Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Troop.

Here.

Coleman. Aja.

Here.

Mortenson.

Here.

Reinke. Here. Blood.

Here. Next item of business is the approval of the minutes of June 11th, 2026. I move that we approve those as presented. I'll second. The motion to approve is presented. All in favor? Aye. Sorry. Question?

Mendez?

Abstain.

True.

Aye.

Azier?

Yes.

Mortensen? Abstain. Rienke? Yes. Blood?

Abstain. The next item is the minutes of July 23rd, 2026. I also move that we approve those as presented. I'll second. Motion second to approve is presented question.

Yes. Yes.

Under public forum. Uh, we have been hired. Uh, please state your name and address for the record. You have a five minute window.

Good evening. My name is Benjamin Heiger, 211 East 79th Street South. At the last meeting, you heard me stand up and speak about the potential conditional use permit being required for the zone at the corner of 79th and Broadway. Last time I stood, you heard me speak about the character of our neighborhood being residential in nature and that bringing in a gas station would be detrimental to the nature of our residential area. You also heard me discuss the extent of the detriment that could be taken to the nearby property with some studies that I brought forward, a study from 2020 showing that within the first year, 10% of property value drops after a gas station has been built within a certain radius. You also heard me discuss the relative gain to the public being very nominal compared to the hardship of property owners. In addition, I spoke heavily about public nuisance and concern for public safety. the public nuisance being increased traffic, increased road noise, increased light pollution. I also spoke about the public safety. You heard my wife stand and talk about statistics and crime rates. Where alcohol sales are prevalent, there is an increase in crime, and those two statistics are correlated together. Additionally, I spoke about the environmental hazard and statistics from the EPA, discussing 581,000 underground storage tank releases showing that gas stations, as safe as they are, are not perfectly safe. Considering more than 54,000 contamination sites still require cleanup today, this is not something that should be taken lightly. Today I want to talk a little bit about the gas stations currently in Hayesville. Presently in Hayesville, we have three gas stations that are part of our within the city limits. At Meridian and Grant, we have QuickShop and we have Casey's. If we look at those, they're fine gas stations. They also are not surrounded by residential areas. The closest residential to Casey's is southeast. It does not share a public road and it has a definitive and well-grown tree line in between the gas station and any residential homes. The Quick Shop on the northeast corner has no residential homes around it. It is only surrounded by other businesses. Finally, if we look at the Jump Start on 71st and Broadway, we see the same thing. Around this Jump Start at 71st and Broadway, there are no residential homes. It is only businesses in that area. However, within 1,000 feet of the proposed site, Hayesville sent out letters, or letters were sent out to 78 individual mailing addresses. Those were some businesses, like Tracy Electric, S&H Propane. These businesses are conducted on light commercial scale. They are very quiet. And they are not a nuisance to the public. However, there were still 74 other residences that these letters were sent to within 1,000 feet. This is a residential area. East of the lot is rural residential. South of the lot, like me, we have residential. I personally have a general commercial plotting for my land. I don't know why, but it's my house. So this is an area that I am insisting not have a gas station. You also heard me say last time, the overwhelming amount of people that I spoke with who agree with me on this. So once again, I come before you to say when the time comes to vote a recommended, a recommendation to the city council that you would recommend denying this conditional use permit. Thank you.

I don't have any other registered speakers. So move on to old business. Table from July 23rd, 2026, conditional use to operate a convenience store for the property journey located at the northwest corner of 79th and Broadway. Staff, if you want to present this, let us know where we were.

Has the applicant joined, Georgie? Nothing. So the applicant did submit a site plan as requested. Everything on there is conceptual for the most part. And we do have a well map. Let me go to my conditions. I believe we discussed before that the applicant wanted a change to one of the conditions, condition number six. They wanted to be able to put the canopy in front of the building. So striking that part where it says gas station canopies have to be located behind the building. And with that well map, we were recommending condition number four be changed as well. Because as you can see on the map, there are quite a few wells in the area. Looks like about half of them are plugged wells. And one, two, three, four, five. about five of them are remediation or monitoring wells. So they're not domestic for residential. Uh, if we were to go with the wells that are remediation and monitoring and include them in the distance waiver. There is not enough room on the part of the lot that the applicant has requested for the conditional use to put the storage tanks. There's only about 67 feet, but if we were to limit it to just domestic open wells, they would have 200 feet to put the underground storage tanks. Otherwise, nothing from the staff report has changed. We did get two public comments over the last week. Both of those are on your bench and were shared with you earlier today. One was from Nellie Ortiz. She says, to whom this may concern, thank you for sharing the proposal regarding the potential gas station at this location. While I understand the potential benefits of adding a gas station in the area, I have concerns about the proposed location due to the existing high volume of traffic and congestion. Adding another high traffic business could further contribute to traffic flow issues, create additional access concerns, and make an already difficult area to navigate even more challenging. I'm also concerned about the potential safety implications, increased vehicle activity, Frequent turning movements, vehicles entering and exiting the property, and the interaction between customers and existing traffic could create additional risks for drivers, pedestrians, and nearby businesses. Given the current traffic conditions, I believe these safety considerations should be carefully evaluated before moving forward with this location. And for those reasons, I respectfully believe that a different location would be more appropriate. A site with better traffic flow, safer access points, and less congestion may provide the benefits of a gas station without creating additional safety and traffic concerns for the surrounding area. The other letter was from Dan Laffery. Would you like me to read this one as well?

No, we've got it. Any questions for staff?

foot setback from drinking wells we're talking about a 500 foot setback is that correct that's correct the map in the staff report does show a 500 foot setback you i'm sorry maybe i must have understood something you said the only place they could put the tanks are within 200 feet of drinking wells

If we were to limit it, if we were to change condition number four so that it reads that only wells that are open and domestic have to be 500 feet separation from the underground storage tanks, that would give the applicant 200 feet to work with.

200 extra feet?

200 feet total.

Yes. Okay. So the nearest drinking well is 700 feet?

I don't have that exact information.

This site plan, as presented, can or cannot meet the requirement?

No, not unless we change condition number four.

To?

To limit it so that only domestic and open wells and streams have to be more than 500 feet away.

Right, and monitoring wells are not for drinking water, right?

No, they're KDHE testing wells.

Yeah. But is there a chance, a reasonable chance, that contaminants could get into a monitoring well and infect a drinking well?

Possibly.

It's the same aquifer, right?

the site plan shows what distance to the outside of that blue circle?

The blue area is the area within 500 feet of the open domestic wells. The pink area is the area within 500 feet of all wells in the neighborhood.

Any more questions for staff?

So, so the, the area that's pretty much in the green and the purple, that's all outside of 500 of any domestic.

Yes. Right. But the area that is purple is within the monitoring. Well, not a domestic drink.

Yeah.

That's correct. Which is also corresponding to where I believe this site plan is showing the fuel tanks. Does the code make that distinction?

For the monitoring?

The city code?

Yeah. Does it make the distinction between monitoring wells and drinking wells, or does it just say wells?

The city code doesn't address this, but the condition that we're proposing would, and it does not make a distinction. It says all wells. Okay.

Am I allowed to ask a question?

We have a question in the audience.

The public hearing portion. And if you've got a thought, I'd love to hear it.

I'm leaning against just the fact that we just discussed. It's going to be well within the monitoring wells, if not the drinking wells. It's the same aquifer anyway. Same aquifer a lot of us here use.

Is there more discussion? So on the proposed plan, they're not showing the tanks on there?

No, it's...

I can't, I mean, it looks like... Yeah, I mean, it shows the... On the backside here of this site, which would be... Oh, those are the tanks. Yeah, somewhere here in this purple area.

So those would be...

If I read that map correctly.

Yeah, it'd be helpful if that was like overlaid on the...

any more discussion and this is only a proposed layout right yeah far edge of that purple what would we have to modify that requirement to to make this site plan work so I think what I'm asking is how far

into that purple circle that's the 500 foot circle from a monitoring well are those fuel tanks and do we know that from the site plan sounds like about 300 feet if the closest one is 200 feet so the kdhe wells are right on the corner the northeast corner of broadway and 79th they are the closest wells to the property how far are they i don't know that exact information

But presumably that purple circle that's supposed to be 500 or whatever feet.

Based on the overlay.

So we could reduce the 500 foot setback to 400, 300 feet if we want to keep the setback for all wells in the area and i'm gonna have to do some math or to meet their requirement this site plan just has to get wider and grow into that area to the west yes they could use a larger portion of the property they have their concept only uses 330 feet by 330 feet how much do they own They would be buying the entire property as far as I'm aware.

Which is how large? 11 acres. More than 300 foot square.

Why are we concerned about the monitoring wells as far as them being within there? Because you can detect the monitoring wells. They're there to detect contamination. That's what they're there for. It's the detective. We're trying to make sure they're not within a range that could potentially detect something. But it's not like it's going to negatively impact any... but if there was anything that happened to get into the monitoring wells. I mean, it's a specific chemical different than what they're monitoring for now.

Well, they would because they're all connected to the same aquifer, right? Underneath, there's a big bubble of water. And I think what he's saying is that's the point of the monitoring wells is to monitor for things like that. Exactly. But at that point, then it's kind of too late what he did. I mean, you detected the problem, but the problem's already existing, and now you have remediation issues, right?

Yeah, but now I'm not concerned about tanks at all. Like, I mean, the double-walled tanks, I mean... there's tank and a tank inside a tank and there's monitors within the tank. So if there's leaking in the internal tank, that's the reason there's double wall tanks, right? So most of the things they cited as far as like remediation, that's like all old, old, old stuff. So modern technology where you have double wall tanks, so you have this and then you have a second tank and then if it leaks, there's monitoring in there. So the second there's a leak in there, that's going to be detected.

I would accept the argument that that is probably the least problem or the smallest problem. I think the biggest problem is runoff. The runoff is a much bigger problem. If you look at any concrete at any gas station, it's full of grease and gasoline, people dribbling gas across the way, and as soon as it rains, that goes somewhere. And the wear is the biggest problem.

Yeah, I agree. So a spill, whatever, you know, and so that's a big risk if there's some type of surface spill. And then, you know, and then what is that going to do from a, from a runoff standpoint? Where's that going to go? How's that going to be contained?

So the tank thing is something we brought up, but it's really an indicator of how close is this whole thing from any of the wells.

Yeah, but we're talking about just moving the storage tanks around to be able to be away versus like where there's the probability of a spill or something like that that could be a runoff issue.

I mean, I think we can agree there's no good place for a spill, but... There are a lot of bad places for spill.

Yeah, or where is the greater chance of a spill, like where you're filling, you know, where you're actually going to start, you know, filling the tank. I mean, there's, you know, there's chances if there's issues at the pump as far as, you know, a leak there, but that's, it got shut off, some things like that. It's more of a tanker or something that has some problems in there.

And from a general runoff standpoint, not a contaminated runoff, I'll grant you, but general runoff is going to be dictated by county drainage that will come with the planting that will require that runoff at the same rate that it does now. So they've got to detain to hold it on site to release at a slower rate to be able to increase the impervious area. That's all a requirement for the planting process. And not for just this site, but for every site.

Anything over two acres has to have detention, correct? Anything over one? What's the question? Stormwater. Anything over one or two acres, stormwater detention?

I believe it's everything over one acre. Yeah, it's one acre.

I thought it was two. Okay. So they'll have to have detention on site.

site plan shows is overall development internal traffic drives that's all we handle this part of the plotting process for the whole site not just this corner it does say on that map too it says tanks greater than 500 foot from wells 535 slash 580 so they're saying that the tanks are 535 to 580 foot away and I think they're saying from that domestic domestic wells

No, no, no, I meant on their map.

Yeah. On the site map. But I'm saying they're saying that measurement is from that blue well, not the red well. Got you. Other concerns to discuss?

Just, so on the well map, that's, or the wells that are mapped there, those are just the ones that are actually on the WWC5 records. Yeah. So it wouldn't include anything that's, like, pre-19, like, from the 70s or older that may be, like, rural homes, they weren't required to be mapped. So I don't, there hasn't been a canvassing to actually physically identify any potentially older private wells, or any livestock wells that could be closer.

That is correct. This information just came from the Kansas Geological Survey. I did not verify the dates for when they collected. The only other source I found for wells publicly was by Meads and Pounds descriptions, so this was the usable source.

More discussion?

I just say if you're going to go with the number four would need to be modified to make sure that just to validate with a field survey that there's not something that's closer that's actually being used by homes in the area or livestock.

Anybody else?

Is there a motion? I would move to recommend denial of this item, finding that the applicant's on-site plan places the fuel storage tanks approximately 200 feet from the nearest well, well short of the 500-foot standard and condition for it.

Is there a second for that motion? Second. Any other discussion?

Mendes?

Aye.

Troube?

Aye.

Azar?

No.

Mortenson?

No.

Reinke?

No.

Blood?

Abstain. Is there an alternative motion?

If there's no other alternative motion, I would move to table this until we can review the site plan and come up with an alternative. Because as it stands, I don't think this works.

Is there a second table? Is there a different alternative motion?

So I just want to understand where everyone is at in the commission. So it seems as though number four is kind of where the sticking point is. Is that correct? So I don't know that tabling is going to get us further down the road unless you guys need to review the information more rather than a discussion around what the best alternative to 500 feet is.

Well, tabling doesn't just kick it down the road. It gives the requester more time to come up with a better site plan.

So based on the site map, you're not going to be able requesting that they look at the site from a totality perspective outside the bounds of the current site plan.

That can be part of your motion too. If that's where we're hung up, we can approve it with these requirements knowing that they can grow this site to the west and accomplish everything we're asking

So if it was denied, wouldn't it, in essence, just end up going to the council anyways?

Yes. Any recommendation you make tonight still gets reviewed by city council.

But if it was tabled, in essence, we'd run up against the window as far as the time limit?

You have until our next meeting, September 10th.

Okay.

The city code gives a 60-day window after the closing of a public hearing to make an action on zoning and conditional use cases.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and move that we recommend approval of this item if the If the applicant can redesign the site plan to be in compliance with all the recommendations Okay, I have a motion and second to approve Based on

staff requirements and a modified site plan any other discussion

would just like to see an actual study of the actual wells to make sure you know conditional there's actually not other wells that are just not on the map that are older or being used by livestock that aren't within that aren't much closer that just aren't on the on the map because they're older and then we have until they come up with another site plan to find that because it would have to be in compliance with that as well yeah i would just say i would add that to that well you'd have to ask him to modify his motion so modified

True. Do you want to ask them to modify their site plan or do you want to ask as a condition of approval that they have a survey done where they go and hire someone to actually find the wells themselves in person?

because that's the big concern and then they would have to modify the site plan to be in compliance with the findings of the survey do you want the site plan provided before City Council or the site plan or the final building just has to be in conformance I'm not sure if they'll be able to provide that well if it's a condition of the conditional

And if the survey comes and I would recommend if the survey comes back and there's wells within the 500 feet and it will not fit on the property and it doesn't meet the conditions.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. So, so modified still second. Yes. Any more discussion? All right.

Question. Hi. True. Hi. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Under new business we have a review of the bike and pedestrian plan.

So the planning commission reviews the bike and pedestrian plan bi-annually or every two years. To ensure accurate data information and to consider any proposed changes recommended by staff or the park board We did review the plan earlier this year in April So we're not scheduled to review it again until April 2028, but there was an error found in the map in the park plan the map on page six that shows the buffer areas from parks councilman eric myers noticed that it still showed sunnyside park which was sold in 2022 and is now being developed into single-family homes it also didn't include the new park and country lakes so that map has been updated to reflect those changes you can approve the map update as presented approve with changes or deny the update altogether

We didn't want to wait until we reviewed this annually in April, April, 2028.

Okay.

Is there a motion? I'll move that we approve the amended fire industry plan map.

I'll say the motion is second. Any more discussion?

Mendes. Yes. True.

All right.

Asia.

Yes.

Mortensen. Yes. Frankie. Yes. Blood.

Yes.

Next item of business is the review of the subdivision regulations.

So the Planning Commission reviews the subdivision regulations annually. Every year, this year staff is proposing to amend the regulations with the main goals of addressing connectivity issues between our vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle networks, reducing the amount of new street names, and encouraging a variety of land uses and new subdivisions. I've outlined all of the key changes on the next page in your memo and we will be going over these at a later date. I have planned for two review sessions in September and October and hopefully scheduling a public hearing in November for these changes.

Why the two review sessions instead of one?

We can do one. I can push it to October.

Is there significant change or are you anticipating significant opposition

No, not particularly.

Okay. So no action needed at this time then?

No action needed today.

Item C under new business review of the bylaws.

This is just our annual review of the bylaws. This is your homework to read them. We're not proposing any changes today, so no actions needed either.

Under correspondence, there were two informational packets also?

Yes, those were relevant to the conditional use, just a memo on what a conditional use is, just as a reminder for the general public and for the Planning Commission, and then also some notes, not notes, this was a guide for new urbanism best practices, which is what was the recommendation for the conditional use based on South Broadway public feedback.

Okay. Off agenda, next meeting date?

September 24th.

Item nine. I move we adjourn. Second. Thank you. Motion and second to adjourn.