back then. You got to put a fence up to be a good house. So you're saying who's responsibility is going to be? The builder or the owner?

Yeah. And their parking lot. That's our point.

Yeah, our three. It's Pine Creek Townhomes is behind it directly.

Something like that. builder that is building said house.

Not in that scenario because Jim came after the subdivision.

No, no, I'm just, I'm throwing hypothetical like, hey, okay, this business is built here. There's a big old field back there that possibly sometime down the road could have houses built in. So then Mr. Mann comes in and builds his houses. Now this business is required to have

So, like, if there's residential at the time of construction.

Yeah, if there's residential at the time of construction, you've got to do this moving forward. So, if you're already established, who takes that responsibility for... Then you wouldn't have any responsibility. Yeah.

I almost think, though, that we would catch I was like, we rezoned it.

Well, I think if you're building residential next to commercial and there's a parking lot right there and you choose to not put any barrier, that's your decision.

Just got into this over when we rezoned over by Elk Creek. I think that's where this scenario came.

instead of hitting that five-year down the road saying, hey, guess what?

I don't think we legally can do that, though. I'll make sure, but I don't think we can legally say your down-adjacent parcel has now been constructed X amount of years after you got here. Now you have to comply. I don't think we can do that.

But duplexes, they don't make any difference in the way they put single housing in.

residential yep it'd be treated the same yeah well that'd be something i'd make sure too where the duplex already says it's got to be in or put a fence up or something for them i do legally think that this is grandfathering them from that but i we can make sure i think the one thing i think probably the thing we need to be aware of and this is if we're kind of with the outcreek thing or whatever we're talking about there the business would just have to know that like behind it is residential so if it's run a So residential behind it, they would have to put the fence up.

But that's what I'm saying. I don't think we can do that. We can't say your neighbor just built something and now you have to comply with an ordinance that didn't impact you before.

There's nothing there. We know half of it's zone commercial, half of it's residential. A commercial business wants to come in. I got you. Then... Because it's zoned residential, even if it's vacant. That's true. I think we need to check with legal.

So maybe it needs to be residentially zoned.

I don't know.

We will check into it.

Do it like it's a business. or go down this road. But we just got to check in with some stuff, really.

Because we don't know how close someone could come in. It's kind of like a Casey's was built in Great Valley right behind a neighborhood. If you've ever think about one road that goes by where the old grocery store is, there's a Casey's right there. The house is all the way around. But something like that could happen.

So what would be an appropriate distance if we, going back to if they are, if the parking stalls and parking lot is X amount of feet from the next residential parcel, they're excluded from privacy fencing, what would be a reasonable distance from... We're saying something between 25 and 100 feet, whatever we want to put in there. Whatever you guys think is appropriate. I don't know. We can put whatever we want. Well, we said your parking lot can be 200 feet from your parcel previously, so 200 feet. I think it should be at least 200 feet.

That makes sense.

Yeah, 200 feet's not that far. Yeah.

Cause I mean, I live up on the hill and I can see if the whole of Alamo is all lit up, it lights up my property.

So 200 feet from where to where we need to define that.

From parking stall to yeah, just like the other one.

Where the redevelopment is. Cause I believe that's 200 feet to that flat surface.

Where?

That other one. We're actually rezoning that out there. Oh. From the house down to the bottom. I think it's probably two and three.

Oh, yeah.

I think so, too.

Okay.

And so the fencing, you just want solid purpose against. We're not doing the slats.

Yeah, so that would exclude any type of chain link, really.

But when you say solid fence, it's like the wood. It's like a stack of the wood. Like a solid fence.

Mm-hmm. But it's... Like gaps.

Yeah. To you guys.

I mean, I think they still consider that.

That is still considered privacy. Privacy fence. Yeah. They're just privacy fence.

They're just privacy fence. So it's at 200 feet from the parking lot.

You didn't give them that much leeway? Who would be responsible to maintain that? Would it be the business owner?

It'd be their property. The business's property. So they would have to maintain it. Okay. Loading areas. Any non-residential use requiring delivery or loading activity shall provide adequate off-street loading space for the primary operation of the use. Loading areas shall not obstruct public streets sidewalks, fire lanes, or any parking spaces. Tractor trailer loading activity is prohibited where the loading activity is within 100 feet of any residential district's lot line. I don't think we have, I think we didn't have tractor trailer in there and we added that.

Okay, so for businesses.

I mean, if you have semi-truck traffic going to your home-based business, I think there's an argument that it's a little more than a home-based business.

You might need a business license.

residential.

Right, and there wasn't anything in the code.

This is brand new.

But if they decided where that trailer is that no one's living in right there across the street, if they decided to build a house there, could that be a problem?

No. That's exactly what I was thinking, what you just said. When we put that trailer doing whatever that warehouse is up there, put it back in that truck stand right there.

I'm pretty sure that the the basic laws of planning and zoning if you're there first you get you get it you get those like as we're kind of growing out like as we're moving down

as we're pushing that back if where y'all rezone those houses like and say like a business wanted to go in there like and so let's wait Like, a semi-truck would go down there to deliver. Like, by Casey's and stuff? Yeah. Like, that would be a hundred feet of residential.

Mm-hmm.

So, would that be problematic here?

Yes.

So, then, technically, we can't presume that it's commercial if a, you know...

If all those are residential houses, that's a commercial district now.

I know, but, like, the residential is right behind it, so it would be within a hundred feet.

This is 100 feet of the loading dock, like the loading area.

It's not a problem in that it's the problem in reverse. It'd be a problem if

You wanted to put a McDonald's at second and college, but not if residential wanted to go next to McDonald's because McDonald's was there first.

I know, but like, so if like those houses become vacant and someone wants to put a business, they couldn't put a business with a floating boat because it would be within 100 feet of residential.

Yeah. So then we would... Arguably, yeah.

100%. That's what I was going to get at. It's like, we rezoned that commercial, but then now we're limiting what kind of business could go there by not allowing a semi-truck to be able to go down.

So what about, let's say, Casey's wasn't there

and we decided to build a Casey's there. The tank trucks, the food service trucks, all that wouldn't be able to build anywhere on that property.

And should they go there? That's the next question.

Well, I mean, to deliver fuel, to deliver

So do we want to reduce it? Or completely eliminate that? I would not want to, one, have a residential home. And then later on, 10 years down the road into owning that home, a McDonald's goes next to me and I have to hear the 5 a.m. delivery of their buns and hamburger patties every morning. I would move. Simple as that. So I do feel like it would be a problem if we had a McDonald's going next to residential and then got truck deliveries all day long.

I mean, I feel like that's what we have created the issue of because now we're limiting what we built there.

Trying to figure out how that is actually zoned. It's the wrong one.

That was done before I, for sure. I just remember y'all telling me that that is down to Marshall.

So it's commercial down to Orchard, and that's it. So the block that Casey's is on is commercial one, and that's it. I don't know that, can you put a fast food in commercial one?

What would be the best thing? could go there for parking spots and even an AVP store is going to get a large, or a phone store is going to get a large order shipping of phones.

I just feel like it should be restricted. I don't know.

They do, but most other times that stuff comes on UPS. UPS?

And we can delete it. I just feel like it's

not protecting the residential.

I agree. I agree. I would think you're saying about and maybe 100 feet is a lot.

200 feet?

Or no, the other direction to give the commercial business some opportunity.

That number would be around the whole property probably. Where Casey's is at, behind their building, that's residential.

It still sounds residential. Let's say we get an Aldi somewhere.

Build on that street.

I'm just saying, are we limiting it? Even if they build out in the gym. They'd be good to go. But I mean, unless houses get built first. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just playing devil's advocate here of trying to like really hash this one out.

Yeah. I just think that honestly the only places so we have C those are the only really two places that it's that there's legitimately commercial next to residential. I personally I don't count like behind Dollar General and Taco John's is C that blends. So on the east side of 4th Street is commercial. West side of 4th Street is residential. That's all multifamily today. So I wouldn't count that area. The only areas that you really have are by the new gym and where we're talking about by Casey's that are like legitimately that border of commercial to residential and then technically off of apartments basically but it's zone commercial because we have cumulative zoning so all those have turned to multifamily instead of commercial first street like where the um Post offices and like uh Truman Title behind them on the alley is residential.

Post office has threats coming in at 4 30 by the clock.

True.

What about like like right there around advanced industries where we just close that street?

That's industrial to residential. So it would count too. All right. Well, should we just delete that or?

I mean, I agree with like protecting the homeowner as well.

The other thing is, is if they, to me, if fast food or grocery store wants to go in next to something on South 2nd, they're going to need to buy more lots then so they can accommodate and make sure that their loading dock is not behind someone's backyard. You know what I mean? That's why I don't, it's unrealistic in my opinion, because those lots are too small unless they bought like the whole rest of the block.

Yeah. You need more space then where you don't fit. Right.

I think we reduce it down to like. Twenty five. Fifty. What do you guys think? Twenty five.

Yeah. All these places, they bring everything in in straight trucks. They wouldn't have to have a tractor in or you'd come in in straight trucks and like that. But then you'd have to put a requirement on that. I guess, yeah, 25, 50 feet, something anyway. You'd have to have something. Yeah.

What do you guys think?

What's our, you mentioned a while ago.

Our front setback is 25. Side, well, commercial, it's zero all the way around.

commercial we just left it there how many places do we have right now where you say they have you know if something happened they changed ownerships or they redid the building where they have to have all street loading or unloading do we have any issues I don't think it would apply to any existing it only apply to new because even if

God forbid one of our commercial businesses burned down. I think they get, do you remember, Jenny, don't they get a certain time frame to rebuild? And not have to comply with new ordinance.

They just have to comply with new ordinance. By building their own, this is what you got to do. That's the ordinance.

But if something tragic happened to them, they don't have to build to 2026 standards. And they've been there for 20 years. They would have to rebuild their current business as... That's it.

The sound is going to travel no matter what unfortunately to be able to do any good we'd have to have to have a setback on it that we are going to end up not and this is the whole intent

Think about how difficult it was, Mary. Were you a part of the conversations when the transition district was made? That was this conversation times like 25. I can't imagine how difficult that was because you're in like a tug of war between residential and everybody else. Protect residential, attract the businesses.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do we need to have C in there at all?

No.

Is it going to do anything?

No. I don't think, especially at 25 feet, it's not going to deter a business. They'll just put the loading dock somewhere else. Loading space.

The rest of our proper radiuses and things for traffic flow and all that. Yeah. It's going to all be in there. And so they're going to have to design it in a way that a semi could even get in there without affecting traffic and everything else.

Yeah.

Shoot. Maybe on that side, let's just take it out.

Okay.

okay this next section was in the code we changed the yellow one the rest was in the code and we put it in a table format except i realized the single family that we added exclusive of rogers oh yeah

Yeah, I think so. Yep. And then the multifamily, we said, um,

That's when we said the guests are communal parking. We added the one space per four units at greater than four units. But the rest, like hotel, one space per guest room, boarding, rooming house, one space per two occupants, office, one space per 300 square feet. All of that was in the code existing.

And their spaces are not down in the garage, correct?

On the first four. Yes.

None of all of this seems a little weird. Four spaces per dog.

It's saying more so, instead of saying one space per doctor, one space per employee, two spaces per customer or client, it's saying if you have two doctors in that office, that's eight spaces. It's accounting it all.

That's fair. That's what was throwing me off because practitioners in there sure you know or you know because like a lot of facilities only have one main doctor and then they begin nurse practitioners that practice under that that's fair provider so i would definitely as practicing medical provider or however legal wants to work that too okay what did we uh

Let's see. Sure. What did we say? What did we change our parking to on bigger buildings?

That's the highlighted one. It was 150 and we bumped it up to 250.

Why would we say an office would have 300?

It's less stringent. 300 would be less parking.

Okay, what, why would we, are we thinking that retail and commercial entertainment, recreation would be bigger? I'm just curious.

You know, in-and-outs.

Like, I picture that like a gym versus city hall, where you have the same seven people there. And then your customers throughout the day, I guess. You have customers too.

What would City Hall look like?

I don't know. City Hall is a horrible example because it's like a public space or whatever. That's a horrible example.

Would you consider that?

Yes, I would. I don't know how many square feet our building is. I'm just curious. I don't know. It's probably like

So I think that would be like 10 stock stalls.

Well, and when that building was built, it probably said per 150.

Because it was built for private use as a bank. So if that was, I don't know how many square feet it is. That's a problem. But divide that by 150, that would be 20 stalls. I bet we have 20 stalls.

For the same reason? Yeah. One space per four patient beds, one per staff or visiting doctor, one per three employees. That gets a load.

That's confusing, yeah.

City Hall would fall under the public facilities.

Is there a public facilities? Yeah, that's exact.

I would also update hospital to say not just hospital, but or emergency room, as they're building in separate emergency rooms with hospitals attached. Or urgent care facility.

OK. Let me see how it, because it's taking it and making it a table when it wasn't a table before. So let me find that.

I wasn't counting yeah you can't count the street parking in front of city hall

There's parking to the north. That's what I'm saying.

Street parking. Would you have that Wall Street?

Oh, are you asking today? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

By that parking, you're trying to keep it from going back into the public parking. Right. Trying to keep it on that business. Correct. Right. Correct.

Um. Um.

Right. I don't know. When they built that bank, they must have required it because it wasn't like, I guess it wasn't an existing, and they demoed the existing building there, the old church that was there. So they would have had to comply with new parking standards at the time. They had no parking? Horse and buggy?

The street park, that's all they had.

Huh.

Yeah. Cause the alley was there. Yeah.

Cause the bank was only built in like 2000 something. So it says hospitals, one space for each one. Eat. No. One space for each four patient beds, exclusive of bassinets plus one space for each staff or visiting doctor. plus one space for each three employees, including nurses, plus adequate areas for parking of emergency vehicles. So it makes a little bit more sense than it was before. Or it's easier to read, at least.

No, not necessarily. If they put maybe

It could be. Depends on how big it is, I guess, and how many buildings there are. For sure. For sure. We'll work on that one a little bit. Any other ones that are concerning to you? We condense this a lot from what it was before. And then also on this topic of minimum off-street parking requirements, it says any use is not specifically listed shall provide for sufficient spaces for each employee, customer, and fleet vehicle typical for the use. So if they're not in the list, then they have to explain how their parking is adequate for their use. Shared parking arrangements may be approved by the zoning administrator where peak demand for the use occurs at different times. The zoning administrator may approve reductions where documented evidence demonstrates lower parking demand.

We're seeing some latitude there. It does.

That was our thought process. And either way, even if something was approved, it would still be documented on the plot, which is then approved by you all. So and the board. Next division, this goes into each of the specific standards for the districts instead of putting them in their own sections of the code. So for residential, really not, there really wasn't anything that applied to only residential from what we said here. So we just said require parking for single family and only shall be located on improved driveway surface space is what it said before. Commercial districts, outdoor display areas and storage shall not occupy parking spaces. It does say that now, a little hard to manage, but We want to keep that continuing. All servicing of vehicles and assembly of equipment carried on in an incidental part of operation shall be conducted within a completely enclosed building. That was also there before I think. I believe.

Thoughts?

Oh, I think the problem is people use their parking lots for storage oftentimes. So the intent is to say you can't do that. I can name a few. Mm-hmm.

I think the intent is that you can't

Do storage or repair of things in your parking lot. Which it really does become a problem. It has been problems before, too, where you have mostly the storage, I would say, in parking stalls.

Okay, so they all in mall? The car's parked out there.

No, not...

They're being stored.

You mean like the dealership?

Yeah, dealership. In front of the post closet. That whole parking lot's got a lot of wrecked cars.

I'm guessing they're waiting... Oh, from the dealership.

They all talk about...

What it has to do with the dealership that there's mail trucks. Yeah.

In the parking lot?

Well, sometimes they're in the parking lot. I've seen them lined up in the front of it and I've seen them in the back.

Well, that's what we want to avoid. But the whole point why it's here is that is the occupying parking spaces. So we don't want you to say my business requires 20 spaces and then 10 of them, you put pallets of equipment or whatever materials. And then there's not enough parking. Like you have to use parking stalls for parking. And the other thing that we talked about too was like, say you're, required to have, like that's why we said parking spaces, not before it said all required parking. So that means if you're required to have 20 stalls for parking and then you have 30, 10 of them, you can use for whatever you want. So we didn't want that either. We wanted it to be, if you have a parking lot, you need to use your parking lot for parking and not storage. it starts to look kind of cluttery and junky and can take a very wrong turn very quickly.

Yep.

I mean, it's understandable. You've got to take a motor out of a truck and go back to that and wait for the new motor to get in until you push that spark on and get something else to work on it. So before it said, it said the exact same thing.

It says, all of the lot used for the parking of vehicles for the storage and display of merchandise in all driveways used for vehicle ingress and egress shall be paved with a sealed surface. Okay, that's irrelevant. All servicing of vehicles and assembly of equipment carried on in an incidental part of the sales operation shall be conducted within a completely enclosed building. And then I think it said the other part under What did it say? Did it not say the part about this storage? Oh.

It's almost allowing storage. We don't want that.

Yeah. Bear with us. We wrote this like two months ago. What do you guys think it should say or not say?

Both of them. I understand it here and I think it's a good thing because we're trying to keep people from storm trapping their parking lots. Parking lots there

Are we applying only commercial?

Not for working on vehicles.

Did we put it somewhere else?

Not for signage. Correct.

Or anything like that.

So if you're required to have the next amount of spaces for X amount of or X amount of spaces for this, you know, in a doctor's office type situation for so many patients and so many medical providers.

shouldn't be out there it's kind of confusing that it's there and then commercial parking spot right yeah i mean i could see some allowance where like you know i could see it over 24 hours or something like you know like say like it's a mechanic shop and someone has a car that gets to them it's a body shop or something you know they park it there

for a minute yeah until they can get it poured out yeah getting towed in that's an extenuating circumstance of business but in my personal opinion if i was a business owner and that was my business i would probably take a page out of some of these other ones that have a fenced off area where they keep They're a lot longer-term storage of vehicles that they're working on.

So what if we do say an exception would be if it's privacy-fenced? But then you can't privacy-fence the front. You'll always see some of it.

But if it's in the rear... What do you consider the front? I was looking on down. I was jumping ahead. The repair place that was in Gettinger's building. It's not a paved parking lot. I don't know. What's the front of that building?

Off of 4th Street, I would call the front.

Okay. With water or whatever it is. Where the hell? Right here. I don't know what the numbers are right now.

Technically, I think so, yeah. Or the mailboxes. I think it's...

I don't know.

I don't know.

But you wouldn't necessarily want to fence your...

Yeah. I think the dealership is kind of a bad example. But... Yeah.

Yeah.

but like their whole business model is parked vehicles so yeah and vehicle repair yeah I think the way this is said is pretty pretty good I mean yeah I don't think I would change it a whole bunch of anything really because

Okay, so unpaved, our next section is industrial districts. Unpaved parking areas may be permitted for industrial uses exceeding 35 acres when located 3,960 feet or more from any residential zone, located 1,250 feet from any C1 or C2 district, And dust mitigation measures are implemented. So this is only on industrial lots of 35 acres or more. I'll be honest, a lot of your industrial is going to seek a variance for this anyway. Because they have these massive lots that they literally cannot pave the whole entire thing. Which is what... On Reich Road, we just had that where they got a variance because they would have been required to pave five acres, basically, minus the building. And that was, that's a lot of concrete.

I think the main point in that is the dust mitigation. Making them, I mean, if we're going to holler about gravel driveways and dust, then that's a major dust issue. Yeah.

Yep.

I don't need a water truck.

Yep. And then the other items regarding industrial districts were truck circulation areas shall be subject to additional engineering review to verify adequate vehicle maneuverability, pavement design, traffic circulation, and protection of public infrastructure. So this is like a lesson learned that so we put it in there to try to correct some of the

what we've allowed on previous um previous parcels that required heavy truck circulation near residential on the unpaid parking areas that's just a parking lot we don't address that i don't believe anywhere other than industrial districts

that correct correct yeah that would be the only place that would be allowed and it has to be 35 acres yeah it has to comply with all of these things but if a commercial business didn't want to pave their parking lot they would have to get a variance and explain why they don't need to pave their parking lot and it probably wouldn't be approved but it's the quantity of acres you can't it'd be really difficult to pay 35 acres.

That would be a non-conforming parking lot.

Yeah, it's non-conforming.

would it be a fence that would but we don't require we don't i don't think we require any heads up a new company went in

I think it was for all. But either way though, at that parcel, it's not adjacent to residential.

So they still wouldn't. But I do think we're hitting something. Like I do think that display and storage areas

This is saying display in storage areas cannot be in a parking lot, but should display in storage areas be fenced? I feel like they should. Aside from parking lots, just in a storage, if we're calling that storage, it's gravel fenced. Should we require business storage lots to be fenced for storage areas? That does not apply to this ordinance necessarily, but we could put it on our list.

Even if there's no residential around.

But are we pushing too hard on what you said, making it too difficult for the business then? If and then, though, that's what we're doing right now, but arguably that's fine if it's all you know, nice equipment. But if it's a junkyard, then what? So.

So the goal would be to keep the dust down and to keep it maintained or?

Yeah, I'm trying to look at it from like a appearance standpoint. Okay. To hide the clutter.

Yeah, the junkyard or whatever. Okay. I guess one man's clutter is another man's. Exactly. Castle or whatever. Exactly. Yeah. The insurance place.

Expense. I almost call that a junkyard.

Oh, yeah. That one was approved and had a conditional permit for salvage yard. So it's defined and zoned as the salvage yard. And they had to have, I don't know if we required them to have fencing, but they have fencing, barbed wire and 24 hour security there. Okay, food for thought. We'll put that on our list of things to talk to the consultant about. Okay. Lastly, we had a section in here for commercial residential transition districts. And then when we talked to the attorney, she kind of felt like we were double dipping a little bit and maybe it would be the most simple to just keep it to what the commercial transitional district is already saying and not try to add new rules to that somewhere else in the code. So. we just said reference that section. So that way it's not completely lost either that there's not, this just tells you there are additional requirements per that area, per that section. And then lastly, maintenance, parking, and loading areas shall be maintained in safe and usable conditions at all times. That kind of touches on what we were saying earlier about hazards, but... We could probably run that by code enforcement too to see if that is useful to them or if that's pointless. So we talked about that with Josh. And if you break any of these rules, you go to court and the judge determines your fine amount. You get a ticket for it because you broke a law. This would all be law. You break the law, you get a ticket, you go to court, the judge determines your fee amount. And it can be anything up to $500 plus court costs is what we can do in our court system.

The Division IV, that counts back to residentials as well?

Yep.

So if your code enforcer comes by asphalt driveway does something like that where cars have been parking there for years and asphalt does what it does he could consider that a tripping hazard and then take the guy and give him

Yeah, it's definitely discretionary. I don't remember. We didn't talk to him about it.

I feel like we need to have a clear definition of what usable condition that maintains safety. Like, are we talking kind of like my example with a friend's driveway that, like, did that. Like, you know, you can drive on it. You can park on it.

You can roller skate on it. I mean, this kind of goes back on a residential

commercial, industrial, because we have to maintain public safety in those areas. But as far as the residential situation, if somebody is on someone's property past the public use area of that,