Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. God.

Welcome. June 16th, 2026, Planning Commission Meeting, City of Monroe. Call to order. Roll call. All members of the committee are present. Agenda? Approval for the agenda. Motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

Favor say aye.

Aye.

If you had a chance to review the previous minutes of the previous meeting.

Yes.

Motion to approve.

I move.

Second. Signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Thank you very much. Report from the code officer. Move on down to old business. Certificate of appropriateness 4452, 1110 North Broad Street. Okay.

That case is going to be tabled. It is still pending action at the mayor and council, and so it will come to you all once they've taken action on the other two cases out there, the variance and the conditional use. Once they take action, then you can take action on the COA. So for now, it's an automatic table. I guess you have to vote to table it, but that's the only action you can take on it right now.

All right.

Motion to table.

All those approved say aye.

Aye.

Very good. Okay. All right. New business. Conditional use 4640409 East Marable Street.

Do we have the staff report here? So we are here at 409 East Marable Street. It is a triangular lot sandwiched right up against 78 there at the top along Marable Street here, Marable Court. It is currently zoned B1. It is already the home of a convenience store and the applicant is proposing to tear that down. It's right here. That would be demolished and replaced by a larger 3,300 square foot convenience store and then adding some fuel pumps. Just a quick reminder, the conditional use is not for the convenience store, it is for the fuel pumps. We allow convenience stores as of right, but it's the fuel pumps that we put this conditional use on. Then you can see the property over here is largely wooded except for the store, so they would do some clearing there. to build what's proposed. So I already went over basically what they're planning to do there, demolition, rebuild, adding the new fuel pumps and eight parking spaces as well. Surrendering what the building is proposed to look like. Then our assessment as staff is that this is unlikely to cause disruption to the neighborhood. It is already used as a convenience store, so this would be a continuation and expansion of that use. It serves adjacent neighbors, not long distance travelers, so it's not going to necessarily bring additional car trips through the neighborhood. And it will provide convenient access to light food and beverages, toiletries and common medications for a neighborhood that doesn't have a lot of commercial outlets in it. So that will be convenient for them. That is why we are recommending approval. And with that, that concludes the staff report.

Is someone here to speak for this proposal? Yes, sir. Okay.

Well, good evening. I'm Andrea Gray. This evening I have the pleasure of representing Nikhil Agarwal and his request for a conditional use permit for a convenience store with fuel pumps. As Stephen showed you, the property is approximately 1.12 acres at 409 East Marable Street. And it is currently zoned B1, which allows for commercial uses, including the convenience store. We're outside the overlay district, and it is currently in use as the use we're proposing. This is a picture of what currently is out there. You all know it as the hot spot, I'm sure. We've all been by it. It's been there since 1957, if you can believe that. a long-standing business here in the city. It did have gas pumps originally. We believe those were moved between 2016 and 2019. So quite a few years ago, in order to have been grandfathered, it would have had to been in the last six months, I believe. So it's been well over the six months, which is why we're back asking for a conditional use to put those gas pumps back in. Here's a little closer aerial view. You can see that the building and the parking is all kind of squished towards the point of the triangle. And part of what we're doing, and again, this is grandfathered by 1957, it's been there forever, definitely doesn't meet setbacks, buffers, those kind of things. But what we're proposing will be a vast improvement and consistent with your current ordinances. So again, as Stephen mentioned, our proposed use is to put in a new 3,300 square foot convenience store with a nice facade with a mix of exterior materials, gas pumps, six to eight parking spaces. I mean, it would be operational 24 hours A day. On the site plan, a couple of things to note. Obviously we're removing the old convenience store and the gas pumps there. The remnants of them will be removed. A whole new store that we've pushed back up into the property. So we're really using a lot more of the rear of the property than the front. We're doing that to meet setback requirements and to meet the requirement that the gas pumps be to the side and not in front of the store. So we view East Marable as the front of the property. And so we're putting those to the side. We also met with staff and they helped us kind of rearrange this. We've got great access. You can see there's a through access on each of the roads there, East Marable and then Marable Court. So it should be an easy flow of traffic, much better than currently exists now. And so again, very short, but we request approval of our conditioner use permit to allow gas pumps with our new convenience store. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Yeah, so I like what we're doing. My only issue is the 24 hours. I live in the neighborhood. And the riffraff and people that come out that late at night, we don't have any gas stations or markets that are open 24 hours. I just don't know, being in a neighborhood setting, that's appropriate.

Is it not currently operated 24 hours? No.

What are your hours?

7 to 9. 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. 5 to 12. My client would propose from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m. Or, well, yeah, 12 a.m., I guess.

Yes. That's a little better. A little better? Four hours. Yeah.

Will there be any gambling machines in there? No, no. We're not intending to. There will be lottery sales. There will be lottery sales.

Thank you. Is anyone here to speak on behalf, opposed to this project? Hearing none, I'll call for a motion.

Motion to approve. Second.

I'll signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion approved. Thank you.

Did you want to change the hours? Oh, yeah. I may want to add that as a condition at this point.

Restate the position of the hours. Motion to approve with conditions of the changed hours from 5 a.m. to 12 p.m. Approve the conditions of the hours to be stated. I'll second it. Second that motion. In favor, say aye.

Aye.

I'll say aye. Opposed? Okay, that motion carries. All right.

Is that condition will be presented to the city council as a condition of your recommendation?

Okay. That being the case, is there no opposition?

No. Yes, sir.

Next is rezone 4641-275 Cherry Hill Road.

All right, here's the staff report for the request to rezone the property at 275 Cherry Hill Road, approximately 50 acres from M1, which is our light industrial manufacturing category, to R1, which is large lot residential. for the purpose of constructing one single family house. You can see we've got, it's really just an open kind of hayfield area out there as well as some woods around there. There are a few houses next door. This property here is the City of Monroe Maintenance Facility. You have some telecom stuff on the other side of the road. And then the proposed home site is right here. So very large piece of property. Ordinarily, you would think, based on the map over here, that we might have some light industry or manufacturing that would be interested in that property, but one of the unique conditions here and the main point that we wanna discuss is gonna be that it is in a permanent conservation easement, which prohibits, essentially, all of the development options except for building one single family home. So if that wasn't the case, we would be having a different conversation about what the future of this property would be. But because of that easement, then we've essentially nullified all our other options. And so we think that this is the most reasonable use of the property is the R1 for one single family home. If that easement were to ever be revoked, we would recommend to staff that we revisit our future land use plan out there for the future of the property. But without any changes, we find that the current plan is compatible with our comprehensive plan and we are recommending approval with one condition. There is a display out there of dumpsters and we are recommending that that be removed as a condition of approval. That concludes the staff report.

Is anyone here to speak on this proposal?

Thanks for having me. My name is Dylan Thompson. Me and my wife Madison are here. We're looking at just building one single family home to raise our kids on and have a nice place, kind of tucked back. Can't see it from the road. And like they mentioned, it's in a lifetime conservation easement, so it can't be developed. And the current zoning M1, it serves no purpose. It can't be developed into anything for M1 use. That's pretty much it. Any questions I can answer?

Thank you. No questions? Thank you. Anyone here to speak in opposition to this? Hearing none, we have a motion to approve.

Motion to approve with condition.

With conditions.

Second.

All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. Very well. Is that it?

That's all you have on the agenda tonight.

That's all we have, so we stand adjourned. We've got a motion to adjourn.

I move to adjourn.

Yeah, I need a motion.

Second. All right.

Got it. And adjourned. Thank you.