Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I'd like to call to order the planning commission meeting. It is 4:30 on Thursday, September 25th, 2025. The first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from August 28th, 2025. Are there any corrections or additions? Hearing none, I'd accept a motion to approve. [Music] I'll make a motion to approve the minutes uh of the last meeting. I'll second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? I

opposed. Minutes have been approved. Next item on the agenda is um plats to consider for approval the final plat of garden terrace second edition city report. Um, I'd like to remind the commission that you considered the preliminary plat at your last meeting and so consequently a lot of the information is the same and so if you don't have any objection I'd like to kind of you know identify major points but not go through every item that is on the first couple of pages. Please do.

As far as the plat status, the uh city council approved with conditions a preliminary plat at its September 2nd, 2025 meeting. Uh the deadline for action on the on this particular plat is November 21st, 2025. Um, I'm going to skip to project description. Um, the property being platted consists of two lots and part of an outlot. The parcel total 8.8 acres. The outlot area has never been developed. Uh the new plat would establish three plots. Um there's a table on the second page that is a comparison of the previous and the new plat and information is provided on the um the lots. And there were three parcels um with the old call it um legal descriptions and then we have the new legal descriptions where we also have three. And basically what is happening is two parcels are giving up lot area to expand the size of the third parcel. Um the new lot one and lot three have been reduced in size and lot two has been increased in size. Uh the owner is proposing to construct a

39 unit threetory apartment building on the new lot 2. This is a reduction of six units from the number of units identified in the preliminary plat staff report. um the size of the building will remain the same but the number of two bedroomedroom units will be increased and that's what caused the um reduction in the number of onebedroom. Um the building will provide housing for independent seniors and those are people 55 and over. The existing and proposed buildings comply with city zoning standards for the R4 zoning district. The property lines between lots two and three and lots one and two cross the paved surface of the um um parking lots and circulation roads serving garden terrace one and two. The owner is proposing to use a reciprocal easement agreement to address the situation and a copy of the easement is provided in attachment three. The building and setback areas determine the size of lot two and the need for the reciprocal easement agreement. The easement will firmly establish the ownership of the parking and circulation areas shown on the plat as being either part of garden terrace one or garden terrace 2. And John will show you a location

um of the uh areas that are subject to this easement agreement and they are in red. Um, and that is the building. Uh, behind that is garden, what I'm going to call is garden terrace one. Behind that is Oak Street. Um, there also are some smaller pieces that are not large enough to necess to color. Uh, down on the south end right where the road um turns and goes out to North Garden Street. Um upon completion of the project, it is proposed that the owner will um lease the property to Oak Hills Living Center. Oak Hills will have the option to purchase the building then at a future date. The apartment project is an attempt to diversify the financial resources owned by Oak Hills to develop a campus approach to elderly care. Help them address their current financial challenges. Ownership and operation of this apartment property would help accomplish um this goal. Uh with regards to the status of conditions, um number one is to pay the parkland dedication fee of $3,150. That payment is pending. Number two is to provide an electronic file of the plat in an AutoCAD 2016 or newer format. That notice has been provided to the land surveyor.

Number three is to provide a reciprocal easement agreement addressing the rights and division of responsibilities between the platted lots with respect to the parking lot encroachments. Approval of that easement agreement is pending. And I should note that this agreement does not involve the city. This agreement is between the owners of lot two and lot three and lot two and lot one. So the city has no role in this particular matter. Number four, remove uh existing easement areas that are in conflict with the new apartment building proposed for lot two. We have an easement area that um would obstruct the location of the apartment building. So, it's necessary to vacate that area. Um the owner has uh been informed of that particular condition and has requested vacation of that area. City council will receive that at their next meeting. Number five is prepare a new utility agreement with the New Public Utilities Commission for a new utility system or for new utility system improvements. Um, in particular, the electric system that's going to serve this area is going to be a looped system. And so that's going to necessitate the preparation of a um an easement agreement to to

accommodate that. And then finally, uh the resolution approving the plat will be filed with the Brown County Recorders Office. That uh filing is pending. There are three attachments. One is the final plat. The second is the site location map. John has those on the screen. And then the third is the reciprocal easement agreement. Um staff would recommend approval of the final plat with conditions since a plat complies with city code requirements. The conditions would be items 1, 3, four, five, and six. Um, I might note that if you go back to John, could you maybe show the um site plan of the of the property that there is now a second access point to North Garden Street that has been um or will be installed. Um,

and John can maybe show you where that is. It's right here. You can kind of see it right there.

So now there will be two means of access um to the property. The um reason for the sec second um access point is um concern about um fire um safety and access to the property. That will conclude the staff report. Thank you. Are there any questions for the city? And just I the only one really is I'm wondering if staff is um is satisfied with the progress that's been made on the conditions. We can't really attach new ones and if if they'll make the ones that are in on the record then I'm okay with this.

Yeah. Um we're making progress in that regard. Um and it is their in their hope to do some work yet this fall. So um they have uh cause to get them completed in a timely manner. We um typically will not sign the plat until we have all the conditions taken. Okay. Any other questions for the city?

If not, I'm looking for a motion. I would move that we recommend um approval with the conditions that already exist as pointed out in the staff report. I'll second. I have a motion and a second to approve. All in favor? I opposed. Motion is carried. city council next week. Um it'll be the it'll be the second meeting in October because there has to be a public notice. October 7th is the next meeting and it would be the meeting after that the 21st

21st. Yeah. Okay. Next item on the agenda is new business the average and rear rear yard setbacks. That's easy for someone else to see. city report.

All right. Um so, uh as you remember at the last planning commission meeting, there was a request, uh for a variance, um to reduce the rear yard setback, um for a property that was located in the I2 uh zoning district, but a budding uh residential zoning district. Um at that meeting uh the planning commission had recommended denial of the variance request based on the findings of facts. Um and then at that point the applicant uh decided that they didn't want to proceed with presenting uh a variance with a recommendation for denial to the city council. So they uh pulled their application. That's kind of the a little bit of the background on where we're at right now. Um, so the applicant for this uh request is for the planning commission to take a look at or to consider something like rear yard setback averaging. Um, the requesttor of this is Larry Mack. He is the owner of G&M Real Estate LLC. Um, a deadline for this uh making a decision on this request or moving forward uh with having staff review it further would be November 7th, 2025. Um, as we uh discussed at the last planning commission meeting, the city zoning regulations require a 30-foot rear yard setback when the property uh is across the alley from a residential zoning district. property across the alley uh from this property in particular uh is the RT2. That's our traditional neighborhood single and two family residence district. Um that increased the rear yard setback uh from 5T to 30 ft um because they're ab budding. Uh the city has uh 11 other zoning districts with greater rear yard setback areas when abudding residentially zoned areas. That in that

includes all the commercial uh zoning districts B1 all the way through B4 um all the industrial districts and then our special purpose districts as well. um uh within the city's residential zoning districts uh where adjacent structures within the same block have a front yard setback different from those required. The front yard minimum setback is the average of the adjacent structures. Uh if I understand correctly because we allow for something like that currently in our zoning district. Um that's the reason Mr. Mack had requested we take a look at that at the rear yard. So, this uh this little depiction comes straight out of our zoning ordinance and it shows how you can do uh front yard averaging for the front of a house in a residential zoning district. And really, if you look towards the right hand side, uh you can see on the far right hand um we have an existing home that's at 20 ft um a vacant lot and then another existing home at 30 ft. So, what our ordinance would allow is for you to take that uh 30ft set back and that 20ft setback, add them together, divide it by two, and that would be the setback for the new home that would be placed in that vacant lot. And in this case, uh that'd be they'd be able to build it at 25 ft. So, that's how the yard averaging works. Um, I would note that the residential districts are the only ones we allow yard averaging and we only allow it in the front yard. Um, so as I uh as I stated before uh the variance request um was denied by the planning commission um at the last meeting. Um and since that time, Mr. Mack has uh sent an email to the commission asking them to have staff investigate averaging rear yard setback areas in other districts. Um so what we're asking the planning commission

tonight is uh do you wish for us staff or would you recommend that us staff take a deep dive into rear yard setback averaging um and bring back a report or uh staff findings to the next planning commission meeting? I would note that we've done a a little uh preliminary work on this. Um Mr. Mack gave us um five comm community six communities to to look at, sorry, uh with within Minnesota. So I I did look at all of their uh zoning regulations with regards specifically in the commercial and industrial areas for rear yard uh setbacks. Um, and if they do allow averaging, none of them did allow any sort of uh rear yard averaging. Five out of the six communities uh did have increased setbacks when abudding a residential zoning district for really the idea is to to separate that um more intense use with a residential use. Um some of them were a lot I think e Edina uh and trying to think of the other one. There was yina and one other one that went from a 20 foot set back to 100 when you're abuing a residential zoning district. So they greatly greatly increased it. And um so when we're taking a look at this, I think one thing we have to understand is that there are a few areas uh within the community where we do have a budding either commercial and residential or industrial and residential. And in your packets, we tried to highlight those uh with red boxes along those boundary lines. Um so you can see we have uh we have some of that um along North Broadway, right across from the uh Catholic cemetery. We have commercial uses right on North

Broadway and then residential uses behind that. Um and then again on North Broadway uh between 17th and 12th North uh there are so are also um commercial districts directly abuing residential districts um on State Street and Minnesota Street. Um, also along 7th North, that's also where we have a number of B2 zoned properties that are directly abuing residential zoning districts. Um, we also have that um between fourth uh fourth north and Broadway um and first uh first north and Broadway. So everything that is directly behind you over here um these commercial businesses on the other side of the alley are abing of residential zoning districts. Um here are some more and this is between 11th South and 14th South and Broadway. Um and then 12th and uh 12th and 11th South. Most of the areas in the city where these different intensities of uses are abuing are commercial and residential. There's only um actually only this one area uh where Mr. Mack has his um property whereas where we have industrial directly abuing residential. Um so I wanted I just wanted to point that out to you all. Um, I did also contact uh Jeb Jeb Burkett. He's the League of Minnesota Cities attorney um to see if he was aware of any other communities in Minnesota where they do any sort of rear

yard averaging. And he said there there aren't any to to his knowledge that do rear yard averaging, but a lot of them um including the city of New front yard averaging for residential districts. Um so one of the main concerns or part of the reason why um why this is something to take uh under consideration is um it's what use is taking place on that property. So, um we know what's being proposed right now is a storage building for personal use. Um and you know that has very low very low intensity. Um but the property is still zoned I2. I2 is our most intense industrial zoning district. So whatever would be permitted in that zoning district in the future um if this person were to ever sell that property would be or could be permitted in that um in that building. Hence the reason we have the increased setback. Um that's kind of the main reason. So

except we have a property next door that didn't have to adhere to the setback or the setback didn't exist. Explain the how they got away with the building. So great question and it and this is why it's so confusing. very confusing because you I feel like in some cases we're penalizing him because he's got the only property in the block that actually is adhering to the setback currently.

Right. So um the property which you're refer referring to is another storage building immediately to the the lot of budding to the south. When that building was constructed, that was under our old zoning ordinance. And our old zoning ordinance had that property zoned B2. In the B2, the setback requirement was 20 ft. That's why he was able to build his uh building at that at uh that um setback. Now, when we updated the zoning ordinance in 2022, we wanted to get rid of that spotzoned property and make that whole um two half blocks into the I2 zoning district. So it' be more consistent. So that's why um he has a different rear yard or that's why he's closer to the rear yard property line than what is allowed now at 30 ft. I think there's other properties on there that are personal garages and stuff that aren't within the I think this is the only prop property on that whole lot and I don't want to vote for an exception and I also don't want to set a precedent. So, I'm kind of torn between the whole thing.

Okay, go ahead. Um, John, could you explain the general reason for allowing um averaging in the front yard? It's about streetscaping. And yeah, it's it's about trying to create some consistency of the houses that are along a street to so you have

kind of a clear line um a nice clean line. Um in the rear yard, uh it's a little it's a little different. Um in the residential zoning districts that can vary from the attached garage all the way up towards the front of the property to the detached garage which is 5 foot um from the back property line. So there's a lot of variation in in where buildings are set. In this case specifically, um my memory uh is correct. The building to the residential garage to the north uh I believe was at 20 uh it's like 22 feet and then um the property to the south was right at 20 feet

somewhere in there. I I think where I'm going with the question is I don't know that we're trying to use the right tool. I mean we don't really care about line of sight in an alley where you're driving you know what at whatever the speed limit is in an alley and the view the line of sight and views were not really protecting them. It's it's a working alley. It's It doesn't look like a front yard and it's not intended to look like a front yard. So, I'm I'd have to be convinced that it's worth our while to do averaging in a backyard and and what is the reason for greater setbacks um from residential areas? Do we have to worry about that for example if we allow it to get near closer to the street than or the alley than currently? Well, we have to we have to take that into consideration any of those zoning districts where it's a but commercial or industrial when they're abudding a residential zoning district. And really again, it's it's to separate the intensity of uses as much as possible when on those lots that are abuing. And that's that's the whole reason for the increased setback. In this case, the um when the variance request came through, they were requesting to put their building at 25 feet from the rear property line versus 30 feet.

Perhaps if if the city is interested in something like this on this property, you can't just give preference to a single property, but you come up with some kind of an ordinance. Maybe you look at allowing um variation to the setback if we're interested across from residential areas by conditional use permit only. That way you can put in chain of title conditions that are going to follow with the next property owner as well. I don't I'm not suggesting that's what we do, but I think that would be a better solution than trying to come up with something that doesn't fit.

So, good point. Um and it would that would require an ordinance change. Currently our or the way our ordinance reads uh is that if we're going to have any sort of reduction in setback areas um it would require either a variance or a um plan unit development status. So those are the only those are the only two triggering mechanisms that we have currently with one exception. um in our old R1 zoning district up on top of the hill, North Highland, Center Street, kind of down towards Fifth, those are all those houses um are built much closer to the property line than what was allowed or what is allowed currently. So, if they were built if they were built closer than 5T to the property line and they're existing today and they wanted to extend one side of the house that's within that setback area,

they would be allowed to do so with a conditional use permit. That's but we we we specify that in the zoning ordinance. What were the six communities that he wanted you to look into and what was the reason for looking into those communities specifically? Uh I'm going to have I'm going to not get all of them right here. Um and I should have brought my notes with me. Um but it was Edina Weisetta believe it was Lichfield. Um, I'm forgetting two more, but so you do a Google search for rear yard averaging and those communities pop up right away,

but you those communities don't actually allow it. No, it's an AI glitch. Uh, AI um, it's not as high as we thought. Right. Right. A AI takes front and reverses that to being the rear.

You actually have to go into the zoning ordinance and into their individual zoning ordinances and read them. What AI has directed you to do, you know how when you when you Google something, it'll give you kind of a summary at the top? Well, it's taking the word yard averaging and then adding the word rear to it. And then it gives you these examples to take a look at. And then when you go into those examples and look into them further, you realize that they allow averaging in the front yard in residential zoning districts, but they don't allow it in the rear yard. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, that's kind of how that all came about.

I worked in one of those communities and I was extremely surprised when John mentioned that it was in that list because I knew they didn't allow that. Yeah. Can you just confirm one more time? So, in Minnesota, there's currently no communities that allow

Well, I haven't looked at each one individually. I contacted the League of Minnesota's Minnesota attorney, Jed Burkett, to see if he knew of anybody. So, any community that I could look further into and he didn't know any off top of his head. It doesn't mean that they don't exist. Um, and that's kind of the reason we're coming here to the planning commission today. Hey, do you want us to take a deep dive and spend some staff time looking into that and then bringing a a report back to the commission?

I suspect that New would be the only community that would do that then because I believe that the purpose of the the averaging is is the front the front yardcaping and I don't think I don't think it applies to an alley. I I don't know why we would apply it to an alley. Yeah. To me, the biggest hang-up is that property next door. If it hadn't been reszoned when it was a restaurant to allow for to allow for it to be back so far and then it was reszoned back to industrial and if we removed that out of it, I don't know that we would have such a hangup with this,

right? And I, you know, um, we just did, you know, spent our time going through the whole set of ordinances and applications and I hate to open that can of worms again for one property. Well, it's hard when you look at the property and it's so well cared for and they want to do a larger garage and it makes sense, but at the same time, if you sell it,

but looking at one property versus all of the other a I2s and B2s and B1s, it might be a little late because we already recommend the denial, but but it does make that situation unique. I don't know how many other places in town you have something like that going on. I don't think you can make application for that same variance for at least a year or whatever it is. But if we really think that it belongs there, I think the solution was the variance because it's unique and not creating an ordinance where it doesn't quite fit anywhere else.

Yeah. I I don't want to open a can of worms for one property basically. David, how long would you have to wait? I would also note though that there is sufficient room on the property to accommodate this building and comply with the setback. Was the issue that he already poured the slab and he would have to carve that out a bit to get his garage there. I think he has to put in a smaller building. I don't think he can put in the full size that he wants to put. No, I he can put in a fulls size building. I think you

Yeah, I think there's there's a kind of a number of reasons he wanted to slide it back a little bit. there was existing concrete. Um that area, that 40 foot area between the existing building and where the new building would be is where the parking for the people who work in the building that's fronting valley, that's where they park. Um and then there's a certain size uh that he would that he would like. And I think there's also some turning movements to get in um through the proposed new building and then out the backs. If I understood correctly, there's going to be doors on the front and then also on the rear. So, you could drive through the building that way.

Okay. Further discussion

and then I'm going to call for a motion. Does this does this take a motion? Is it an actual application or asking you to proceed? Yeah, I think it would take a motion to ask staff to um proceed with a further examination of their motion suggest. It's okay. Go for it. I'm looking at you.

Well, I I I don't believe that that's the right solution for the to move that garage to allow for averaging. though. And I don't my my iPad went out on me. So I believe that one of the options was to recommend that we that we not um have staff investigate further. Is that correct? For for rear yard averaging, correct? On alleys in this specific the specific request. That was pretty muddy, wasn't it? No, anybody could have done that kind of very well for not having your iPad up. I'm looking for a second. I'll second.

I have a motion and a second to deny the request to examine the impact of the averaging brewyard setbacks in those areas where residential and non-residential uses adjoin each other for the following reasons. Did I say that? Yes, you did. You just said your iPad went out, so I'm reading it for you. Thank you. Yes. Um, and it's saying for the reasons provided by the planning commission, which was you don't think it's appropriate. Thank you. Okay. All in favor? I I opposed. The motion is denied.

Okay. Thank you.

Next item on the agenda is um city council decisions concerning planning commission matters in September of 2025. Okay. At the September 2nd meeting, they conducted a public hearing on the vacation of a small piece of alley right ofway um near McDonald's. Uh council approved that. Um at that same meeting, they um approved the preliminary plat of Garden Terrace, second edition, as you just heard. They also approved the comprehensive plan amendment uh for a part of that property and that amendment took the property from medium density residential to high density resident. at the meeting on September 16th. Uh it was actually part of their um work session. Um they had a discussion about um the use of right of way for events and I think that primarily was for the downtown area. Um, and I think the issue is that when you close down the downtown streets, you eliminate the ability of traffic perhaps to get to certain businesses. So, um, you know, the the events bring people to the downtown, but it also closes it off for some. So that was kind of I think the the nature of the discussion and they also talked about res.

Did they come to any kind of a conclusion David? Did it it was just a discussion and on they moved or um it was more just a discussion. I don't know that they came to a conclusion. They're looking at

they're looking at more than getting an uh event application for closure of the rightway instead of each individual property coming in and asking for it that whoever's running the the event have everything on one application and taking care of it that way. That right. But they also talked about, you know, the is it proper to shut all the streets down all the time and the alleys closing up and stuff also. But yeah, it was just a work study session to direct staff to get more information. They weren't it wasn't um push back against existing uh festivals and

No, no, it wasn't any of that. It was again more or less to to streamline it and see what's what's appropriate to to look at. and they've been looking at a few different areas or municipalities. One was Mano and looking at how they do it and stuff. So, it's like I said, kind of streamline it to one application. All right. I think there was some discussion though about you know how much is enough and how much is too much because some businesses you know are adversely impacted or right

feel that they're adversely impacted. So they're trying to

you know um come to a conclusion that um where everybody benefits. Uh the second thing they talked about at that um work session was residential downtown parking. Um, at the present time we don't allow parking um at night on on street. And so they're looking at um using a pass or a sticker uh one per residential unit in the downtown area and then they would be able to park. I don't believe it was on Minnesota Street. It was I was paying close attention. Um so they are going to allow it a minute. So it to be on street at the present time it's not allowed.

I thought they talked about it being in the city parking lot. [Music] I understood it was Minnesota Street but only for certain hours. So they had to be moved by like Well, because that's a snow emergency. I mean that would be a snow thing. Well, that's they talked about that and that's where with getting one sticker, they'd be registered. They'd have the contact for that person if there's a snow emergency to be moved the vehicle off of Minnesota because currently, yeah, there's no parking on Minnesota overnight. And that's where they're looking at to be able to allow that. Also, is there currently parking on the side streets? No,

I don't think so. I don't think there's any parking on the streets overnight. So everything's in the in the lots and they're looking to be able to get people closer to the units and stuff also, but still have contact information for them. There used to be alley parking, but I think some of that has gone away, too, cuz didn't they used to have to furnish a parking spot for a lot of the downtown apartments that were in the alley? And that's kind of some of that's Well, there's still it's one one spot for each unit. Okay.

Downtown now. And now they're instead of taking up lease spots or taking up more parking in the the lots, which they still can, but they'll have another option to be able to park on the street at night. Maybe alleviate some of that area. Again, I think it starts at 5 and goes till 6:00 in the morning or something like that. What does it do to the It's probably I'm probably asking too many questions, but what does it do to like is it the her the old Herbiter's building where there's all the apartments upstairs? He's got 12 lease spots in back in that um second north and German parking lot there. Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

Okay. You can finish. That was it. That was it. Um then it was heritage preservation and um I think the last commission meeting only covered the upcoming um state conference but so there is no other well actually we um since the last meeting we did hold the state conference September 10th through the 12th

brought 181 people uh to town. They stayed in our local hotels and Airbnbs. Um and then um we had hosted the main conference at Turner Hall and State Street Theater. Um as far as the feedback we've gotten so far, uh people had a great time visiting Newm. Uh they had fun at the conference. Um, we had a fun little um, trivia night down at the Grand on Thursday night and then Friday we had conferences in the morning and then tours in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it poured rain Friday afternoon.

Um, but uh, the wonderful ladies at New Real Estate didn't care and they were still going to do the horse and buggy tour, which was full both times in the pouring rain and everybody left laughing and happy. So, it was it was great. Um the other tour that was led by Mr. Sweeney ended up going inside the museum and then touring the the whole museum with him instead of doing the downtown walking tour. But overall the feedback we've got is that it was it was great. Um and we appreciate everybody that helped help put that together and make it happen. I want to I I personally want to thank the city and this and everyone who who contributed to that because I've been to very many of them and I've I've happened to be out of town for this one but it is always a really nice time usually good conference session breakout sessions too and and I do think that the tours and and the things that the community really works on to to host these people um are always fun events

and and you really learn a lot. Even if it's your own city, you'll learn a lot about your city that you did not know before. It's true. So, yeah, it's thanks to everyone who participated. Is there any other business? No. If not, this meeting stands adjourned. Thank you.