Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

5 o'clock we are going to get started. Um calling to order our meeting here at the planning commission for April 15, 2025. I need approval of the minutes for March 11, 2025. So moved. Support. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? None. Communications from the audience for items not listed as a public hearing on the agenda. And I will just say that the item under new business will have a public hearing. Um that was a typo. There is no asterisk next to it. But if you have something that you would like to talk about other than that item, you can come forward at this time. New business. 4384 Blueest Star Highway reszoning request to change from low density residential LDR to a mixture of industrial letter I on our zoning map and corridor mixed use CMU. If the applicant would like to come forward can do so now. State your name for the record, please. Yep. Thanks. Ryan Iseldike with Holland Engineering uh to speak on behalf of the project. Um yeah, we were before you I think it was a couple months ago. Time flies when you're having fun. um to kind of preliminarily talk about um this project um or this potential reszone. Um, since then we've um had a couple of meetings. Uh, had a neighborhood meeting, not very well attended, but um had a neighborhood meeting um and um worked with the the current feed store um that's there and kind of defined um their their operations and kind of tried to fit figure out where they fit in the in the zoning best. um because that that corner where the feed store sits today was

master planned um for a mixed use um and realistically they are very much more retail than they are industrial use. They do some mixing and and putting together of feeds but most of the stuff they sell there comes in on a truck. It's already prepackaged. They just turn around and sell it. So, um, they really much better fit as a commercial use with a a little bit of maybe industrial kind of in the background versus an industrial use that sold a product that they made there because most of the products that they sell there are not something that they make on site. Um so um with that we uh kind of updated the the request for the the reszone um to have the nominally 5 acres on the corner there uh where the current feed store is and give them some room for future expansion um and then the remainder of the property would be we're requesting to be reszoned to industrial um to kind of again that fits pretty well with the master plan um and um kind of the the intended use for that and the and the neighborhood hood there. Um, and the only neighbor that really showed up at the at the meeting we had at the feed store there. Um, he's to located just to the west of this site. Um, and actually in the township yet, um, and he was all for the reszone. He just felt it added more value to his property at some point in the future when he he wanted to sell that. So, um, there's really been no other public comments that we've received from any of the neighbors. Um, and I think from the staff recommendations um in the that were included in your packet today, I I think staff is is basically in favor of the of the reszone as well. But happy to answer any questions that the planning commission has um now or later, what, however you guys want to work it. So, great. Thank you. Any questions from commission members?

No. All right. Okay. Thank you very much. Steve, did you have anything to add? I do. Thank you. Sorry. I will give you the mic for a few seconds. Just a couple um things to talk about. And again, remember uh there's no site plans being generated. I know this is in your packet. They kind of show some ideas on how they might divide it up. It's very possible it could be one big parcel, you know. So again, uh we're only talking about the reasonzoning right now. Um what I wanted to talk about was maybe this map. Um so the staff recommendation is to recommend to city council the approval of the resoning. We think it does fit in uh almost exactly like what we envisioned with our master plan. Um even if that commercial piece were to want to change in the future, I think it would even be appropriate for that to be reszoned again in the future to industrial if that's what it needed to be. But u this at least makes it uh conforming. What I wanted to um highlight on this slide was in the um criteria for the reasonzoning and I know you guys are familiar with it but we've got the one standard in there that talks about can you know will the proposed use uh meet UDO standards and um what I wanted to point out here just to make sure everybody's familiar with it. I know it's covered by the airport overlay here which is what you see in the crosshatch but there's a couple things here. one in that in that area five, which is the area that we're talking about here. That's the one that has the distance. Um, when you move away from the runway, when you get far enough away, you simply are allowed to be at the height of the zoning district that you're in. And uh that little distance there was my attempt to show you how far 740 ft is because once you're at least

at 745 away, then you know that overlay essentially doesn't um have an impact on you for height. So as you can see, it's really just sort of the northern area of that property that even gets hit by that. Um doesn't mean that you can't use that area. It just means there would be a a slight impact on height. That area is already in what's called an navigation easement. Um, which means there's some other restrictions from the airport's perspective of what can be done there. Uh, again, that doesn't mean that area can't be used, but um, even those navigation easements allow for, you know, maybe parking or you would use it for setbacks or landscaping and things like that. So, just a couple details. um that I wanted to point out. And again, I know we're not really talking about site plans here, but just because that one standard in our in our um criteria does kind of talk about that. Um I wanted to point that out. And then the other thing that I'll just um point out, I think we talked about it last time, this is actually one big piece. even though it's divided up into these four little chunks, those properties that are on the east side of Washington again are just some old remnants I think as a result of the tunnel um that was built. And so you've got a couple small parcels over there. Um I shouldn't say parcels, small portions of this piece of property that are over there really unusable. Um, but I'm not really using that in my evaluation of this resoning because really we're talking about the 48 acres of this. Um, that's the usable portion of this piece of property. So, again, a little bit down the rabbit hole tonight, but I just wanted to point out those couple things. Again, staff is recommending that you send a positive recommendation to city council as they've requested.

Thanks, Steve. Steve, can you go back to the airport um the criteria? What are the restrictions when you said it was in that airport easement? What are the restrictions? The next slide. What are the restrictions of that piece in that easement? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh it's an old easement. I think it's from the late 80s. Um and again, it just talks about um you know, there can't be any buildings in there. It's certainly allowed to continue to be farmed. And it does talk about it, you know, being allowed to use for, you know, green space and landscaping and and as I mentioned, setbacks um and those sorts of things, but it it wasn't supposed to be something I think maybe one of the phrases it uses something that uh um congregates people. Um so it's really even that old easement is trying to do a lot of the same things that that airport overlay zoning district does for us today. But it's an easement and certainly the developers of those properties will it'll be something that they'll have to deal with as they try to eventually develop. But it's only a small portion. It's only a small portion of it. Um and it's not even as big as what the airport overlay district. It's even it's even much smaller than that. And I guess that's why I pointed out in the criteria that we use because at least in our estimation, those parcels on that north side would still be able to meet Udo requirements to be developed um if the resoning were to occur. That's how they're parcled right now. It is one big piece of property right now. This is just one of their ideas on how this property might be divided up for u development. It's possible it could be, you know, one piece on the north, one piece on the south. So, um, again, the idea for the reszone was so that they could go out and market this, but this was just one idea.

Okay. Any other questions? No. Thanks, Steve. At this time, I will open a public hearing. If anyone is here to speak on this item, they can come forward now. No, I will close the public hearing. Any more discussion among commission members or motions? Question is that the area that isn't included, this little triangle up here, is that still R1 or Yeah, I'm sorry. The upper left. Yeah, the yellow property that is not part of this piece of property, right? It is zoned LDR. That's actually a piece owned by the city. Um, and it's really because it's in that um Okay. It's in the very restrictive zone one of the airport overlay that says you can't do anything. So, we're changing the zoning. Why not just get it done? Well, you can't build anything there anyway, Steve, is what you're saying. It's the most restricted. It It is. Yeah. Okay. And it's simply not their property. So that's why it's not part of the request, right? We can talk about it later. Wouldn't it make sense to just Yeah, we'll let city council handle that. Yeah. Well, and just to go down that rabbit hole, I guess if we were to re if we were to reszone it, my suggestion would be we would put it in the airport category. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense, too. But Okay. Not part of this one. Not part of this one. Thank you. Any other discussion? Yeah, I had I had a question about that kind of that halfacre portion, right? So, we're we're looking to reszone those as industrial. Is there any reasonable industrial thing that could happen in a halfacre there? Does it does it make sense to I we've already split off the other portion as commercial mixed use? Should we do the same there or just open

space or something? Like, if we're doing this, might as well just do it once, right? But like there's not going to be any industrial. Why include those two little Yeah. Why? Even both of them, it's part of the same parcel. So again, it's a it's a little unique in the sense that those aren't separate properties. So this is all one piece of property even though it's biseected by a road. I know that's not normal. It does happen from time to time. So this there are two there are two properties then though because the other portion is going to mixed use. So it is all one piece of property. Okay. Um, and so at least as of right now, the property would be, if you were to approve what's being requested, the property would be split zoned, having that 5 acre piece in the CMU category and the rest of it in the industrial category, including those two little little islands east of of Washington, but it's because it's all the same piece of property. answer your question. You know, there no, there really isn't a whole lot you could do with that other than, you know, I don't know, they maybe could be a parking area or something, but that area too is covered by some of those navigation easements. So, in terms of building, you really wouldn't be able to build anything on it, right? The upper right half acre is adjacent to the airport, it is runway. The other smaller portion in the lower right corner is right near another industrial building and it's actually adjacent to um well it's still adjacent to the road rightway of Washington. Um so you've still got that between right between you and that building. So keeping the parcel consistent is the idea there. Yep. It it's just it's just all of the same parcel. Yeah. Is split zoning kind of something we normally do to do a split zone? It's

kind of the first time I've seen a split zone. It that too isn't um you know completely unheard of. So it's something we try to avoid if we can. Um my guess is if we reszone this, right, that they would typically split that there. So, they'd be able to sell that piece as that commercial um piece, but just because of the way it's coming in, it's all one piece right now. So, it right now it would be that split zone for the commercial piece. To leave it up to the person who wants to build on that spot. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they even showed it, right? I mean, that's the way they showed their ideas. It would be divided that way. Okay. If you'd like, I can comment too a little bit on that. Um the it's kind of a chicken or egg kind of a thing. Um you know, right now it's all one large piece of property kind of oddly shaped with the roads cutting through it and everything else. Um you know, I think in the future the the goal is that this property is going to get divided. We don't know exactly how it's going to get divided. Um, you know, that kind of depends on what what happens with the market and who comes along and wants to purchase it. Um, but um, yeah, the the idea is the the feed mill site that five acres is is going to get chunked off from whatever is sold, however it's sold, whether it's the the second page is kind of a concept, you know, that that has been floated out there. There's been a little bit of interest now that the word is kind of getting out that this is happening. Um, so there's been a little bit of interest in, you know, that five to six acre industrial lot size, but um, we don't exactly know how it's how it's going to end up. Um, but yes, the the idea is the Piers family, um, is going to retain the the mill site um, at least for the foreseeable future. So that will with whatever happens here, that will get split off. That five-ish

acres is going to get split off as a separate parcel. We just don't know if it's going to get, you know, if the rest of it's going to be one 43 acre parcel that's going to get sold to somebody to develop for industrial or a bunch of, you know, five to six acre lots. We we just don't know at this point. So, because of it being one parcel today, there will be a period of time when it is splitzoned until kind of those land divisions occur. And, you know, no one really has a good idea of what that time frame is. um you know, it might be a short period of time, it may be a little bit longer, but um we'll we'll see how that comes out. But yeah, it is it's kind of a rarity, but it's a very odd parcel of land today with it being one parcel number, all one parcel with realistically two roads going through it. And that's what kind of created some of the oddball little pieces. And then the old road right ofway for for Washington in the old alignment is still there. and there's utilities and there's other things in that. So, the city doesn't want to necessarily vacate that right ofway. So, um that's what kind of creates those two little oddball shaped parcels off on the east end there. Um in the future, some of that will likely get cleaned up with maybe combining at least one of those pieces, little chunks with an adjacent piece of property. So, we'll see how that all comes out. There's some discussions going on in the background. The idea would be I mean those are not buildable parcels no matter what they're zoned. I mean other than maybe some downtown zoning that allows zero setbacks but otherwise with all the the road rights of ways there the setbacks you wouldn't even be able to build a taco stand in the middle of it to be honest with you. So um they're kind of unbuildable parcels at this or unbuildable pieces of property at this point. So yeah but I think that one acre being that it's adjacent to industrial I could see parking potentially going there. Um, you've got some industrial users who might grow in that one acre on the other side that they might want to shift their parking to another location.

So, I think that could be a good use for it. Keeping it industrial makes sense to me. Keeping what industrial? The the one kind of hidden acre, that one acre on the other side of the road that was asking you about. Yeah. The Well, it's.9 acres kind of on the other side. Yeah. I mean, it's it could be parking potentially for an adjacent industrial customer. Yeah. So, the idea for this is to make it more marketable, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. Any other questions? No. Steve, I have one more question for you. Um, if we do a split zoning like this, does that mean that each parcel that they would sell off could be either or does the whole parcel have to stay one? So if we do the split zoning, we will have a legal description for the industrial and then a legal description for the the CMU piece. So um it it would be but if they sell off portions of that piece of property, how does each of those get zoned then? Do they just get to pick? No, the parent whatever they're being put on that legal description of the of the zoning district will will stay, right? Um so in theory if they just start selling off these industrial pieces, those would that zoning would stay with that area. Okay. Is there maybe to follow up on that? Is there a reason why we aren't just having them split or they aren't splitting it now? Just for clarity purposes that it becomes just two distinct parcels for the asos. Again, you know, having split zoning isn't um prohibited. Um again, tried to avoid it just because sometimes it gets a little bit messy. Um but

um I I guess I would probably encourage you to just stay with the um the resoning criteria and evaluate the request that way. Um and the split line doesn't need to be part of that. Um I guess that's my best answer. Sure. Okay. Any other questions? No. All right. Waiting for a motion. Move to approve the recommendation from staff. Support. All right. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? None. All right. Thank you for coming in. Thank you. Communications and petitions. Scheduling of public hearings. There are none. Communications from commission members. None. Communication. Commissioner. Oh, duh. Well, I thought I thought Stephen would take care of that, but I was gonna leave it up to him. So, communications from staff. All right. Two two things for you. We have a new member, Alec Miller joins us. We do. He he uh if he looks familiar because uh he works at the MAC. So, it's great to have somebody from uh the MAC here with us. Wonderful. Welcome, Alec. Thank you. And then I just had a quick update to let you guys know we have updated a map in Udo. So on your screen is the map from the formbbased code district. Um it talks about the different heights that are allowed and we simply updated a couple of the colors to make it uh a little bit easier to read. So, in our effort to make UDO a little more user friendly, we think the updating colors is a little bit easier um to figure out, especially when you print out the this page. So, very pretty. Just an update. Thank you. Thank you.

Is sorry. So, is the new one the one on the left? Like new one is the one on the left. Okay. Just confirming. I maybe I I'm a little color blind. Hopefully it's still on that. It says two at the top. Well, I I understand that. I I I personally can see a little bit where it's it almost bleeds together a little bit with my eye color sight. So, all right. Motion for adjournment. So, moved. Support. All those in favor say goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. Okay. Totally didn't realize that.