Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Right. I don't uh Okay. I call the April 7th Planning Commission meeting to order. Roll call, please. here. Here. Here. Are there any agenda amendments? There are no amendments this evening. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the April agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? I I All against. Okay. Um, is there a motion to amend or approve the minutes for the March 3rd meeting? No. You all have your mics on? Yeah. Okay. Oh, no. Okay. Yeah. Move to approve. We had a second. Yes. Yep. Okay. All right. All in favor? I I I. All against. Okay. All right. Um, are there any citizens to be heard on items not on the agenda? Okay. Apparently not. So, we'll move to public hearings. The first is a request of Trantina Properties LLC for a conditional, excuse me, conditional use permit to operate towing impound lot at 2857 22nd Avenue South. Is there a motion to open the public hearing? So moved. Second. All in favor? I.

Uh, city planner Houston, can you please provide the commission an overview of the item? Chair Beam, Assistant City Planner Ethan Yon Jon will present this item tonight. Thank you, Chair Beam and commissioners. Uh the applicant is requesting a conditional use permit for a towing impound lot in the light industrial zoning district in the Morehead Industrial Park. Uh the proposed impound lot is adjacent and across the street from existing impound lots. We have received no public comments to the state. Um, so staff is suggesting the planning commission re recommend approval to the city council, the conditional use permit to allow operation of a towing impound lot uh and the related findings of fact contingent on the three conditions listed in your packet. Please let me know if you have any questions. Are there any commission questions or comments? Okay. Are there any public comments? Since there is no public here, I'll take that as a no. Um, is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. I. Okay. Um, is there any more discussion or a motion for the item? Approve. Move to approve. Seconded. Okay. [Music] Um so the um motion is for recommended approval to the city council for the conditional use permit to allow operation of a towing impound lot in the light industrial district at 2857 22nd Avenue South and related findings of fact contingent on the following. Uh, one, a drainage and dust control plan must be submitted and approved by city engineer prior to storing impound vehicles on the lot.

Opaque screening is required around the vehicle storage area to a height of no less than 6 ft. An applicant shall receive all required federal, state, and local permits. All in favor? I I Okay. Uh second is a request to the city of Morehead for citywide zoning map amendments related to commercial parcels. Is there a motion to open the public hearing? So moved. Second. All in favor? I I. City Planner Houston, please provide the commission an overview of this item. Chair Beam, along with the recent text amendments, as part of the onward Morehead comprehensive plan update implementation process, the city is now requesting complimentary zoning map amendments focused on commercial parcels and parcels with a commercial future land use designation. Uh please note that since Friday I made a few updates to the staff report correcting um that there is only one non-conforming use created for these reszones which is in a zoning world that is remarkable out of 500 and some parcels there's only one non-conforming parcel created. Um so I think in my original report I had mentioned I thought there was two and it was a typo. I really um so the only um new one was uh it was a house on 11th Street up by American Crystal Sugar and it was built kind of in an industrial commercial area. So it was a lot of that area is already non-conforming. Um but they can continue um to be a single family residence without any without any impact to the property. And then I also realized as I was driving around this weekend um up on 15th Avenue North, there's a former bus garage next to the

new public works um department and I knew I reszoned that in 2022 and I was thinking I don't remember writing this or putting that one in the table. So sure enough, it was wrong in our GIS when we pulled the data from the GIS. So it was still listed as an institutional property. So I I did add that to the table. It's at the bottom of the um commercial property table. So that is um we reszoned it in 2022 to community commercial and now we'll be reszoning it to mixed use too which is neighborhood mixeduse which is more appropriate because it's in a residential area. Was that the bus barn used by the school district? Yes. Okay. Yes. Um the things you find when you're driving around Morehead. Um much of this grouper reszones were for the regional commercial parcels um which as you recall we we um repealed that district because it's it's an outdated zoning district. So we essentially um created MU4 which is the gateway mixed use um for these parcels that used to be zoned RC that are mostly in the gateway district. Um and then many of the community commercial parcels remained as is along Main Avenue Southeast which is um on the I think on the west side of Maine. That's all that's our original industrial park. So all of the parcels along Main Avenue are commercial and then everything behind is light industrial. Those won't change. Um, we have a lot of community commercial parcels along uh 30th Avenue south and then also Highway 70 north from Highway 10 east north. Those will those will remain commercial. And then lastly, as you see in the table, I've got some highlighted future land uses. We did find some errors that were not caught um when we did the future land use changes. And then I also found a few parcels that I

re-evaluated that were um like for example there was one area that I was going to reszone a mixeduse but it's more appropriate to remain community commercial. So we will address those future land use um errors when we get the all the reszonings done because there'll probably be some other ones and then we'll just do all that um that that map update um all at one time. I have not received any comments to date on the proposed changes and staff is suggesting that the planning commission commission recommend approval um of the zoning map amendments um to the city council for the related commercial parcels. And just let me know if you have any questions. Are there any questions or comments? Um guess I have one. Um could you just explain the difference between the new MU4 and the prior regional commercial? Right. So the old regional commercial had um pretty hefty setbacks. There was you know 20 I think it was 20 ft in the front, 20 ft in the rear. There was a 50ft setback depending on if it was adjacent to residential. And then it was also intended for like these big box stores like Targets, Super Walmarts. Um, we just don't get those types of development. You know, if we if you have a Target, if you have a Walmart, you're probably not going to get another one in in this size of a city right now. So, we went through that um code and we decided that it's it was outdated. So, the new um MU4 district, which is called the Gateway Mixed Use, is for those properties that are primarily along our gateways um along Highway 10 East, um Highway 75 South, um trying to remember where else. Those

are those are the primary areas. the I 94 um corridor. There's a bunch of um new mixeduse fours there and those have like minimal 10-ft setbacks and they also have design guidelines that correspond with our gateway design guidelines. So that means additional landscaping. Um you can't just put a metal building up in the gateway. It has to look, you know, nice. Um and then it also um requires um I think we limited outdoor storage in the gateway just because just for you know aesthetics purposes but it basically the uses between regional commercial and mixu4 mixed use 4 are the same. There wasn't much of a difference between those. Um I guess pardon my ignorance but what is mixed use about them then? So, so during the comprehensive plan process, part of the way we modernized the code and and wanted to simplified our zoning is that we have all these commercial corridors um through town. You know, Highway 75 South, Highway 10, 34 Street. Well, before you could only do commercial developments along those corridors. Now, you can do residential. So, it really does open up the residential market to developers. They can do just commercial. They could do just housing or they could do a mixeduse building. So it it it's kind of amazing when you think about like just look at the East 10 development. If there was room in that development, somebody could stick an apartment building in that parking lot. And that's why we wanted to leave it because we do have quite a bit of vacant property um along those corridors and just to give it up give it flexibility for the developers. Hey developer, what do you want to do there? So when you put a mixeduse zone on it, it gives them a lot of op um options and then it also the reduced setbacks help as well.

Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Okay. Um any public comments? No. Is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. All in favor? I I uh Is there any more discussion or a motion for the item? I'll move that we accept the planning commission approval to the city council for the amendments. Second. All in favor? I I Okay, there is um no other business. Robin, no other business. Okay. No other information. Uh, seeing that there is no other business, is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. We are adjourned. Thank you.