Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

any commission meeting with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Okay, Brenda, roll call, please. All right, Chad Melinder here. Meer here. Yes, here Nancy sick. Correct. Yes. Okay, next on the agenda is approve the minutes from the uh March 5th, 2025 meeting. Everybody had had those. And is there any additions or corrections to this? The only thing I had, Ron, is on page three, the the motion, uh, planners should consider the historical ratio of owner occupied and rental housing on page 89. Uh, 80 page 89 was not updated with that sentence fragment of and rental housing. That's correct. I caught that. Okay. Yeah, caught that. And we talked about that. That's good. Okay. Mhm. Okay. So, we're we're have another motion in the discussion or we've approved this. Okay. That's correct. That's the wording you wanted. I wasn't here. So, that's the wording you wanted in there. So, we just approve that. So, I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes as presented. And yeah, then we'll get to discussion. And Chris, you're exactly right. That language was not inserted. Yeah. I'll second the motion. Second.

I second. All those in favor say I. Chad. Chad. It's all good. Second. I I oppose. Motion carries. Okay. Now we have hearing for the uh comprehensive plan. Sydney is here. I don't know that we need if anybody the council or sorry the planning commission wants her to make a a presentation again. We will. She's prepared to do that, but we don't need to don't need to. Anybody need it? No. I But I do think now would be a proper time because we're at the comprehensive plan that at our last meeting there were some suggested edits and at least one of them wasn't made. So, we're going to recommend approval of the comprehensive plan. I think we want to make very clear in the motion that it's subject to the edits being made. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess if if it's just an oversight that I I'm fine with that. It just we just need to update it. I caught that this afternoon and I talked with our legal Zach. He said it was a typo error and uh we can approve it. It's been approved once, right? But right here, uh, we're missing right here, we're missing the word, uh, and rental and rental housing. And that's exactly what was approved on the March 5th. It should read, planner should consider the historic historical ratio of owner occupied and rental housing. And we're just missing two words and rental housing. Zach Legal said that we can approve this with a correction that they add and rental. Yeah. In your motion,

just um include subject to those further uh correction. Yep. Is that everything good there, Chris? That Yeah, I just that wasn't it was just a to me it was just a minor edit. So, but I guess we were talking about having them give that presentation. I guess if this is the formal public hearing now, we we've talked about it twice now, so we've all seen it, but there's someone here from the the audience that came here specifically to to um to speak about this comprehensive plan. Is there some value in having a quick overview? Yeah, I'm not I'm not in favor. I mean, I don't care, but it's already been approved. So, the fact public can still input, but the document has been approved. So, we can't modify. So, anybody has any questions for Sydney, you're welcome to have it. Anybody? Nope. Okay. Good. Yep. All right. So, uh I guess we would entertain a motion to accept the comprehensive plan with the subject to the additional words on page 89, last paragraph. and rental be inserted, then it would be approved and it'll go to the council. Any discussion? Well, we have a motion. Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve a comprehensive plan with the and rental added to the last paragraph on page 89 as discussed. And rental housing. Yeah, we're just adding and rental. The word housing is there. And rental housing. And rental. That's all. Oh, two words missing. And rental. Well, what we approved last time was and rental housing three housing is housing. So, we're adding the word housing's there. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Under occupied

and rental housing. Okay. I'll second. Second. Any discussion on this motion other than I appreciate everybody catching the and adding the and rental because that certainly was um the intention. So Ron, I think you're the one that brought that to my attention. Thank you for catching that. Yes, I know there was a whole lot of work by a lot of people both on the council everything and the public a lot of lot of meetings and I greatly appreciate that. Any dis any other discussion? Um in terms of the comprehensive plan this there was several references to architectural standards on page 36 and page 35. I know at the last meeting we were going to talk about at this meeting what what those architectural standards might be and how we might move forward with that. Uh I know we got a full full agenda already, but um I just want to put that on the table as maybe for a future um meeting agenda to to flush that out. Okay. Yep. I know that the town council has has discussed creating an architectural committee. So those are things that the town councils could be involved with as well. The next meeting as I have it is July 16th at 6:00. Now remember anything we want to discuss that that needs public um informed or we have a public advertisement we can do that in this meeting today and and then we don't have to do it again. it'll be posted and do it again. So, we have a motion on the floor. It's been second and discussion's over. All those in favor say I. I.

Anybody opposed? Nay. Comprehensive plan is approved with the two words added. Uh now we're going to go into uh new business. I have um Jim was presented with a proposal for Um the uh for a proposal for somebody wants to build on 18 and 20 East Mill Street, which is the old grain elevator. Right now, we're working through the details. I just want to make it public. We don't know that there's going to be a board of zoning appeal on this or if the planning commission needs to approve it, but we have that document out there and u we'll talk through Sorry, I have good this document. The uh the staff has seen this document and u just go through it real quickly. Uh some guy wants to build a his own B2 right now which is he's able to do that. He wants to put his private business on there. He has a siding company and the objective here is we want to identify codes based on his request. We want to see his intentions, what he wants to build and uh and then see if we have to do anything. But anyhow, he's in a

contract to purchase the land and this is the sketch of what he wants to do on the land. It's it's the east and west 18 and 20. He wants to put a pole barn type of building up there. And this is the lot right here that on Mil Street empty lots right now with a giant hole in the middle of it. And this is just some of the guideline that we go through to determine what it is we have to do. He's currently that lots zone B2 and the property to the east and west and across the street are R3 which is residential but the zoning is already there and there's just some standards. U we basically look at the setback and the houses around it and then we look at the height of the building and different things like that. So so far we haven't found anything. accessory buildings. He doesn't plan on putting the accessory buildings, but we have a limit on the height on the accessory building. So, right now, he says he's not going to put any uh accessories on it. And then this space right here shows the current zoning. And as you can see, the pinkish orange is where that building is, and that's B2. And uh so so he's he's okay with that. And uh right now The beacon shows that there's a driveway between the lots 18 and 20. That's a center line, but I have circled there. Right here, that's a driveway which is in the middle of lot. And I've been told that that driveway has been closed. We just have to make sure that it's been officially closed and reported by the town. And there is another driveway which is on the eastern side of that lot which is between lot 20 and the house

22. So that will Hey Olen, that's active alley. So Ron, yeah, I interrupt you here. I did do some research on my end. I do have the ordinance and the plats. Yeah. And so I I do have confirmation that that alley has been vacated. Good. Thank you. On the conundrums um edition, Conrad Conundrums, sorry, and uh and the Walkeition. So, I have the instrument numbers and everything here where those have been vacated. Thank you. So, Ron, I had one question and maybe you're going to get to it. I know that there's a railroad right away. Yeah, I have that. And and I I didn't see exactly how the building was positioned on the property. Just want to make sure that no portion of the building is in that railroad right away. Right. Right. I have that, Bill. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. This is the alley on the right that will stay open at that course. You see that's the house and the alley. That basically where I put that line in there. That's where the alley will be where that uh truck is right there. And then his property will be to the left of that which is to the west. Uh the railroad right away is noted. I have it on here. Um and you can see this is a beacon which these beacons aren't accurate but you can see that that railroad rightway goes through the back of the property. And uh there's actually a concrete slab which is a loading zone. And I've done a lot of history on this in the past. So the railroad railroad had a rightway to bring a spur off there to put cars and stuff to load the grain and that up. So they have a rightway. I've informed the potential owner that uh that this rideway is there and that you don't want to mess with the river. They don't play around. I can confirm that. Huh? I can confirm they take that seriously. So

this is on lot 18 which is on the left side of the pictures and that dotted line is about the railroad right. So part of that concrete slab was a was for boarding and unloading railroad car. So he's aware of that and I told him that he would have to have it surveyed which he will of course. And then this is just an overview. There's two lots there where that little Volkswag station wagon is. That was kind of the center of the property which the Brian has confirmed that that alley is closed. So, it's only one lot now. And then this is the left side of the lot. Uh he's going to build the building on the left side of the lot. And then this is the massive hole which where the grain elevator the elevator shaft was. uh down below within the boulders and the conveyors. It doesn't look as bad as it is, but it seems like it's about 12 or 14 feet straight down. So, uh talked to him on Saturday and he's talked to one of his uh landscapers andor uh excavation companies and they're going to do it right. They're going to put dirt in, pack it, dirt pack, dirt pack all the way up and do it right. Of course, that's up to him. additional resource we talked about is the alley. Brian's confirmed that. And then the only thing that Jim and I are considering is Jim says that B2 he has to have some kind of solid parking lot. It has to be black top or concrete. He's not really hip on that idea because there's two or three buildings around there that have gravel that are B2 and we said that doesn't matter. That's beforehand and now we're where we are today. So, uh, we don't have to do anything on the potential right away. So, we'll finish up a few documents and then decide if this needs to come back to the planning commission

for any approval and and we understand that if he falls within all the codes and ordinance, then we don't have to do any approval. If he's asking for something, then we'll have to see if it's a planning commission or board of zoning appeal. But I just want to make everybody aware of this and uh so that's what we want to do. Any questions on that where we might end up with that? Other than you had mentioned it, Ron, and I think that you're 100% correct. If he were to request to use a gravel parking lot instead of a hard surface because of the current development standards, that would require variance. Yeah. So, you know, and I'm not in favor of that. I don't think Jim is either that that go with more gravel even though we have it all around that area just to the west of that is there's many lots that are gravel and I don't like it. So is I assume he's probably going to plan on having semis and stuff deliver supplies or no what he or is he just having trucks come in and out. What he told me was there's not going to be a bedroom. There's not going to be a shower. It's going to be a half bath. He's going to have office and he's going to pull all of his equipment off site in the building at night. He said on occasion he might have a a truck pull in with a I'm talking about pickup truck with a trailer and it might sit outside overnight. No outside storage. I explained to him that he can't sub rent or lease to another business. He's not planning on doing that like piece out the back half of the warehouse and rent it out. And uh as of Saturday, he told me that the building is going to be a poleborn type. It'll be white siding with uh black trim and black roof and probably black windows and uh talking about the landscaping out front, what he's going to do. We'll talk to we'll guide him through that as he goes, but he'll have to repair the sidewalk as it's all it's all crushed there and I've told him that he has to repair the

sidewalk. Anything else? So Ron, do you think they're the railroad's going to have any issue with him taking that stuff down? Even though because if I'm reading this right, are you saying that that is in the right away? I I actually saw the print some years ago and that line is is exaggerated. It's not that far in by the blueprints. So and and as far as the railroad, we can't get involved with that. He'll have to That's between time consuming. Yes. Right. I mean, I wouldn't think the railroad would have a problem with that, but who knows, right? Never know. Yeah. Pay us a remmit fee and roll the dice. Yeah. Yeah. You'd think they wouldn't have much of a problem fixing a bridge either, but Yeah. Well, this is something hasn't been used in decades, right? So, for the town's advantage, we we really if if we can make this go, that eliminates that eyesore. It's really terrible. Really terrible. So, do you know if there's any other like environmental concerns with that? What was on there before? No comment. Okay. Obviously, that's something he'd have to figure out, right? That's something he would have to figure out based on if he's going to get a mortgage or a loan on that. He'll have to figure that out. So, I agree. I would agree with you. It's a This would be a good improvement. Okay. Then we'll go on to uh other new business. We have a code review. And to be honest, this has kind of almost kicked my butt, but uh Ryan has has presented to me the last uh council meeting of some things that the Hulus have put in there. And one is a sidewalk, the ordinance for subdivision control plan. And right now, we do have to have public hearing on this. So, I'm just presenting this so

we can talk about it. We we'll tidy it up and give you guys a document and then we'll present it. It has to be a public hearing for us to change code or or so so right now this is what we have in the U subdivision plan and the sidewalks. It goes on and lists all this. Now, this right here, we'll we'll look at detail, but what Ryan suggested is that we add what I have in red to this document. You can see what it says sidewalks are provided very very limited space that we insert all this data and uh the main thing is which the town has been finding out that all the broken sidewalks have to be repaired by the town as it stands right now. So um so anyhow we want to look at this to add this to that section which is uh 2.1 of our code 2.1.1 sidewalks. We want to add that to the code and then um irrigation. I had a little trouble with the irrigation but I thought we want to slip it in in here. This is easements. This is under our code 104. And I think that we want to slip it in somewhere around here. This needs to be added at 104. So we're going to call that some some category A irrigation system. And this is what Ryan put in there. U basically you're not allowed to put irrigation from the side between the sidewalk and the road. And we want to clarify that because then you get into bit of an issue if you have to get into that easement and they're going to try and make us pay for it. So, we want to look and make sure that's a proper area for that. The other one that I couldn't I mean I spent 25 hours in the last two days on it but basketball goals and this

one I I really think so. This is from the county which is is really good but Ryan also wants to put in the basketball goals and it's freestanding basketball goals with clear back court boards may be constructed. Basketball goals attached to the house or garage shall not be permitted. No basketball goals attached to a house or a garage. Temporary basketball goals must not be placed in the street right away. All recreational equipment must be maintained in good condition. So I think that's a a good addition. That's a good addition. And uh if you look at some of our code, I mean most of it is back from 2001. So, uh, literally we could take this this whole planning commission and everybody take 10 sections an evening and and we we wouldn't get through. So, we did a lot of updating and the signs I know it's near and dear to Terry that we want to we want to get the signage updated. So, the basketball goals we haven't forgot about. I just got to figure out where it goes. So, I'll elaborate on that a little bit. What I found uh being the ADA coordinator for the county and u doing a lot of the ADA work in the neighborhoods and and such the last several years in the county is when you look at the subdivision co covenants um these things are called out and a lot of the the county subdivision covenants and when I when I came to work with the town I noticed that uh the town was responsible for all the sidewalks and I started looking into some of the covenants of the ex exist existing subdivisions in the in the town and in their covenants. It's not called out that the HOA or the homeowners responsible for the sidewalks, the town can't afford to keep footing the bill for every new subdivision to go in to pay for sidewalks. So I thought if these

are things that either either we add or we make the uh in the plat they make them we make them add them add that this section to their to their covenants and call this out. Uh this is this is what we do in the county. That way the HOA and homeowners responsible for maintaining the sidewalks because town just we just can't afford to do it. It's miles and miles of sidewalks. Uh so so that's why I added this in there and it's it's almost verbatim. I I went over several subdivisions uh covenants that we have in the county and this is I kind of just pieced it together through all that stuff. Same thing with the irrigation systems. I know working with the county we work in the rightway a lot doing repairs and and such and uh having irrigation systems is something that we run into a lot. People love a good-look yard just as much as the next person, but when they put the irrigation system in the rightway, and then we have to go in and do work in that right away and then uh dig it up when we don't know it's there because it's not located. Sometimes the homeowner is not home. Um that we we run into a real problem there. So, they just don't need to be there. Uh and the basketball goals, I think that kind of speaks for itself, you know. maintain them in good condition. We don't want half falling down and having them in the rightway is is an issue as well because as we're going through trying to do road work or whatever we're trying to do uh to maintain that right away, having those there is is a bit of an issue as well because if we go and move them, it's about liability. If somebody drives down the road and they're hanging out in the road and they, you know, get caught on the apron of a truck or something, uh they just don't need to be there. Even delivery trucks, I mean, They can't make those roundabouts. So my wife would be irritated if the Amazon truck didn't

show up. Yeah, it did show up. So So I've thought about this before when we were working with the the latest addition over here with Oidge that I was looking at some of the lighting codes and we still have sodium listed as our requirement for that. So this is another one that needs to be updated for LEDs. And so I'm just making notes of this. We'll present all this and then we'll figure out what the right language is. But just street lights in general. I mean it's a massive code and it talks how tall how far they're separated. So u and then another one that I have. This is this is interesting because um I'm going to use a word I don't normally use a word but uh copper stone. We've had a lot of homeowners in there that have a lot of concerns andor requests and as we start looking at the HOA, we're supposed to have receive copies of the HOA before we approve the secondary plot, which we haven't done in the past. Now, our information says that they will present that before we approve the secondary, but it doesn't have any meat to it. There's no we we can't get in there. And I know where where what happened in Copper Stone was Copperstone had three votes for every lot that they they had not sold that they still had ownership and they didn't turn the HOA over to the homeowners until the last lot was sold. Well, obviously in that scenario, it's too late. So we we want to look at uh putting something in that area um that that the Asia way that we can have some some potatoes in it. But uh anyhow we we

want to look at that and uh and then keeping with that same scenario um I found as as we all know that uh investment companies are buying up a lot of houses and uh we're not Caramel we're not fisers but we've been talking about this and this is near and dear to Chris for a couple years and we wanted to try and put some implications and some code in there that they couldn't buy up all these residentials for investment properties. And our legal has advised us very wisely. Do not do that. Wait till somebody else does it and they get contested. So we've had right now, as you've all seen, Fisers has done that. They put a 10% on housing divisions. Caramel's working on that and Caramel has I believe they're trying to submit 10% total for the town. So anyhow, there's some some leeway there and I think we need to we need to continue with some language and then continue to feed it to legal and see see what they think is enforcable. And then the other thing that I found by accident was these uh investment companies are buying brand new homes andor used homes and they have to fill out a sales document. And as I'm looking through some of these, it clearly asks, is this property a rental property? And I found a lot of them that says they are not rental property. So they're not paying the correct property tax, which is something we can definitely go after them for. So we got to figure out how we can go through and do that without clicking clicking on them. But it's a 1% difference for property tax, which could add up to a lot. So Ron, something to add to that too is uh through talking with some individuals, I found out that some homeowners associations are actually uh voting on that internally. Yeah. On the

the percentage of rentals as well. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah. I think one of them has actually said no rental at all. Yeah. I think it's Crystal Heights and homeowners can do that, right? They can do that. So we put we put language in for the uh Willow Ridge. And that was early on before we approved anything and the wording was put in there that they could not sell a lot or a house direct to investment company for a rental and it had to be one year after a house was built and it's turned over to the HOA. Then the HOA handles it. So they accepted that before we approved the lot. So that were covered on this one. So uh I think it was two years. Did you put two years two years? Two years. So So that way it gives time for the houses to be sold, the houses to be built and the people that are living in there. I mean it's the biggest investment that anybody makes in their life and they should have the right to say we want rentals or not. So So um yeah. And then uh there's there's a lot of things that I I want to prepare. And I I like the idea of having scheduled meetings so that we can talk about this stuff and get it out there. And uh there's a lot of stuff that I know was irritating to a lot of people and that's the houses. Some of them look very bad. We're coming in and out of town. It's terrible. So I know Jim and uh and Susie, they were working on that real heavy and I want to keep with that. But we have very strict codes to say you can only have a garage sale twice a year and it can only be for 10 days. Well, we have a couple properties that they have month-long garage sales three times a year. They can't do that. So, so we got that. And then these pended flags, I

don't like those. The ones that says open open. We're very strict on that. You know, you can have a total of 10 days a year and it's got to be for something special. So, we we want to look at that. And then cars andor trailers and campers without license plates. You can't have those. They can't they can't be on a lot. They can't be on a street if they're not insured and they don't have the correct license plate current license plate. So what I that's that's all I have. The fencing is another thing that that I couldn't find at all, but I've seen a lot of sixoot wooden fencing go up. And it's my understanding that everybody has to have a permit before they put that fencing up. So, I just want to make sure that that happens because these wooden fences look beautiful for about a year and then they they all don't look so good. So, that's that's all I have. Um, and then I'm going to be working with the signs. Uh, I attended a a state government meeting and they're talking about signs. Everybody has their own proposal that you we want this sign and we want that sign and we don't want that sign. Uh the state has a code and the legal firm that presented this uh document at one of these Ames. Uh they suggested use the state. Don't try and reinvent it yourself. We can use the county. And uh there's a lot of things now with these animated electronic signs that most people don't know, but they can't change slowly. You can't have a flag waving. And the reason by that distracts the driver because he's looking to see what the sign's going to see next. So they have to switch fast. They can't be slow. That's stuff we need to be covered because if it's covered, we can't be contested. We can't just deny somebody because we don't like it. So we have to have coke. Sorry for the the long time, but I had an hour. I can still talk. I don't Anybody else? Jim. Hey Ron. Since you've talked about all the doom and gloom, why

don't you talk about the nice things? We got a new firehouse coming. Yeah. Yes, we do. We have a new fire station in New Palestine. The only thing is embroidery shop, but uh we've had some requests for a remodel, which again, this is another thing. We don't know that there's much to do, but Axe Heads, which is next to the liquor store, they want to go forward, they want to go backwards, and they want to go up. So we met with them on Monday morning and they want to make the front look like a firehouse because all of them are firemen. The owners are firemen. All the workers are firemen and so they want to make it look like an old firehouse. I think that's just fabulous. I think that'll fit right in too. So they're waiting on some engineering drawings andor cost and then we'll go back and meet with them to see again if there's anything the town needs to do because a remodel is different than than a build. And Uh then we have we have another suggestion andor request that somebody wants to convert a barn to two residents. That's going to be a little bit more difficult. And then we have possibility of a couple new housing additions that might want to be annexed in. So So it's uh starting to move again. So we got to be prepared for it. Right, Jim? That's right. Anything else? No, that's it. Thank you. Anybody else? Right now we have time. I will open up for anybody wants to know for a couple minutes about anything you'd like to see. We're planning commission. You can't solve the world, but we're talking about codes and covenants and approving different subdivisions if they come to. If anybody has anything, you're welcome to stand up. [Music] Otherwise, motion to adjurnn. Unless anybody up here has any further discussion. I'll second.

All those in favor? I meeting close. Thank you. I need signature