Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

said yes. She was announced I think her first day is the whole family went and they're all adults say children and all the children were pretty sharp lady and um they went on a snowmobile and they all had Yes. It was hysterical to see them all. Call to order the planning and zoning meeting for Monday, August 11th, 20125. How you doing? But I love roll call please. Roco Gonzalez here. Mark Lener. Mark Pontek here. Tom Holtmark here. Mayor Higged here. John Borman. Chuck Watson here. Chad Briggs here. Kevin Wit. Kell yes. Mike Wood here.

Darren Lamb here. Please rise for the pledge. Sound like Carolyn Whit to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. First item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the July 14th, 2025 meeting. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I.

Any oppose? So moved. Moving on to file number 25801 513 515 West 2nd Street Plat 50 513 515 West second applicant is requesting preliminary plat approval.

And item number four also goes with it. Correct. File number 2582 13515 West second. applicant is requesting reszoning for R2 overlay two family residential overlay to a R1C single family attached res. So, uh, you have applications for both preliminary plat and the resoning. As as, uh, Tom mentioned, um, this is a case where they are wanting to go ahead and subdivide the property and make those two individual, uh, units via subdivision plat as this board's aware of, you have to with our code, uh, they have to go ahead and request the resoning. They request the subdivision plat. Uh the only thing I will tell you that's different from any of the other ones and not so different from any of the other ones, uh they did have to go before the board of adjustment uh due to the fact that lot 1A was 5,780 square ft. Your minimum lot size is 6,000 square ft. The uh board of adjustment granted that variance at their meeting at 5:00 earlier tonight. So um that is out of the way. Um and so staff recommends approval of both preliminary plot and the reszoning.

Any other questions or comments by board members? Darren, is there any way we could streamline this process since we're having so many come? Well, I I think you know, one of the things that that you had so many of these uh duplexes that were built over time and at the time the only way that they could go ahead and do that with the city's code at that time was uh through what we've seen a lot of condominium plats and as you know uh this isn't the first I mean and here we are in 2025 but this first started becoming an issue back in uh 2008 2009 after the housing crash and and and banks did not trust anything that had a condo on it.

Um, one of the things that we had talked about at that time was you could, however, you'd have to notify everybody who's an owner of a unit and request to reszone, you know, whole areas, but the problem is that they may not they may be content. they may not want to go ahead and get their pay for uh the folks at BFA or some other place to go ahead and subdivide their property. They may outright own it and don't see it as an issue. Now, most of them realize it does become an issue if they certainly go ahead and sell to somebody that's going to go through a traditional lending. But um so that's why we've kind of left it the way we is kind of a as needed basis and that's just and the best that we can do is go ahead and make sure that we get it all on uh one agenda make it relatively quick. Um, I I will say that when uh one of the first tasks we're going to give with uh um city planner position will be to uh have them look and I I talked to the board of adjustment tonight. see how many of those requests we've had for lots. At least take one portion of this process out, which is if you have figure out a way to modify the code so that when you have a situation where one of the lots is just so many hundred square feet shy of 6,000 square ft that they that you reduce that that minimum square footage so that they don't have to go to the board of adjustment and it's one less application that they would have to make.

Okay. So, that's one thing that we're looking at streamlining. And I was just going to go back and see how many of those requests we've had over time. I remember the board at the time when we put this R1C zoning district in place and put all this in. Uh there was a concern that there would be developments then where people would propose R1C zoning and then they would go ahead and like if you lowered it down to 5,000, well then you'd only be looking at 5,000 square foot lots. And so that was I whether that was right, wrong or indifferent at the time, that was their thought process at the time. But I think there's a way that we can at least remove that hurdle uh when we run into that. Most of the time, well, I want to say most, probably about 50% of the time, it seems like there's enough square footage on both lots or they don't have to go through that edit process. I guess follow up on that, could we also have them just review current R2 like or yeah R2 overlay just what exists in that since it would seem a lot of people are going to be shifting away from it.

Yeah, I I think uh we could see how many are still left out there at some point and just say you know again it it would be a matter of of u um identifying all of those notifying those folks and seeing if they'd be interested in doing that at the time. And it might just be but but here's the problem. If they don't follow through with the subdivision, then you've got two lot then you got two units on one lot. If they go through R1C, they're supposed to have one unit, one lot. So you got they got the subdivision kind of goes hand in hand.

So because R1C is really a single family zoning district. It just has a zero lot line on one side, right? Any other questions, comments? It also gives us an opportunity to check on the sewer and the water and make sure that Yeah, there's other things that come up with this because we have noticed there there's been some situations where you might have um Yeah, you might not have separation of those surfaces. Um yeah, we had one recently. Yeah, we did actually. I remember that. Right. Yeah. One behind wall or Yeah, behind Walmart there. I mean, I I would think most of the time if the lenders are that particular to make them go through this that they probably also want to make sure that those improvements have been true rectified as well.

Yeah. Any other questions, comments? Anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this? Please introduce yourself.

Aaron Wagner, BFA, 103 Elm Street. Um, we just did the one next door as well and several other in town. So essentially um some banks won't even loan money on these anymore if they are zero lot lines like this but most banks are charging up to 2% higher on interest rates for it. So that's one reason why a lot of people are doing this um now. So whenever they want to sell or so on and so forth. So any questions? Thanks. Anyone else? There's no further discussion. I'll entertain a motion on the first the preliminary plat. I'll make a motion. I'll second. All those in favor? I.

Any oppose? So move. I got to abstain. Okay. And the next one is uh item number four, the uh reszoning from R2 overlay to R1C. Make a motion to approve. Second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? again, Gina. Thank you. Other business? Uh, the only thing I have, uh, I can't give you a name yet, but we have made an offer to someone for the city planner position. They've accepted. Okay. Uh, hopefully they will should be starting on the 28th, I believe, this month. 28th. This month. Okay. Correct. You've been busy. So, it's your next one.

They'll be they'll be here. They should be here. Okay. So, we're going to have a party then. like every council kind of meeting have a party for them. Well, I'm having my own parties. I don't know about you. He's having his own party so he doesn't do anymore. That's right. Right. That's right. Monday night, you'll see me for a few months. We'll we'll want to make sure we have a good transition party. City planner and parks director. I'll entertain one last motion. I'll move we adjourn. Second. All those in favor? I Any opposed? So moved. How about you, Mike? Perfect. 709.

I I I knew what you were betting on, so that's the reason why I did.