Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

No, it's six o'clock. Good evening. I'd like to welcome you to the Decal Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday, May 18th, 2026. Clerk, please call the role. Fellibomb Sisler here. Wright here. Shalley here. Murray here. Chair McMahon here. Five present. We have a quorum. At this point of the meeting, I'm going to ask for an approval of the agenda. Are there any additions or deletions or a motion to approve the agenda as submitted? So move. A motion on the floor from right. Second. Second. Second from Shalley. All in favor say I.

I. I. All oppose. Same sign. The agenda is approved. At this point of the meeting, I'm going to ask for approval of the minutes from April 20th, 2026. So move we have a motion to approve the minutes from April 20, 2026 from right. Second second. A second from Sisler. All in favor say I. I.

All oppose same sign. Motion passes. This is the portion of the meeting that's public participation. If anybody is in the audience that wishes to talk about something that's not on the agenda tonight, you're welcome to come up to the podium now. State your name and address. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public participation portion of the meeting and open it up for new business. Tonight, we have on the agenda two public hearings. The first public hearing is a petition by John Papus for a special use permit to allow a restaurant with drive-through facilities for the property located at 2151 Sycamore Road. I'm going to open up this public hearing at 6:01 p.m. and ask if there's a presentation to be made. It's come up to the podium and give the presentation.

Good evening. Good evening. I'm requesting a drive-thru facility for the old advanced auto property. We have a couple of national tenants we're working with. One is Tropical Smoothie. We cannot announce the second one yet, but uh it's a national uh the average annual sales between 2.83 $3 million. So uh they require a drive-thru. So I'm here for the special use permit. All right. Thanks, John. Y is there a city presentation?

Yeah, there's a staff report in your packets. Um, so as John mentioned, uh, there's a request for a drive-thru restaurant. Name has not been mentioned, uh, for a location. Uh, shown here is 2151 Sycamore Road in red. It's the old Advance Auto building. Uh, as mentioned, there'll be three tenants. Uh, Tropical Smoothie on the end, a middle tenant space, unnamed yet, and then the restaurant at the end. The drive-thru will be around the back of the building. Uh and then around the south side, just a wider view. The um this is Sycamore Road here. This is the main entrance into the Walmart and Kohl's Market Square Drive. Uh this was the old AutoZone, which uh left a little over a year ago. And uh they last summer the owner did redo the front of the building. Looks pretty nice. That was shown when the work was going on. This is when advanced auto was there. Looking in the back where the drive-thru will go back here. The one tree will be removed and some shrubs. Um part of the building will be demolished. This area in the back that was used to be a door here for loading for advanced auto and storage will be removed. There was a demo plan too that was submitted that uh shows that. So, here's the main building. This area here is going to be removed to allow for the drive-thru. There's some parking, as you can see back here, that existing that's going to be removed, but they're actually adding uh 12 spaces. Uh losing, I think, um what 16. So, there's a net loss of four spaces. We had the applicant do a updated parking count for the all the buildings in there

and the shopping center. They all share parking. So um there was a total of 90 spaces required per the formula for shopping centers and there's 122 provided. So there's adequate parking still. They there's a net loss of just four spaces because they are adding some. So uh you can see the drive-thru back here. And in our UDO we require um five stacking spaces for each drive-thru. Uh so they have adequate room for five to six cars here. About 19 foot spacing um to accommodate that. So that's the main thing that we look for. Is there enough room for the drive-thru? Um which will go back here. This is a private drive. So if there's extra cars being stacked, they can go on the private drive. There's quite a distance there to the intersection which is a signal of course at Sycamore Road. So, what we try and avoid is any drive-throughs that the cars back up onto a public street or something that's or interfere with regular traffic on the site. So, we're comfortable uh looking at this as a staff that the drive-through proposed. Here's a menu board. Here's the pickup window. They're going to have a little 15 by 12 foot little patio with some seats outdoor at the corner there. Handicap space here. Uh this parking remains the same. and they're adding the 12 other commercial uses in the area. Uh this is main commercial corridor of course. So uh no impact negatively on future development. Is there adequate utilities facilities provided? Yes, they provide five vehicles able to stack per lane. They have adequate number of parking still although losing four spaces. So they meet that requirement. Uh five, the last criteria uh talks about public health and safety. it's not going to be detrimental to that. And of course with the uh it's

surrounded by commercial uses uh there is some apartments uh and the building back to the west here on the second level, eight units. Uh but we think it meets all the criteria, public response and comments. We did get one email this afternoon that's on your desk uh from a resident in the apartments here. Again, this building has commercial uses in the bottom. DC EDC's office Dalb County region or economic development corporation office is there there's a driving school and I think um dog grooming um business in there used to be a monastery and the US the congress also

oh underwood's offices are here also so some business offices driving school it's own general commercial this whole area is uh there used to be a monastery school there so uh the email which has provided a copy to you. Uh pretty much notes uh concerns about the drive-thru with u speaker noise, idling cars, litter, uh noise from the menu box, hours of operation. Uh we kind of look at as this development came in together and the renters up here know it's a commercial development. I mean, there could be a bar and restaurant at the lower level. Uh that cause perhaps some issues, too. But uh that's the only comments we got from the public. Uh there's a sample motion prepared. We recommend approval. Uh per the exhibit A, which is the um site plan here and the demo plan showing the location in the drive-thru u location. Uh subject to exhibit A, which is the two plans and the subject to there's one tree going to be lost. John's going to be replaced with two new trees somewhere on the site. A minimum one and a half inch diameter caliper. So, um, happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Thank you, Dan. Is there anybody from the public that wishes to speak on this matter? If they are, come up to the podium, state your name and the rest for the record. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing portion of this meeting at 6:09 p.m. and open it up to the commission members for questions, comments. So, there are resident residential uh spots behind this. Yeah, this building here, there's eight apartments above. There's five with patios, but again, those came in with this development. It's general commercial zoning.

I I walk the path up. Excuse me. I I walk the path all the time and most of the lookout from the residents goes out back towards the walk and towards the I don't really see how how lights are going to Anyone? That's That's not above the Is that above the driving school? Yeah, it's all above It's a whole second floor. All right. Most of the focus is probably see the nature path. Okay. All right. Do the John, do the balconies go does each unit have a front and a balcony back?

Yeah. Half of the balcony they facing the parking lot, the other half in the back. And that building since day one, it's we're it's it's going on now about 15 years those apartments. We have the lowest turnover. Uh I reached out to the office this afternoon. Uh we addressing her concerns internally. Um I don't know the person sends out the email. The the office does. Uh we're going to address she'll be just fine. She's been with us three years, my understanding. Okay. Uh, nobody likes changes, right? I mean, she's been with us three years and I She complained when we were doing the built out for the congresswoman. She complained when

Okay. I brought in the grease trap. She's a good person. My understanding she's a good person. I'm not, you know, I I like change when revenue comes in instead of zero city. So, yeah. right now the way the economy is attracting two national tenants is a big thing. Yeah, it is.

Uh it wasn't easy. It's, you know, I thought it van thought was going to be there forever, but the same time I I just it's not it's not me just sitting on an empty building like that. It's always going to look like it var. But uh the tenant that we haven't announced yet national over 300 some stores. The only thing I can tell you in the chicken business everybody likes their protein. People like their protein, right? Everybody's on a protein diet. But uh it's probably one of the fastest growing franchises in the country. And I'm not just saying that. One of the fastest growing chicken places in the country.

Did you say chicken? They sell they sell more items, but their main business is chicken. And and for this tenant, you're going to make an offer she can't refuse. You said you were going to talk to her. We got it's going to be handled internally and uh she can have her, you know, whatever she wants. We will take care of her. She'll have one week to get to city council if you don't take care of her by next Monday. She she she'll be fine. She she's a good person. My understanding she's a very good person.

And the concerns brought up are, you know, valid if if this building was like residential single family separate development and you had a drive-thru restaurant right next to it. That might be a issue with the noise and everything. But uh we're not part of the commercial development. We're not adding any more lights. There's already parking lights there. Uh in a matter of fact, uh I think it's going to be a better looking development after it's completed in the new tenants movement. Um like I said, uh it's getting addressed internally. So, thank you, John. All right. Thanks.

Appreciate it. Um the another question is, uh how do they access the restaurant uh foot traffic? Um, is it is there the entrance on the front? Where's the entrance in relationship to the Yeah, there'll be an entrance on the front of the building. Yes, right here. And most of the parking is in the back. Is that right? That's that's a fair statement. Yeah, they have parking in the front here, some and a lot in the back, which is shared with the other uses. Okay. But I think the uh sounds like most of business will be drive-thru related. Yeah.

Yeah. 50% of the business that drive through Bus, so there's sidewalks all around the building except in the drive out lane. So, it's really easy to to walk around the building. Okay. And also, how many seats do you have inside, John? They're going to have about 45 50 seats. Okay. You have nine parking spots. Look like also uh they share the whole shopping center kind of shares parking. It's an open parking. 12 here. You got ones in the front, the ones in the back. Got everybody shares parking. Also all about I say TNT and stuff. Everybody, you know, it's a common parking space, common area. Okay.

So that's part of the the whole entire development, but uh All right. Yeah, we never really had any issues uh in that development as far as parking. Okay. uh maybe once a year graduation, Mother's Day, Elwood, was taking fish house, you know, but also, you know, this comes this comes up all the time, the parking, but it's literally impossible to to ride couple hundred parking spaces in the front of a a door, you know? It's

so people need to start walking a little bit. I just wondered how how would people have to how many people would have to go across that drive-thru on that side. Not many. They not in that side. Actually to the east to the north there there's a sidewalk connecting from the parking. Okay. And also they they can also have the ability to use their back door as a as an entrance also. Okay,

the back door is the same style as the front storefront door. It's not one of those metal doors. So, if someone chooses, that's also an option. All right. Thank you. All right. My last question was, um, we talked about the, uh, drive-thru. When you say five stack, you mean five cars can fit in that drive-thru, correct? So, if they have more going around that corner, how does that affect the traffic that has to go by? Is that is there going to be a divider just or just stripes?

No divider. There could be perhaps a sign, you know, don't block the access way or drive, but they'd have to, you know, um if there's more than five or six, they'd have to stack in this private lane here. And that's uh big enough for two-way traffic. That's what I'm trying. Yeah. Somebody could get get around. It's pretty wide. All right. Cuz you know like Starbucks traffic that comes around the corner, they have a like a curb that you go into. You kind of slot it into that curb uh coming around. So yeah, that's pretty wide

area as it widens out to the intersection. It's about 38 I mean 32 feet wide. All right. If there's problems, you know, I'm sure the Mr. Papis would put up a sign or have the restaurant put up some sign with that. So, all right. All right. You good, Jerry? You got them all? I'm good. All right. Does anybody else have any questions from the commissioners? No,

I don't have a question. I just have a statement that drive-throughs saved restaurants during COVID. Look at Tom and Jerry's as an example. And you have to have a drive-thru if you're a fast food restaurant. Yeah, they rely lot on that. It's a business model and it's got to work. Yeah. Makes perfect sense. Okay. It seems like you've demonstrated that the five findings of fact have been fulfilled. Does anybody want to make a motion on this?

I'll make the motion. Based on the submitted petition, testimony presented, and findings of fact, I move that the planning and zoning commission forward is its finding of fact and recommend to the city council approval of a special use permit to allow a restaurant with drive-thru facilities for the property located at 2151 uh Sycamore Road per the site plan attached as exhibit A of the staff report dated uh May 14, 2026, subject to the planting of uh two new trees in the development. Um yeah, there's a motion on the floor from right second. I'll second it.

A second on the floor from Shalley. Roll call, please. Murray, yes. Shalley, yes. Sisler, yes. Wright, yes. Chair McMahon, yes. Motion passes. All right. Good luck, John. Thank you, members. Appreciate it. Thanks, John. Thank you. Have a great night. Good night.

The second item of new business is a second public hearing. So, we have a public hearing, a petition by the city of Decal for miscellaneous text amendments to chapter 23 unified development ordinance of the municipal code. The proposed amendments are to article 5.08 GC general commercial district. Article 7 supplemental district regulations. Article nine, streets and sidewalks subdivision design. Article 11, floodways, flood planes, storm drainage, and erosion control. And article 13, signs. I'm going to open up the second public hearing at 6:20 p.m. and ask if there's a presentation from staff.

Yes. Uh this is a text amendment to the UDO unified development ordinance and two new members. Uh we do u occasional amendments, miscellaneous ones to the unified development ordinance which has all the zoning and subdivision regulations of the city. We do maybe a couple year mostly initiated by the city staff as we work through the ordinance throughout the year applying the regulations come across you know language that could be improved or something's omitted or something just changed out there uh we need to clean up or clarify a little better. So you probably see two or three of these a year and we'll try and group them together. We had a couple already this year, focus more on the individual items. Uh but we occasionally like to bring several items, different articles in the UDO together. So we're not coming back every meeting with a new hearing. So uh I'll cover these. We also have John Lascowski as city engineer who has some amendments to article 11 which he'll go over to. uh but the memo and the exhibit A lists the uh specific changes. I'll run through those. So the first is an article five. It's a general commercial regulations, one of our commercial zoning districts. Uh this kind of a item that was needs clean up in the list of permitted uses. Every zoning district has a list of permitted uses and special uses. Uh permitted uses are permitted as a right. Special uses like you saw with the drive-through require hearing. So, but in the GC district, uh, one of the permitted uses was parking lots and parking structures, which should shouldn't probably be in there. They're considered accessory to the other uses. Um, they're not listed in any other commercial zoning district either. So, this kind of a cleanup, we're going to recommend that be deleted, that list or that particular use. I would note as special use in the uh general commercial district is um parking lots and parking structures as a principal use is special use. That means the parking lot's the

only use on the lot. There's no building. So that remains as a a special use. So the first one's just kind of a cleanup. Um moving to article 7.04 accessory uses buildings and structures. Uh the building department deals a lot of these with permits, but there's a currently a requirement that in the uh accessory buildings and structures that does include patios, decks, any kind of paved surface cannot exceed 30% of the required rear yard. And this comes up in residential a lot. In residential most of the time, vast majority of the time, the rear yard, meaning the setback in the rear yard is 30 feet. So uh these buildings structures can't exceed 30% of that total area. The reason we have that is to aesthetics. We don't want the whole rear yard taken up with buildings and sheds and patios and swimming pools. We want a little green space there for that. Uh the green space is good to for drainage purposes. uh if you have the whole backyard paved over with structures and that uh the water runs off neighbors property doesn't soak into your own. So, what we're recommending, we've run across this um this is suggested by our uh building department is administering these. Um we got a brought up an example. This was a rear yard of a property had he had a drive-in garage. He wanted to add a different another garage and I think he exceeded the 30%. I don't know what the percentage was, but looking at the lot, um first of all, there's is a lot of green space there already between that and the house. uh took an aerial of the of our GIS of the lot. It's a corner lot, too, so there's not homes next to it. There's a couple detached garages and then a wooded area in this lot here. So, um what we're suggesting or recommending the language uh allow the um

building services director, head of the building department to make if it's over 30% to make a decision based on these criteria that you could prove something over the 30%. So we're going to look at the type, size, configuration of the lot, the amount of open spaces is important, too. Uh so we just want the discretion, give the flexibility to the building services director so we don't uh have some variances, bunch of variances start coming through. So um we're going to be very careful on this and kind of watch it and uh if the percentage is over, we'll make sure that some of these criteria are being met or most of them. So um that's the first change in article uh 7. Another one is 7.10 which is called the site distance triangle and that basically is a u a triangle at intersections and that can be two public streets or that could be a private commercial drive into a public street where we don't want any obstructions. I think it's between two and eight feet in this triangle area to avoid it's a visibility issue of cars leaving. We don't want their vision blocked trying to get out to a street. This comes up vast majority of time with signs. Uh example we brought up here and what's happened is we've had a few of these where they're and the sight distance triangle is measured 25 ft from the intersection of the property lines or right at the edge of the sidewalk. This is a cemetery down at South 7th Street in Taylor. You go 25 ft this way, 25 ft that way, and then you connect them. There's your triangle. And there was a sign proposed by the township, which owns a cemetery, South Seventh Street. Um, they wanted to put a sign up that was technically in the about where this red mark is, and it was uh in the triangle. Uh, but based on the took a picture right from the car, you can see from the

sidewalk, the elevation goes up to the sign. So you can actually see underneath it. Um actually the one of the tombstones kind of blocks the vision, but uh the vision visibility is fine. So a lot of these it's almost like going out in a field visit actually seeing if it's going to be a problem or not because many sites you have quite a distance between the sidewalk and the edge of the curb like here. Here it's a little shorter. That's a big matter too particularly in the older commercial areas with private drives because people are going to pull out towards the street. So you may pull out towards the street and not even be in uh be a visibility issue. So with this one too, we're looking to have the building services director uh make the call. Uh they can prove a lesser triangle based on existing site conditions like change in elevation like there was in this one. What they actually did, the sign company put up a a dummy sign actually with plywood and two post just to show what it would look like and staffed at a field visit and determine it's not a visibility issue. So, they were given the permit to erect the permanent sign which you see up there. So, we're allowing uh proposing the amendment would allow the building service director to uh look at a lesser triangular area based on site conditions is the best way to put it, but those can be elevation, property line to the edge of curb, other factors to complain to that. So, and we've kind of been doing this. We thought we'd codify it just make it clear what we're proposing. So that's the um also in article 7 which includes a lot of different provisions. The next one is uh 7.1615 are solar farms and we have have three in the city. Uh one down on Gerler Road. It's been there a couple years uh near First Street. Uh one on city property near the airport on Pleasant Street. It was pretty much

finished. I think they're putting some landscaping in and another one approved in the far west side of the city on Route 38 Huber Parkway which is being under construction this summer. Um those are only three. There's quite a few in the county, but a couple of changes we're uh requesting the commission look at or approve is uh the the fencing around it. Um most of the time these uh solar farms particularly out in the country county and the ones we have the two built have the um you can call it a deer fence agricultural fence uh fixed not woven. You can kind of see the fence here. This is one down in Gerler. Um, and what's recommended is the fencing. We thought as a staff, if it's in the city, you should have fencing that's we don't really want to allow this around probably somebody's house or anything, but either chain link fence or rot iron fencing is what we're recommending. This photo here is of the uh Decal County Health Department nursing home site uh their outreach building right off Annie Glenn. Uh they have a saw a smaller solar farm out there actually and it's surrounded by this black rod rod iron fence you can kind of see between the evergreens. So it's good screening there. Looks pretty good. Uh so we're kind of recommending most any new ones that come into the city they kind of meet this. So only chain link or rod iron fencing would be allowed. They can go up to 8 foot high on these. Uh and uh if one came in and wanted to propose some other type of fence, they'd have to ask for that and go through a hearing in conjunction with their site. But um this is what we're recommending for the type of fencing. And the other one amendment is regarding trees. Um our landscaping regulations in the UDO kind of relate to parking lots. Typical commercial parking lots, you have a certain amount of parking. Um

solar farms don't have parking lots, of course. So, it's kind of been unclear. We want to make it more clear what's required. Uh, so we're suggesting one tree be planted for every 30 feet of street frontage the solar farm has. And that can be an evergreen or deciduous or tree that leaves fall in the fall in the autumn. Uh, most do the arbiva or evergreen trees that are just a little better for screening kind of like you see here. So, we're trying to make that clear for landscaping. The two developments that have been approved do have landscaping pretty similar to this requirement um already. The one on Pleasant Street's about to install the landscaping out there. The one down at Gerler already has it in. They have to replant some of that. Uh but that's what we're kind of looking at for uh landscaping to make that more clear. So uh the ones already approved, the one on Route 38's got already got approvals. So, they're having to have landscaping very similar to this requirement anyway. So, this will apply to new ones, too. Um, the fencing will apply only to new ones. The ones that already are built or approved, they'll allow the fence that they already got approved for, already have out there.

So, they're grandfathered.

Yes, grandfathered in. Article nine, street sidewalk subdivision design. Um, one amendment is regarding street trees or trees between the sidewalk and curb are called parkway trees too. Uh, we're looking to require um, one tree be planted by the developer of a subdivision for each lot or with 100 feet or less in width, which most of them are. If they're wider than that, then it's uh, planted no more than 50 feet apart, not less than 20 feet apart. Um, and the trees have to comply with the our public works department has a rightway tree planting guide and chapter 6.20 of the municipal code has tree planting guidelines in terms of species allowed and minimum sizes. So, some of the newer I guess they're not much newer anymore. Devonor Farms and Bridges of River Mist, most of those lots do have street trees between the sidewalk and curb. So, those were put in as part of the approved plan. There's really no UDO UDO requirement for that. Uh that's where we're proposing here for new new subdivisions. So the ones are already approved, recorded, have some vacant lots left, they'll plant trees as whatever they had in the past. If they do them themselves or the developer does it or the builder, whoever, whatever is required. There's really no requirement that I know of in the in Devonor Farms or Bridges of South Point. I don't see many trees between the sidewalk and curb. So again, it won't apply to those because those subdivisions are already approved and recorded. The lots already recorded. So this would be new subdivision. Could include commercial subdivisions, too. Would have to meet that requirement. But many other cities uh do require this developer put in a one street tree per lot, you know, so the homeowner doesn't have to pay it for it. Now, the city does have a 50/50 program where you pay half uh the cost of a tree and you can add one and your

parkway if you wish and the city covers the other half. That stays in place. So, that's one change in article 9. Um before getting to article 11 and John's going to speak, the last change um uh article 13 regarding signs, it's simply just uh making sure that we do have in our residential district some non-residential uses like churches and schools. Um and our sign regulations are based on the ground signs, wall signs are based on the zoning district of the lot, not so much the use. So, we're suggesting that uh if it's a residential zone, but it's a non-residential use like a church or school, it it matches the same sign standards as a a commercially zone properties, make it kind of even and fair. So, that's a minor minor little change we're recommending. And I'll have John Lcowski now get up and talk uh some changes in article 11, but you do have some handouts uh PowerPoint handouts.

Go ahead. PowerPoint. No, kind of. Do you want to

or amendments then the PowerPoint? Whatever you like. Yeah,

I'll go through a PowerPoint, I think. Um, good evening everyone. Um, my name is John Escowsi. I'm the city engineer here with the city. This presentation I did back in February is similar one too. So, I sorry to bore some of you, but um there's some different information in there. So um flood plane management is one of the one of the important thing functions of the engineering division office. Um floods are the most common threat that we face in the city of Decal as far as natural disasters go. Um and because of that we like to have a robust um flood plane management ordinance in place to make sure that we're protecting our our citizens and their property. So when we talk about flood plane management, what I am specifically referencing is is the why do we want to do it? And that's because it does preserve lives and property. And how do we do it? We do it through education and through regulations. So when we part of the programs that we have at the city are to educate our residents on the different um the different things available to them. So that could be the resources we have on our website that kind of outlines uh the location of the flood plane and different uh different services my the engineering engineering division office offers. So that might be if a realtor calls and is selling a property and it's near the Kishwwaukee River, she might call me and say, "Hey, um is this property located within the flood plane?" and I can look at the maps from FEMA and help her also navigate the FEMA website and conclusively then determine whether or not this property is susceptible to flooding and if it's going to need flood insurance in the future. Um so that's part of the education component. The other part component of flood plane management are our regulations that we have in our ordinance. So we try to make sure that when people build in the flood plane or near the river that they're doing it in a safe and responsible manner. So, one of the things that you may hear

in the news from time to time are storm event return periods. And what storm event return periods are is I guess I'll back up for a second and say that engineers don't always convey things in the most simple terms. And when we first started talking about storms and the quantity of rainfall hitting the ground, we started calling them the fiveyear storm event, the 10ear storm event, this 50-year storm event, all the way up to the 500year storm event. And I started talking to residents who would call me from time to time and they would say, "Hey, you know, my backyard flooded and it's never done this before. What's going on?" And you know, we'd evaluate the issue, try to figure out what it was. And we'd say, "Oh, this was like the 10-year storm event." And somebody would say, "Well, this just happened twice in a row in the last two years." And so we looked at it or nationally it was looked at and they're like, you know, this isn't really explaining the storm very well. So we started using statistics instead and saying this storm has a 10% chance of happening each year. So that means that you know you may have a it's like playing the lottery. You might win two in a row but then you might not win for another you know 50 years. So by using the statistics it's a more accurate way and it more accurately communicates to people the the potential threat that the storm may have. So that's kind of a a primer going into the next slide which is going to explain kind of what the flood plane actually is looking at it from a profile view. So if we look at the flood plane and we're starting at the bottom of that list kind of at the top where it says FEMA floodway. When you look at the floodway and if you're not familiar with FEMA it's flood what is it

management? There it is. See I got caught. So the federal emergency management agency defines the different areas of the flood plane. The first one's the floodway. And if you imagine the floodway, what that is, that's the flowing area of water. So when you're lock walking along the bike trail on the kish, wherever the water is within that channel, that's considered the floodway. It's also most dangerous place to build a house. So our regulations prevent almost all buildings from going in that channel area. the flood fringe. So the floodway and the flood fringe make up the flood plane. The flood fringe is the area immediately adjacent to the floodway. It's not flowing water. And sometimes you can build in it, sometimes you can't. In the city of Decal, we try to discourage as much building in that flood fringe area as we can. And the best way that I can explain it is it's kind of like putting an ice cube in your water glass. When you drop that ice cube in, the level of the water rises. So, if we were to allow buildings to continue to be placed in that flood fringe, eventually that water level in the channel is going to rise and that creates a problem for people upstream and downstream because that area is no or that volume is no longer available um to to hold that water. And the floodway and the flood fringe together make up the flood plane. And there's different again there's different flood planes. There's a 100red-year flood plane and the 500year flood plane. Again, we should be using the statistics. It'd be the 1% flood plane and the 2% flood plane. The 100red-year one is the regulatory one. So, whenever um a realtor does call and asks, "Hey, am I is this house in that flood plane?" It's the 100red-year flood plane that I'm looking at. that 1% chance storm to it when it hits that area of land is where

those houses are going to need um flood insurance. So if we look at this is an our GIS system, our GE geographical information system um has the ability to overlay the flood plane on maps that show the city of Decal. So this area is kind of looking at the back 40. So, just to the left of the screen would be NIU's campus and to the right is um the is it Huntley Middle School? Uh Clinton Rosette

Clinton Rosette over there. And this kind of gives you an an understanding of how wide that flood plane is. So, it actually stretches up to up into that back 40. Um, at one point, um, back in the, I want to say 2005, 2006, there was a program in the village or in the city that actually purchased two of the homes that were on Fairmont Street because they had been repetitively flooding. So they there was a uh Illinois Emergency Management Agency grant program that was available that the city chose to participate in which allowed the city to purchase those homes at market value so they could be demolished and returned to the flood plane and allowed those people to purchase homes other places in town. So this is just kind of a plan view of the profile that we had just looked at. And the purple area there is um is what's considered the floodway. The fl the flood fringe is adjacent to that in the light blue. And the green is the 500year flood plane. So earlier when I was saying the flood flood weight is the actual flowing water in the channel. I think I probably misled you so I'm going to restate it again. It's the flowing water during the 100red-year storm event. So that's why the purple area, the deep purple looks wider than the actual natural blue channel. So when we get that 100-year storm event, the water in the deep purple is flowing water. The area in the light purple is just stagnant and just staying there. And that's the kind of that's the flooding that we typically have in Illinois. So it's that riverine flooding and it just expands out wide. And in contrast, recently um there was the Camp Mystic event down in Texas where there was a a

lot of property damage and loss of life that occurred and that occurred because of flash flooding in hilly and rocky areas that have a lot of elevation. So when the rains hit that rocks and there's steep slopes, the velocity increases of all that water and that's what creates flash floods and that's why the water impacts these places so quickly and washes them away. So in Texas and in Illinois, this is a national program where we do perform flood plane management and we're constantly trying to look for ways and modeling that more accurately represents atmospheric rainfall but also air ways to regulate development to keep them more safe. Uh the next few slides I'm just going to kind of bounce through because I kind of explained what they were in the presentation. Um the National Flood Insurance Program is a program that the the city participates in. Now this is a program that if we want our residents to have access to flood insurance, we have to participate in this program and it's a benefit to the city and the residents because it's it helps reduce the impact of uh a natural disaster or a flood on that resident. So it's like car insurance or home insurance. Why is it important? Because most flood insurance pol or most homeowners insurance policies don't have a flood insurance component. You may have a s sewer backup rider on your home insurance policy, but you're not going to have coverage for floods when that water comes in either through your window wells or over your top of your foundation. So, who is the flood insurance available to? It's available to anybody really. Anybody in the flood plane is required to have it if you have a FDIC back mortgage. If you are in the flood plane and you paid off your mortgage, you're not required to have flood insurance. I highly recommend you have it. Um if if

you're in that area because it it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when the flood's going to come. So on the next slide, um, what I realized I'm going to click through this one really quick because I have a quiz question and I gave the answer first, but I will will try to jump to this question and just kind of what do you think the average cost of a flood insurance policy is per year and it's not really as expensive as I think most people think. It it is that six $600. Oop, I just clicked through. Yeah, but it's the $600. Um, Being an insurance agent that seems low. Yeah. So that's the national average. Yeah. So I'm sure it's probably

you can only buy through the national flood insurance program. You can't buy it outside of there. So yeah determine the rates.

So um the next slide is an explanation of the CRS program. So the CRS program is a subprogram of the national flood insurance program. It's an optional one. the city participates in it and right now we are a class 7 and part of the reason I'm doing this presentation and asking for you to consider some of the changes I'm proposing is that by tightening our regulations or making them more clear or explaining them to people better. We are able to get more points within this program. So there's 10 classes in this program. The highest class is number one. The lowest class is number 10. For a class one community, you could get a 45% discount on your premium if the city participates in in the program. Right now, the city of Decalib is a class 7 and anybody in our community who is required to have flood insurance is entitled to that discount. Um, we're hoping to maintain that same status in the future. We are going to be looking to advance in class, but right now we're just trying to maintain that class 7 with the 15% discount. And the people from FEMA are coming to now that DHS is funded again, they're going to be coming. They were scheduled to come in April to perform an audit on our participation in the program. and they're going to be coming sometime this year. Now, just to confirm that we're still doing the activities that we've committed to, educating the public on flood plane and maintaining and enforcing our our ordinances. So, that's the presentation I have on flood plane management and I'm welcome I'd welcome any questions you might have. Um, following up on that are kind of the regulations that or the regulations that I'm asking you to consider for some changes. And the first one of those pertains to substantial damage and

substantial improvement. And right now our ordinance says that if we have 50% of a structure that's in the flood plane and it's damaged that or more than 50% then you have to now comply with the new regulations that the city has or I shouldn't say the new regulations the current regulations the city has. So, if you were to have say two floods come through and you have 50% of your home is damaged in year one, you rebuild it and you're set to go. In year two, it comes through. We're not going to make you do the up upgrades to the or the improvements to the home to make it floodproofed or elevated to protect you from from the floodway. You can continue to do those improvements. the next year you have that same 50% you can do those same improvements again. What we're proposing is to make these these improvements cumulative. So if you have a storm in year 1 and say 45% of the home is damaged and you make the improvements to fix it and next year 10% of your home is damaged and you increased that threshold is or you've broken the 50% threshold and you've now made it to 55% of your home has been improved as a result of that damage over the two years. We're going to say that you need to comply with the regulations that make you elevate your home and or floodp proof it or protect yourself from future flood damage so that you don't just keep continually getting flooded over and over. And the reason for that is one it's we our emergency response teams are going to have to respond if there's a flood there. You may have to require some services from the fire department to rescue you out of your home. the damage that's done is going to

take funding to be um to repair and a lot of times that's either grant money that we're searching for, staff is searching for to assist you. And so we just find it more prudent that if you're if you have the if your home's being damaged and you're continually um fixing it, it would be better to meet the new standards that protect you and prevent this from happening in the future is is kind of where we're at with that change. The second change that we're uh that we're proposing is to if you're to build a new home in in the floodway or the flood plane, which again is very hard to do just because of the regulations as they are, but if you were to build your foundation, we're asking that you place it on a foundation that's solid. That's prevented prevent it's scour prevented it. It's erosion. Let me try this again. It's the it's a a material that doesn't erode. So, we want you to build on something solid like rock or clay. We don't want sandy or silty soils that could erode away with a high velocity um stream or river going past you. So, it's another added layer of protection to to building a home in that area or a business. Um the next change that I'm at I'm I'm requesting you consider is what is called freeboard. So this is the distance between your top of foundation and the elevation of that flood water. So based on the the maps that we saw each of those the flood or the flood plane and the floodway they have a specific elevation assigned to them. So if the elevation were to be 700 feet above sea level, we would want your fl your the top of your foundation to be constructed at 702 feet above sea level. Meaning that when that 1% chance storm, the 100red-year storm hits, your top of

foundation is going to be 2 feet above that flood level and your your property is going to be safe and the water's not going to be entering into your home. So that's change that that two feet already exists in residential properties. I would like that to be uniform for um commercial and industrial properties as well so that they have that same level of safety that that the homeowners are afforded right now in our ordinance. And again, this is only for properties. This isn't a retroactive thing that we're making business owners or property owners go back and elevate their buildings. This is for new structures or those structures that were demolished as a result of a flood. We would ask when they're rebuilt to build to that higher elevation. Um

so that would be reflected in the permitting process. Correct. Yeah. So when somebody just for you say commercial, so even commercial would be included. So it' be Yeah. If it was a business or if building in in that area where we just said was correct, right? And most of the time there's not a lot of property available of anything. The only one that I the the closest thing would probably be Century 21 and WNIGJ that are right on the northeast corner of kind of the bridge and the river there. There's also that commercial building. That commercial building also um that hasn't been hit a long time. But

right there building south of there, the car dealer there's a detailer there. The panda. Oh yeah. Okay, they're right there, too. But that area, it could be developed sometime.

And most of these, if they come up, uh these situations, as John mentioned, pretty rare areas, uh they'd be dealt with more in a permit, probably not a zoning issue. So, something the commission probably won't probably won't see. it'd be more permitting and but these are in the UDO and changes in but storm water which Sean touched on a lot relate to the uh flooding that comes up quite often and new developments particularly when it's near residential we get some residents here uh concerned you know if a site's somewhat vacant and you're putting new buildings and parking on they think well it's just going to be more runoff on off the property but our detention retention requirements in the UDO which John looks over. Of course, any development that comes through, uh, he's looking at and, uh, pretty much the runoff at a new development can't be any more, usually less than what's currently on the site. So, that does come up often, uh, in public hearings. Residents ask a lot about that, but rest assured, you know, the commission, we're kind of looking at that already to make sure that you meet requirements. And if it's a bigger project where that might be an issue, I'd have John at the meeting too addressing any questions that might come up. So, a little background on some of that, how it affects the commission.

Is that the last change, John? Yeah, the last last change is um Okay,

there's one more and it's just uh it's adding the text hydraulically connected, which again another engineering term. Basically what it means is in that slide that we I showed or when I explained that when you drop the ice cube in the glass of water the water level rises. So when we build a house or a house is permitted to be built in the flood plane you're adding fill to that flood plane and you're creating a situation where that water is rising. What we require is compensation for that fill that's going in. So, if you were to add I guess this is the best way I could put it. If you were to add your the ice cube into the glass of water, we're going to make you take a sip of the water. So, what that means is for every shovel full of dirt that you're putting into the flood plane, we're making you take 110% out of the flood plane. So, you're essentially making the flood plane bigger by creating more volume in it. And hydraulically connected means if you're building the house in the cal then we don't we want and you're filling that foundation into cal we don't want you taking out the soil in sycamore because it's not going to help the problem in the cal even if you own the property there you can't do it. So we we want it to be hydraulically connected, meaning, you know, the the water is the levels being affected in our community is essentially what it is.

And that's all the changes that I have for you.

Yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions. And we do have on the page four the findings of fact. We have findings of fact for text amendments too. We added a couple years ago, but we uh have those stated and supporting information after each one. We take a look make sure the amendments are consistent with the comprehensive plan and they certainly are regarding making better positive community appearance for developments in the amendments and there's a lot of statements about flip plane regulations in the comp plan too. Uh make sure it's in meets the intended purpose of the UDO C which we talked about which a lot of them do. It corrects errors or missions and sometimes we have two parts of the ordinance stating different things. We like to clear that up. And the amendments, we like to, you know, being a businessfriendly community, we don't like to take amendments and just make them more strict just to do it. U only if there's a certain situation where we need to do that. So a lot of the regulations may ease up on the reg if we're uh like a few years ago we used the city used to require special use permits for digital display signs where you change the message electronically and we're approving one after the other and certain standards were approved after each one and uh they were unanimous approvals. we decided well let's just make that a amendment to the UDO where you can get a permit for that without having to pay a hearing filing fee and going through that process long as you meet these criteria you can get a permit for that kind of making it easier so we've had quite a few uh get those approvals through permit so uh just a little background on the amendments kind of what we try and do most of them are just kind of getting things in line with policy or other regulations through the state perhaps uh make it more clear not just trying to make amendments to make things more difficult to develop in the city. That's not what we're here to do. So, um so after each uh we do amendments, we'll you'll have findings

of fact and those in the report also. So, uh there's a sample motion prepared with the specific amendments and uh happy to answer any questions. Okay, this being a public hearing, I'm going to open it up to the public for anybody from the audience that has any questions or comments on this issue. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing at 6:57 p.m. And now I'm going to open it up to the commission for questions, comments, or a motion. So a house gets flooded once. We'll let them rebuild. House gets flooded the second time, we won't let them rebuild. Is that what you're proposing? It's based on It's based on

elevate the percentage. Yeah. So, it's based on the market value of the home. So, if 50% of the market value is damaged or a after we reach that 51% threshold, we're going to ask you to rebuild the home to the new standards. Up until that point, you can continue to improve your house and build it to the the standards before um if they refuse. If they refuse that's side of my hands, I I would do my best to compel them, but if they refuse, they would get any permits to do any they won't get permit to do anything,

right? Yeah. So, the permitting would be based off the new standards.

So, when they're looking to get a permit to rebuild, they would get a standard or they would get the permit for the new build. If they refused to do it, the permit would be denied. And we currently have regulations for a long time on non-conforming situations like if the 50% for like a structure house that was damaged by fire, if it's bond 50% of the value destroyed, it could only be rebuilt per the underlying zoning, meaning setbacks, etc. You had a house on East Lincoln Highway that was pretty badly burned. They had to demolish it and they can only rebuild it per the underlying zoning, which is not residential. So, we've had that those standards similar to what John's talking about for quite some time. But if the cost becomes prohibitive for the person to rebuild person up then the quadre

policy does have a clause they fix that up building ordinance or law will pick up 25% I think for ordinance or law add extra in there wasn't included in the original structure all states I know state for The the other part was uh when you talked about the um the the last part where you said um if you if you uh drop this ice cube in and then we're going to make you take a sip. Explain that again.

Okay. So So um think of the think of the the house being built in the flood plane as the ice cube. Mhm. If you put that house into the flood plane, the water level is going to rise. In order to compensate for that, we're asking the the more of the soil is dug out of that flood plane area. So that's kind of the taking the sip. You're taking more dirt out of the flood plane than you're putting back into it. Okay? More mass out. So that just means you're paying for some excavation. Okay.

All right. I'll be honest, that was kind of a on the-fly analogy, so I don't know. I caught it on the fly. Okay. Um, that's all I had for that. But but I did had have a question for Dan on the uh when we when we when we uh talk about the um the solar panel farm solar farms. Uh did we have a u regulation that the fence a fence had to be built or did did uh I guess if you choose to build a fence it can only be chain link or run iron.

But prior to that they they didn't even have to have a fence. Most do for security purposes. So you're not required to have a fence. All right. And when we talk about trees, this doesn't have to be Does it have to be evergreens? I know evergreens are probably the best. Evergreen is a broad kind of term. Anything that keeps leaves green year round compared to deciduish with leaves a drop in the fall. Most do that. They don't want trees getting too big to shade out the solar panels, I guess. So,

amen. That's pretty common. You see the evergreen trees, arborvita or whatever just to give a little screening. You know, you're not we're not tending to block out the solar farm, but um just give a little buffering to it. Dan, I have a question about the site tri site distance triangle you brought up. You put up a slide there from Seventh Street. Did that did that change? Because years ago, I thought it was explained to me that it was not along the sidewalks, but it was actually where the two roads would intersect excluding the rounded out portion.

The ordinance says the property lines, so that does in some cases makes it the triangle pretty extensive, but it is a property lines on two public street. It's not the curb. I want someone to drive first and ridge. Let me put that up there. First and ridge is terrible. That's dangerous. Yeah. Okay. But that's a that's the language is the property line. Okay.

That's why it's so unique. It depends on elevations, the distance between the curb and the property line. It varies. You can see in this example here that and once we get the older parts of the city, commercial developments have, you know, um you throw up this distance triangle and then there's nowhere they can and all this relates to signage. Usually there's nowhere to put a sign. Um so they have to this allows some flexibility to to find a location that will allow them to have signage but at the same time not block traffic or visibility which is utmost concern. So

Scott was just given an example first and ridge. What about residential plantings putting big huge plantings on the corner to that intersection? Yeah, I think that's covered. I think there's a basic um sight distance issue, but that that's common. I know we have restrictions on planting in the parkway between the sidewalk and street I think limits the height of those I think. Um but um yeah, you do see places where the trees uh old trees do block visibility. I think if it's a serious issue, um, public works may step in and, um,

sometimes they'll they have an operation where in in the early spring they'll try to trim the trees that are around stop signs and intersections where they know that the branches will hang down. Yeah. First got the blockade blockade what blocks your city. You have a low car. I can't all time. I can't see you can't see anyone coming up first. First, first the Oh, yeah. If you're going south up the hill, it's all right. Going back to this this uh ocean here. Does anybody have any other comments on it? I I just wanted to ask so so with this uh with the triangle, there's some contingencies with what you can put in there.

Well, there's just some criteria for the building services director uh to take a look at, for example, but it's all site conditions. So, I think the best uh looking at is do a field visit and see where the sign's going to be placed and try and get an idea how big it will be and then determine if it's a visibility issue or not. Okay. We've kind of been doing that a little bit a few cases. Seeing no more questions or comments, does anybody want to make a motion on this? I can make the motion. We're here, right? Uh, yes, we are.

That's where we are. Amen. Based on the submitted petition and testimony presented, I move the planning and zoning commission recommend to the city council approval of text amendments to the unified development ordinance regarding articles 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 as indicated in exhibit A. We have a motion on the floor from right. Is there a second? I'll second. Is that Shalley? Second on the floor from Shalley. Roll call, please. Murray, yes. Shalley, yes. Cisler, yes. Wright, yes. Chair McMahon, yes. Motion passes.

Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, John. Are there any reports tonight? Uh this quickly next uh meeting June 1st, no public hearings scheduled. Uh if we do cancel the we'll send out an email the Thursday before um June 15th. Uh we should have a hearing for that and that will be made public. Uh the commission will get a email on that and a link back to the website once that's established and posted. and welcome new member uh Katherine Murray just appointed and uh Bryant Charlie's been appointed a little while but first meeting so welcome new members we still have one opening on the commission and um once we get uh maybe a little next meeting or two we'll uh have an election for vice chair.

Okay. All right. And our meetings always go this long. Okay. All right. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So second motion on the floor from Shali seconded by right. All in favor say I. I. All oppose same sign. Thank you everybody. Thanks guys. Thank you.