Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

joined us on Zoom. Can you hear us? Okay,

I can. Yep. Awesome. Thank you.

Okay, tech looks good. You didn't go to Chicago, AJ? No. So, we Did you go to St. Louis? No. Did you? No. I'm going to Chicago, though. All right.

Are you Did you get tickets from or you going to buy them or what are you going to do? Uh, we've already acquired them. My friends that I'm going with bought them. We rolled the dice and bought them last week. Yeah. And uh then of course Jefferson bust his ankle up that first one. Like oh no jinxed it on that. That's So I work for a guy who's director's club level. There's like 400ish directors club level and they got offered. They're only like 700 tickets from what I understand. Yeah. Plus or minus.

And like so you do the math there. You divide that by four. There was like 175 basically groups of tickets and I would assume they they were all gone because he ranks towards the lower end of the director's club and he didn't even get close to getting tickets. Yeah, we were hoping that he would maybe Yeah. No, I'd be interested to see what they're going for just off the uh get in price was for I well for Friday night was about 3 350 right now. Um, anything lower bowl,000 we paid I think 550 like the that was from NCAA before you was that bowl sessions. Yeah. Well, uh,

Friday and Sunday. No, that's just Friday. Both Friday. Yeah. Well, game time's horrible. No. Yeah, like late night we're joking at work. I'm like I'll be asleep. I love that game time. I have a class until 9:00. Works out well for you. Fantastic. So it's it's 9:10 central. It's not 910 Eastern. Yeah, it's even worse. Yes, that's going to be a pretty private. Again, it's you get Michigan and Iowa State. I get that you want the eyes on it, but playing games a week before, you know, 11 o'clock in the morning. You can put it at one at three and one at six. So, yeah,

there's only what, eight games total on Friday, right? Well, I get you got to, you know, clear the court and give them their time to warm up, but hopefully the Michigan game's not a overtime. Yeah. Triple to Iowa. I mean, be cool. We'll see. But yeah, I saw they lost. Yeah. fles down at the end. That kind of the OT lasted as long as the second.

Hey Elliot, this is Andrew. I'm here on the phone. Gotcha. Thanks for calling in Andrew. Yep. Elliot, Adam's here. Got you, Adam. Elizabeth's here, too, on the phone. Perfect. Thank you, Elizabeth.

Andy emailed me today. He's traveling. Okay. So, good to go then. Yep. All righty. I will go ahead and call the meeting to order at 8 or 8:45 p.m. Uh Hillary, can you start us off with a roll call, please? Eaton Hinders present. Thompson here. Stiger here. Samuelson here. Forced here.

Uh, first up will be the approval of the agenda. Is there anything that needs to be added that isn't already on the agenda for tonight? If not, I will entertain a motion. Motion by Henders. Samuelson. Second. You. Hillary. Can you follow up? Henders. Hi, Thompson. Hi, Ranger. Hi, Samson. Hi, Forest. Hi. Up next is the approval of the minutes from our February 23rd, 2026 meeting over these. Are there any changes or edits that need to be made?

If not, I would again entertain a motion and a second. Samson, a motion. Second Hinders, if you could call roll. Thompson. Hi. Hi. Samuelson. Hi. Henders. Hi. Horse. Hi.

Welcome to all guests both public and or in person and online. Uh is there anybody here that uh has anything that isn't on the agenda? If not, we will move on to our first agenda item, which is a request from Signature Development of Iowa LLC for the approval of the preliminary plat of Shadow Creek Estates. Elliot, can you provide us with a briefing?

Yes. So, several of you guys came on to planning and zoning commission after we approved this preliminary plat originally. This is actually uh kind of like a prelim plat renewal. Um as many of you know, we've had Shadow Creek Estates Town Home Final Plats come through over the last few years. I think we had two last year. This is three and four. And this is more so for the area outside of the town home development. When we had this prelim platted, um, we had a preliminary plat with, uh, the town homes as an outlot, which was then preliminary platted again as its own thing. The rest of the development is the single family portion. Um, there was a some action on that plat in um, 2021 and I guess yeah, the original prelim plat went through in 2020. We had the first two phases of that single family portion build out September uh 21 was the first plat. The second plat December of 2021. Preliminary plat have a lifespan of two years under city code if no activity is being done. Um activity being an additional phase being final platted. So, um, with that second final plaque going through in December, it extended the life of the prelim preliminary plat into 2023. Uh, the developers are ready to move on with phase three. Since it's been more than two years since that prelim has had anything go on in it, we need to uh reapprove it. So the preland plat that was approved at that time is still compliant with our zoning regulations. There's a PUD over top of the development. So this is quite

literally the same document that came to PNZ in 2020. Um just getting a seeking a reapproval so they can move on with the next phase of development. So happy to answer any questions about this. Um, we do have some folks on uh on the meeting tonight who can answer questions from the applicant side as well. Would anybody joining us care to comment any further on what Elliot had in his briefing?

This is Brian Atwood with Signature Companies. I just uh yeah, I second what Elliott said there. We're uh looking to do our next phases out there and um yeah just going through the process here. Happy to answer any questions. Are there any questions or deliberation from the commission? No, I just brief question if what I heard is correct. We're just reaffirming what was affirged to in 2020 2021 essentially. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Very simple. No further deliberation. We would entertain a motion in a second. Still moved. Hinders. Um Hillary, real quick. Howard. Thank you. Samson will second. Thank you. Hillary, if you could call roll, please. Uh Stiger, hi. Samuelson. Hi. Eaton. I Henders. I Thompson. Hi, Forst. Hi, thank you.

Moving on to our next topic. Uh recommendation for a request on a special use permit to allow construction of an accessory building exceeding 15 feet height at 8489 Arthur Trail. Elliot, can you provide us with the briefing?

Yes. So, a special use permit. I think most of you have had a special use permit uh agenda item before, but in case not, uh special use permits get reviewed and approved by the board of adjustment. The PNZ much in the way that it makes recommendations to city council, makes recommendations to boards of to the board of adjustment uh for special uses. So, uh, our zoning ordinance says that within the residential zoning districts, you have a certain maximum height that your house can be, a certain height. Accessory buildings such as a garage, shed, greenhouse, workshop can be. Um, our code also has a provision that says you can exceed that height if you get a special use permit, which is essentially the board of adjustment reviewing what you want to do, assessing the fit within the context of the neighborhood, and then giving a yes or no on said request. So, um, the property in question is the one highlighted here in the turquoise outline. uh these folks. I will show the uh proposed outline what they're wanting to do. There's a couple different renditions here um related to another thing that the board of adjustment is reviewing with this, but this is the location where they want to put it just to the east of the house on Arthur Trail um with the second driveway access. They are allowed to do that. That might look unusual to some of the folks who haven't seen it before. Our code says that if you have a lot exceeding 100 feet in width along a public street, you can have a second driveway access. You're also allowed to do that on a corner lot. So, this one would be a accessory building that has a second driveway access. As I mentioned before, side loaded to the east side of

the lot. Looks like they have currently the measurement about 32 and a half feet from the rear lot line and a little over 30 feet to the eastern lot line. Um the orange outlines on this site plan illustrate where the septic system is for this property. This address was developed in the county uh prior to annexation. So it is on septic rather than city utilities. Naturally, you don't want to build an accessories building at the top of your leech field. Um, so that's why it's side loaded this way. And, uh, what they are proposing is going to look something like this from the street. Adam Sirin is on the applicant team providing me some of the design stuff. They're still working on on these, but generally it'll be residential in character as required by the code. Uh, one thing that I did include in this staff report for the sake of clarity is how we measure height. As you can see in this elevation, the projection is for a grade to peak height of 25 ft. Maximum height in the zoning district for an accessory building is 15. It's worth noting that the way that we measure the height of a building in zoning is a little bit different than simply looking at one face.

In zoning terms, it's kind of like the midpoint on the ground to the midpoint on the slant of the roof. So, we don't measure height to the absolute peak of the roof. It's to the midpoint of the angle. Um, I think the idea with that mostly is because there's only a certain amount of usable space you can have in a in a peaked roof and that that becomes unusable because of the peak. So the idea is to give a little relief there on height and then that point on the ground is measured in a similar way. So if you have a building on a slanted piece of ground, the height is measured from the midpoint of that slant. If the building is sitting perfectly flat, that's your zero point. There's no middle ground on that slant that needs to be assessed. So, that's the way that the zoning code would measure height. In terms of how that would be reflected in this building, you're looking at a a zoning code height of somewhere between 20 to 23 feet. Um, yeah, that's essentially what they're wanting to do. Because this is in the rural estates zoning district, there's plenty of room on a lot as long as it's residential in character as required by code. We don't see a lot of issue with this from the staff perspective. Um so we would more or less recommend approval of uh of the special use permit on this. I'm happy to answer any additional questions. We have a few people on the Zoom call tonight representing this project as well. Elliot, I see in just the picture that we have presented here at least two maybe three other outbuildings in the in the neighborhood. Is that something that's common in the character of this neighborhood of these outbuildings?

Yes. Okay. And seeing how most of them have them, I mean, I wouldn't oppose or I wouldn't assume any opposition to what they're proposing from any of the neighbors. We have not received correspondence yet from people who have received my letter. my letter that we have to public notice for board adjustment items. That letter went out very late last week. So that feedback will be a little more gerine for board of adjustment, but we haven't gotten the feedback that is germanine to tonight's recommendation.

And is part of the special use permit here too also that it's going to be built within those setbacks. Are we okay on the setback? That is going to be a separate item considered by the board of adjustment that P&Z does not weigh in. Okay. Sorry, I have to shift gears after being understand going on. Yeah. Now there there is a there is a variance request associated with this. Um code requires P and Z to recommend on special use permits on anything additional from anybody on the uh application team or any other members of the commission on Zoom.

I have nothing additional to add is the is the contractor on the project other than excuse my chicken scratch plans. We haven't progressed much forward with it just because of the uh the board of adjustment zoning variance setback variance that we're seeking on April 1st. But but uh Elliot's been great to work with and and we look forward to moving forward with the project.

Further questions or deliberation from the commission? If not, we would entertain a motion in a second. Did I get a motion? Thompson second. Hillary, could you call roll, please? Samson. Hi. Eaton. Hi. Henders. Hi. Thompson. Hi. Ziger. Hi. Horse. Hi. Up next on the agenda is a city council update is Andy. No. Um, following it from the city council update will be the community development update. Elliot, do you have or Luke, do you have anything for us?

You want to go first or we go first? Um, I guess a little on the council side as well. Um, I'm sure you all saw on Facebook lots of discussions about data center. Um, I didn't see anything

really. So, council did uh in case you weren't following what council approved um it was a development agreement um with a company that's looking to develop ground south of town for a potential data center user. So, we don't have anyone identified. We've not seen any site plans or anything submitted. Um we have been working with this company um on that kind of initial prep plan for it. Um you guys saw zoning changes uh in the last 18 months uh for um uh data center district. Um some overlay stuff that we've done. Um so that's progressing. Um we are currently working through some um just some some of the concerns that were raised up. Council uh wanted us to take a look at you know how does our code handle lighting and noise and some of those things. So, as we go through that, there may be some additional zoning things we bring back to you all to consider. Um, as it relates to that, um, happy to answer any questions on the agreement if you had anything. I'm I'm not the expert, but I know enough to be dangerous, so I'll make statements and someone can correct me later on if I'm wrong. That's all I got. Um, nothing major aside from just the note that I put in my agenda mailing that EZRI, the company that makes all my mapping software, has terminated my old program. So, um, gosh darn, the winds have changed. But, um, hopefully this is good enough for now. I'm going to be looking through some of the other formatting options in case there's something a little more aesthetically pleasing. Um, in the meantime, we do have an extra week because next Monday is the 30th of the month. So, that puts us three weeks out till the next P&Z.

Um, as I mentioned few meetings ago, um, we should formally elect a chair at that time. We're also going to be advertising to fill that seventh seat in the meantime. Um, I've received a couple of applications. We want to get more than than just two ideally. So, that's a thing I'll be working on. Be thinking about if you want to throw your name in the hat for chair. Otherwise, there's nothing that says we can't just rotate. Um, you all get along pretty well. So, just think about that. And that's all I have.

Okay. So, our next meeting will be April 13th at 5:45. Um, at this point in time, we would ask for a motion and a second for adjournment. moved in. Sus second. All in favor? I I I adjourned at 6:01 p.m. Thank you guys for zooming in. Andrew, Elizabeth, and Howard. Hillary, do I just sign on the bottom? Thank you. Um yeah, where it says like interim chairs.