Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call the May 18th, 2026 Polk City Planning and Zoning Commission meeting to order. Roll call. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Item three, approval of the agenda. I'll make a motion we approve it as written. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed, same sign. All right. Item four, approval of P&Z Commission meeting minutes for April 20th, 2026. I'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes for April 2026. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed. All right. Item passes. Item five, Block 10 of Polk City former City Hall final plat. City engineer report. So, for the Commission's consideration tonight is a final plat related Block 10, which is the block that the old City Hall, fire station, and

[clears throat] um city-owned parking lot exists on today. [gasps]

Um the proposed final plat will take um a number of lots, alleys, and various other subdivisions and kind of consolidate them into a more functional um lot layout, as well as address some items that have been outstanding. Um one of the big drivers on this topic is the City Council has an interest um following the IEDA downtown assessment a couple years ago at this point um regarding potential infill of the property where the police department currently parks their vehicles. As the city continues to grow, we've identified this as an opportunity to potentially build a new building in an area that hasn't seen new development in a significant amount of time and do so in a way that kind of sets the tone for what future subdivisions and not subdivisions, but development redevelopment and infill could look like in the square. Um, so the proposed final plan in front of the commission tonight creates or consolidates slash creates two parcels. One being a parcel that contains the city's parking lot, the fire department police station building, and then the Big Creek Elementary School. The second lot is a 0.07 acre parcel split between the Mason or the Masonic Lodge and the old city hall for the purposes of infill development. Um, the zoning on these parcels is currently GF1, so should the city choose to sell this lot and pursue infill development of any kind, um, that a rezoning would be required at that time as well as an additional site plan. The final plat notes that any further improvement of to either parcel, so city owned or that in potential infill parcel, will be required to submit a site plan as well as,

um, this proposed lot split maintains the current nonconformity in that the fire station and Big Creek Elementary School currently exist on the same parcel constituting two principal structures on a single parcel with different uses, which is a nonconformity with Polk City Code. However, by combining these into one big parcel versus having the parking lot and the alleys split from the fire station and the Big Creek Elementary School, we're addressing a nonconformity that exists today cuz as of right now, the parking lot sits on its own parcel and is an accessory structure or is an accessory use with no primary use on the same parcel. Um so, in doing this, we're addressing a non-conformity while not making other non-conformities worse, um which is consistent with our policy on infill and redevelopment parcels and planning. Be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Um we recommend approval of recommend approval of this item subject to final preparation review of all legal documents by the city attorney. So, the only question I had is by splitting off that lot, that leaves it in that same zoning. It's just allowing the city to sell it if they want to, if there is a developer that comes along.

Correct. It It's basically the first step in what would be necessary for an infill development, and it makes it a lot cleaner in terms of we now have a legal description for it. We can tell them exactly how big it is, what the parameters are. [clears throat] Um and so, it cleans up the negotiating piece of it or makes it a little cleaner for the city to ask developers, "Hey, are you interested in this?" P&Z would have at least two more bites at the apple in terms of rezoning and then a site plan before any anything would be developed on that parcel. Has there been any thought or concerns with the location of the structures with regard to the firewall? I mean, I know you can sidestep and get around it. It's been that way, but that'd be in your emergency services should there be So, rectified there. The building official is aware that and they've made both the police and fire aware of it. I think as we continue to develop how that original city or that old city hall building is handled and what exactly constitutes the historical structure. If we can take anything off the We're at about 9 and 1/2 ft of separation right now. Um so there's We were very very close to be able to being able to do a zero setback on one of those buildings and meet the firewall requirement. We're about 6 in short. So I think as we continue to dig into that historic structure and figure out exactly where things can be omitted or we can further remedy that structure, I think we're close on that firewall. And this may To be honest with you, this may not be the last time we approach you with this final plat to split the lot cuz it makes a ton of sense if we can figure out how to get the distance between those two buildings to have them on separate parcels. I would just also add that we probably would have brought this final plat three

or four months ago if we felt we could come up with a better resolution and we just ran out of ideas on how to resolve that issue. [snorts] Has [clears throat] there been any interest in that little parcel has there that we know of from a developer? No. No, there's been no real interest from any developers. We were just visiting earlier that maybe it would be good to have the city keep it the keep it as a pocket park or something different there and just It's going to be tough to get anything to What is that? 30 ft wide or Am I reading that right? Um 39. 39? Yeah. I would just thought Yeah. [clears throat]

And I think to be honest with you about the The only thing we can think of as far as an infill structure would be some sort of retail on the the first floor. And then I've talked to a couple of our development engineers and they've identified that probably to make it all work, you probably have to have two levels of residential up top. So I think it it kind of allows it to be split and utilize separate without creating a cuz I think I think you're 100% right that if it was retained and could be some sort of park structure or incorporated as an accessory structure to the square, I think it does make sense. Um, but you know, it kind of creates that weird dichotomy of you've got the governmental building plus an a kind of a primary use, kind of an accessory use because we do we categorize park as a primary use. Um, with several accessory uses underneath of it. Um, that is allowed in the in the GF1 district. So, um, it cleans up a lot of the administration on that and it makes it a little easier to say, "Well, the city, you know, we we split it apart and we administer it the same way." So, I think we're we're consistent in the way that we've approached infill and redevelopment on existing lots. That would make sense. Looks good. Any other questions or Is there a motion? I'd make a motion to approve the final plat of the property described as described in the uh 18th engineer's report.

I'll second that motion. All right. Roll call. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. [clears throat]

Yes. Yes. All right. Item passes. Item six, reports and particulars. No council liaison. City manager? Um a heads-up to you all. We've been We've been requested by a developer to hold a special planning and zoning meeting in early June. Uh developers on a tight timeline for residential subdivision project and has requested that you meet before the June 8th City Council meeting. So, our office will send out a Doodle Poll probably in the near future to see about holding a special planning and zoning meeting. As I recall, uh they need to pay a fee to do that. Is that to cover you folks' expenses? Uh yeah, okay.

to hold a special planning and zoning meeting and the developer is aware of that cost. Okay. So, just Is it June 1st that Monday night is what they're thinking or have you not picked a day? We will look at a few different days first week of June, but we will consider Monday the 1st. The I'm just going to pencil in commission needs that Monday, so we might have a little bit of an issue with that, but we'll try to see what we can work around.

Okay. Staff Staff comments? Just wanted to make make the commission aware. You'll see pavement going down on the roundabout on the 3rd and Northside Drive here this week, long as weather doesn't completely destroy the rock overnight. And then the first week of June approximately is when they're going to flip over and we will maintain north-south traffic through that intersection, but the east leg will be closed for most of the summer to accommodate that roundabout construction. We'll have a sign detour that takes you up and around up to 126th Avenue so that you can get through that intersection, but that east leg will be closed to through traffic. We highly highly highly encourage anybody that asks to not utilize Madison and 6th as a pass through. Those are substandard roadways with no sidewalks along them and so we do not want additional traffic. So, those will also be closed to through traffic as well and signed and such. And I drive those streets on occasion and there's also some wheelchair traffic on that road that I'd be really worried about.

Yeah, when I when I mentioned substandard, that's one of them is we do not have established pedestrian separated facilities. And so we really really want to try and push people away from using them as a pass through. So, whoever asks because they may know you that you're involved in the city in some way, we would encourage you to encourage them to follow the detour but that's a little bit extra time. Is that posted out on 44th then? That far out?

It will be. Yeah, so we will close it at 44th to through traffic. We'll do offset type three barricades, so the big road closure barricades you see out there today. We'll do offset so that folks accessing the residential homes and subdivisions can still get there but this is discourage them as much as we can um to kind of push people up through the detour. Okay. Commission comments? And we have our Wednesday session, right? And what is what is that training covering? It's done by the ISU Extension Office. It's just an intro into planning and zoning. They're just going to go over it. We'll have in the back provided for our dinner. Um so, if you have any dietary restrictions, please let me know and I'll get that ordered for you. But it's going to be from 5:30 until 8:30. Now, uh a group of us did similar training probably 12 years ago. We drove to There was like six of us drove to Carroll one night and uh thought or did it up there. It is extremely informative. Uh talked at least that talked a lot about Iowa law and, you know, our our true role versus what we think our role is and things like that. [laughter] And it will be recorded, so if you need access to it, it'll be on my laptop as soon as meetings but the recording won't be great audio, but it will be recorded for those All right. Any other comments? Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

[clears throat] So is that this Wednesday? Yes. Did we get an email for it? Did everybody get an email for it? Did you get an email for it? For what? Wednesday. I did. But I'm glad it's recorded cuz I may have to be Yeah, I'm going to be Yeah, I'm going to be