Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

And I wish the two in Florida were here. Brown Green, Wellsville.

Fountain Greens, hour or so? Hour and 20? I'd like to call.

This meeting of the Planning Commission to order, it's Thursday, August 27th, 2026. And I've asked Member Watt to offer our prayer. And after that, if you could all rise with us and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Our Heavenly Father, we're so grateful to have the opportunity to come before Thee and to exercise our civic responsibility as citizens of this inspired nation. Father, we ask for a blessing that we might be civil in our discussions and that we might be empathetic and compassionate in our considerations. Father, we ask for a special blessing at this time for those families in Nepal who have been so dramatically affected by the floods. And we ask you to bless them and keep them in thy hand, we pray. These things we pray for at this time in the name of thy beloved son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, Good, how are you? The next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Do you have a motion?

Motion.

Motion by Member Watt.

I'll second.

Second by Member King. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries, unanimous. Declaration of any conflict of interest with any item on the agenda by a commissioner. Seeing none, we'll move on. Now is the time for public comment. We'd like to welcome the public out tonight. We have two items on our agenda, and each one is a legislative item, which means it will have its separate public hearing. So we would request that if you have any comment about any Either one of these items that you wait until that specific public hearing to make your comment. However, if you have another comment that you'd like to address the Planning Commission on, now would be the time. So if you could come up to the lectern and state your name for the record. Seeing none, we'll move on to our first item. This is the Public Hearing Discussion Decision New Monument Code Amendment. And we'll turn the time over to our county recorder, Sean Rose.

Good evening. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Sean Rose. I'm the county recorder. So I'm here before you tonight. We have, with the last few months, Between me and the county attorney, we have spent a lot of time working on this new ordinance for the county. It is, the new ordinance is 154, Surveyor and Survey Monuments. The whole idea was this, for this was to take everything that included surveying, survey monuments, PLSS, combine it all into one ordinance. With that, it's also, we just hired a county surveyor. So the county has its first surveyor in-house position. So this is also gonna, it's just in line of, for the new surveyor. So I'm here asking for approval to amend 155.008, 155.371, and These ordinate codes, county codes are ones that are in land use that have anything to do with surveying. And I'm asking that we remove those out and amend them and move them out of 155 and put them into 154. Do you have any questions?

Any questions for Sean?

Oh, I read through it.

Yeah, I was going to defer to you.

Yeah, no, it looked good. I guess the one question I had, we had an incident, oh, it's been a few months since a monument was obliterated. And I'm looking, I saw down at the bottom the repercussion of that, the potential fines. Are those in line with other counties that you've seen? Okay, I was just wondering where those numbers came from.

Yeah, so this ordinance is strictly coming from state code and what state code allows us to do.

That was really the only thing that stood out to me, just making sure that that was covered.

And just on that topic, with the subdivision, with that monument that was destroyed, this will protect this monument or will prevent further from happening again.

Is that one going to be recreated?

So we have actually, my office, we've held up, recording the plat until we've received the data, the tie sheets that are needed. We just received those and we have given, we just need the CC&Rs for it, but it's ready to be recorded and we've received the data that we've asked for.

Any more questions? If not, ready to move into public hearing. I have a motion. So moved.

Second.

Motion by Member Maloney and a second by Member Taylor. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries unanimous. We are now in a public hearing. If anybody would like to make a comment regarding this code text amendment, now would be your time. OK, seeing none, ready for a motion to move out of public hearing.

Motion to close public hearing. Second.

Motion by Member Watt and second by Member Wilton. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries unanimous. Okay. Any more discussion or questions? I'm ready for a motion.

I'll do it. I move to recommend approval to the County Commission the Monument Preservation Text Amendment based on findings listed in the memorandum dated August 27th, 2026.

I have a motion by Member King. Second. A second by Member Maloney. Any more discussion? All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries unanimous.

Thank you very much.

Eight. next item on the agenda we have a public hearing discussion decision this is a zone change and a future land use map amendment at 2292 west chris lane commission for the record this is application 26.021

The applicant is A. Jaden Wells, and the property owner is Brad Peterson. The request is to change the future land use map from Ranch Residential 5, which is one dwelling unit per five acres, to Rural Residential, which is a maximum of one dwelling unit per acre, and to change the zoning from RR5, which is one dwelling per five acres, to RR point, excuse me, RR 2.5, which is one dwelling unit per 2.5 acres. In the area, the future land use calls for, in the north, Ranch Residential 5, and on the east, Ranch Residential 5. and on the south of this property, it calls for Rural Residential 1, and to the west of this property, it calls for Rural Residential 1. The current zoning around the property is RR5 on the north, east, and south, and RR1 on the west. If you have any particular questions, I'd be glad to try to address those at this time.

Any questions for staff? We're ready for public hearing then. Okay, motion to go into public hearing. Motion by Member Wilson. Second. Second by Member Maloney. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. We're in public hearing. Now would be the time to address the commission regarding this matter. If you please come up to the lectern and state your name for the record.

Sorry, I'm new to this.

My name is Dave Bell, 1482. We live kind of in that same little area over there. but i don't want to see everything shrunk down to 2.5 i'd like to see it stay at five because i feel like we just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller for our country living so it's kind of frustrating to see you know once it was five but once it was 20 right and now we're almost down to five i hate to see it go to 2.5 because i'm then i'm living back in subdivision and that's my concern and i would like to say let's stick to our general plan that we had for morgan and at least in the at least in the county i mean septics wells i mean things are getting tougher and tougher right so if it gets down to a less and less and less i just don't see everything gets taken care of above ground septics all that sounds great but sooner or later we're going to have some rain we're going to have the water and i don't think it's going to be that good anymore all that stuff before a lot of places were underwater and i'd like hopefully we get a good winter but that's my concerns I love my community and I love all the people around me and hopefully I didn't step on anybody's feet, but thank you.

Thank you. With that, Dave, we received an email and I will read it into the record. That was the request. This email is regarding the request for rezoning of 2292 Chris Lane being heard tonight on the agenda. We would like this email to be read into the record at the meeting tonight. We love living in Morgan and plan to do so for a very long time. We live at 1482 North Morgan Valley Drive, and this request directly impacts our property. We understand that growth is going to occur. However, another rezone and reduction in property size in this specific area, Elquist Estates, seems unfair to the surrounding neighbors. This would be, we believe, the third rezone in this area within the last two and a half years in this specific area. The property was purchased and the home was built less than a year ago, and the owner was aware of the zoning at the time, and now another rezone is being requested. We are concerned with the frequency of rezones in this area. Also, with the reduction in property sizes, we love our large lots. owner had a large amount of property and rezone and subdivide it several times to make more money before he moved out of Morgan. Please don't allow another rezone and reduction of property sizes in this area. We are asking that the current zoning remain in place and the rezone request be denied. Morgan County went through an extensive process to adopt a general plan with public input, and we respect that process. Planning requires a great deal of time and effort, and we appreciate the commissioners' and staff's role in this process. Again, we ask that you please deny this request. Thank you. Sincerely, Dave and Kimberly Bell, 1482 North Morgan Valley Drive. Any other comments?

My name is Chet Brooks and I just want to come up and be a second voice for what I just heard from Dave Bell about that area. I think it's probably the very same reason, it's the same argument probably in that the people want to build there because it's beautiful and we would love it to stay like it is because it's beautiful. So I just wanted to be a second witness.

Thank you. Thank you.

I'm Adam Wells and I just want to make the statement that I believe most of the property surrounding this proposed two and a half acre piece of property are much less than two and a half acres. So if somebody would have wanted to live on five acres, they could have bought five acres and lived on five acres. It goes for everybody, all the surrounding homes. It's by decision what you want to live on. If you chose a one acre lot, then that's what you get in asking to make a two and a half acre. big a deal and that house that's currently built on the five acres could have been put behind any one of those current houses that it's next to so that's all i wanted to say is nobody can be the last one in and shut the door for everybody else we're just looking to make our lives better thank you thank you

I'm Arlen Brooks. I live at 1380 North Morgan Valley Drive, which is just in front of the property that has been discussed tonight. The last gentleman that talked, my home and the three or four others that are there are on smaller lots. I've lived there for 65 years, and when we built there, that was the code. I think I have a half acre. And I think there would have been other people here tonight, but one of my neighbors works out of town, so he's not here. Steve Mecham, who lives right next to me, can't be here because of medical reasons. And I've talked to my neighbor on the south. She's not here, but she told me that she's not in favor of it, so. I can see where this sets a precedent to throughout the county. I know there's a subdivision going in. I don't know what the address is. We call it by Maycomb Sheds up there. There's like 15 five acre lots. And so if this is changed in our area, what's the difference in whether they're gonna wanna change it. And so instead of having 15 homes, you could have anywhere from 30 to 60 homes. So I am definitely against this. Thank you.

Good evening, council, neighbors, citizens. My name is Brett Smith. I'm here on behalf of my wife and I, Rachel Smith. This is extremely hard for a couple of reasons. Number one, we love the Wells. Number two, we love the Petersons. And that's because I'm at 2261 West Chris Lane. My wife and I moved up here a year and a half ago. We came here from Draper. Draper used to be a small rural town, and honestly, that's why I got out of there. I wanted to come up and have some space and some community, and we love it. The first thing we fell in love with was the Wells kids, and I've got grandkids their same age, so this is hard. My wife and I are against this for one reason and one reason only, selfish. We're selfish because we got up here, we got our five acres. I know that I'm the recipient of a subdivide that happened to come from the Reynolds box and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, so I'm torn. But at the end of the day, if I have to voice my opinion, I'm going to, and that's what I'm doing. My family was in the meatpacking business for 80 years, Dale T. Smith & Sons Meatpacking Company. And we ended up getting basically not pushed out, but told, you can stay here, but you can't really do anything. And that was unfortunate because we wanted to stay. We had a thriving business, but we ended up moving away. actually selling and shutting down the meatpacking business because the city moved in around us. It's inevitable. It's going to happen. I understand that. But at the end of the day, if I have my opinion to be heard tonight, it would be to leave it is. But also, again, it's very difficult for us because we're here because of a subdivide and we don't want the wells to go anywhere. So take that for what it's worth. Thank you for your time.

My name is Jerry Pierce and I too am speaking against the growth and the request that's being made here tonight. I'm not against growth, I'm more about responsible growth. But as the comments here have been made about where we're going and how many different rezones we've made throughout the county and all these townships and how we're going from 20 to 10 to five and now a request down to two and a half. You know, my business is real estate, so I work in a lot of real estate deals, and people talk all the time, you know, I want that dream one acre property with a 4,000 square foot home for $250,000. Who wouldn't want that, right? But in regards to rezoning, I've got a house listed right in front of you, Randy. It's just over an acre. How would you like if I come in and want to rezone that thing down to quarter acre lots or half acre lots and get you another neighbor in your backyard? It probably wouldn't fly real well. And I think that's kind of the essence of this. People don't like that kind of change. It's too dramatic. Some of you were involved in the previous rezone and the township. Leave it. Like, we don't need more density. This county don't need it. There's people that come in, you know, our new neighbors there, they come in and bought the Randalls box. They came in for a reason, the country setting, to move away from the big cities. And there's lots of voicing on social media about that in this county. We don't want to continue to go denser and denser in this community. And I for one follow that same standard. I don't want density. there's areas we can't avoid it because it's already there but why not preserve what we have and keep it that way so thank you any more comments

Seeing none, ready for motion to move out?

So moved.

We have a motion by Member King. Second. And a second by Member Maloney. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We're out of public hearing. And I'd like to take just a minute, personal privilege, to put a plug in. We are short a commissioner from the Milton Stoddard area. So if any of you out there are interested, I'd like to encourage you to make application with the county. We're fun. We are fun. So we can have a full commission.

We're fun. We're fun. Steve's fun. That's true. Steve's fun. He lives in Alaska. Steve's fun. Good plug, Debbie. OK. Now we're ready for any discussion. I have a couple of questions for staff. Is that allowed? Sure. Sorry. In the packet, it says if the requested future land use and zoning are approved, an additional lot will need to be a flag lot.

Yes.

So in our code, flag lots, that square footage that's needed for the flag, is not allowed to be calculated to the density. So I'm just worried that that would actually work here, given that it's five acres and two and a half acre parcels. So you have to calculate that out. So I'm just concerned about how this will actually work, even if they do get the rezone.

Correct. We did calculate the frontage. We didn't calculate exactly how much of that flag would... And it would work?

Even at the 26th, even at the width it needs?

Didn't go to that great detail. So see, if we're taking out the flag portion, that can't be counted as part of the density or the acreage requirement. So it might not be possible.

It may or may not be possible.

We don't know for sure.

So it looks like it might be tight.

Any other questions?

I don't understand that comment. It's a five acre parcel now? It is. And we want to make it two, two and a half acre parcels.

Yes.

But you have to subtract something from that before you get two and a half acre parcels. Correct.

Yes.

So five divided by two is exactly two and a half. Right. If you subtract something off of that, then you don't have enough to create the other lot. Correct.

Yes.

but we're updating the map to the one acre zone. But their actual application for the zone is a two and a half acre zone, is that right?

The future land use map, their request is to update it to the rural residential, because that's the closest future land use designation that would allow them to 2.5.

But we're zoning it to something that can't be used according to the code.

So I have a question for you. So we're dealing with actually with two legislative acts that have been conjoined into one. We have the land use map and we want to move from Ranch residential as part of the large planning picture to rural residential. That's one legislative issue that was established.

The future land use map amendment, correct?

Right. And then we want to deal with this zoning request. Once that land use map has been, change has been made, then we're going to deal with a zoning request. So we're looking at two legislative acts that have been combined into one. Am I correct? Yes. Okay. Ranch residential. five came about as part of the Rindelsbach subdivide, correct?

Correct.

Rural residential is a different classification that impacts the amount or type of dwellings that can be on the lot. Correct. OK, then I'm square.

Any more questions for staff?

I guess just to be clear, if this rezone, if the map were amended, the rezone were approved, this property still can't be subdivided?

Probably not. We haven't looked at the detail for that, though. That's a good point.

Does the applicant know that? Has that discussion been had?

By knowledge, we haven't had that application reviewed with them. We've sent them the staff report, but... We haven't pointed that out to them.

So does that change what we need to do tonight, necessarily?

It'd have to change from the applicant themselves. It would be, yeah. Otherwise, we just have to act on what's in front of us.

And I think we need to act on what's in front of us tonight.

Unless they were to withdraw or something.

yes i mean it's pretty easy for me we we're just recommended so we can just make a recommendation they can maybe decide before the county commission meeting right that's exactly right yeah

So if the other, and we're just discussing, I know there's been a lot of discussion, this is by RR1, but RR1, all orders, Morgan County Drive, this is set back, and this is currently a really good buffer from A20, is my opinion. You go from A20, you know, going to five acre, go to one acre, it just, I think it's a really good zone for where it is, but sorry, that was discussion before motion. I'm sorry, Member Taylor.

Oh, yeah.

Are we ready for a motion?

I'm ready for a motion if there's no more discussion.

I move we forward a negative recommendation to the County Commission for the 2292 Chris Lane Future Land Use Map Amendment and Rezone Requests, application number 26.021, change of approximately five acres from future land use of RR5 to rural residential and rezoning from RR5 to RR2.5 based on the findings listed in the staff report dated August 12, 2026.

We need to put a finding in for why it's negative.

Right. The next piece of the finding is that it does not meet current conditions and land use map. There's public clamor that says this is not in the best interest of the greater community, and that rural area has already been downsized once and rezoned. Once to the area it is now people bought into it at that rate I think this this is the issue and the maps who stay the same Thank you.

We have a motion by member watt Second by member Wilson any discussion if this goes

to the County Commission and they voted down, what's the restriction on reapplying for something else?

Two years. Something else, there's no restriction. Oh yeah, same thing, it's two years. Yeah, two years for the same, but no restriction for another application.

this is where I would stand up in the meeting as an applicant and say, yank it.

This doesn't make sense. I mean, it's a lot of time and effort to not have it work.

Yeah. Yeah, this is where I would stand up and just yank it so I didn't get hit with that restriction.

Yeah.

I'm Adam, or Jaden Wells on there, so...

We'll go with pulling it for now and then, yeah, discuss with the planning commission a little bit more and see what we can do for the staff and see what we can do. Oh yeah, I'm done. Thank you.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

I second it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Can we motion to pull a motion?

Can we withdraw a motion? I guess is the question. I've never seen that.

I mean, we can still make a motion and a discussion on the application as is, regardless of what the applicant wants to do after this meeting, correct?

What we could do is vote no on this motion.

And that would reset it.

They could also withdraw. This isn't a decision. This is a recommendation. They could withdraw their application after this meeting.

Yeah, that's my point. We can just finish our meeting, and they can figure it out before they go to the county. Since we don't have legal. We're not legislative. Okay.

So I'm on the phone with Janet Christopherson, a deputy county attorney. And she has stated, since you have not voted on that motion that the applicant wanted to retract, she would be OK with that retraction at that time. Did I say that correctly, Janet?

The one night she isn't here.

Yeah, one night. So, Jayden, you want to stand up again and make sure that we have it on.

I'm Jayden Wells, the applicant, and we will withdraw from that. Is that? Okay.

Thank you. Thanks. No, thank you. We're done with that agenda item, Kevin. Okay, we'll move on to the next item. This is business and staff questions.

just want to let you guys know that I have taken a position with the city and so this is my last meeting but I will I know you know they pay really good thank you it's actually been a I have absolutely love this job I was not I was just planning on retiring here I had no intention to leave but if the offer was just too good to turn down But I will be, I've already trained over there, so I will be returning to train and help hire the next person. So it will be a very smooth transition for you guys. I'll be heavily involved.

Thanks, Jessie.

And on behalf of the planning and development department, I think we owe Jessie a huge amount of gratitude with the amount of effort that she's put into the department and making the necessary changes, collections, everything. It has been absolutely amazing to be able to work with her. I know the director feels the same way. We are at a saddened loss for losing her, but I know that she will only aid and build the relationship that the city has with the county and vice versa. And I think that some amazing things can come out of this from the way that she was trained and the cooperation and communication that we have. So Jesse, thank you.

Yes, thank you, Jesse. If there's no other staff questions or business, ready for motion to approve the minutes for the August 13th meeting?

So moved.

Motion by member Wilson.

Second.

Second by member Watt. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimous.