Board of Zoning Appeals - Regular Meeting

so this time he's sitting up here oh yeah lot this morning he was sitting down there he was what was the meeting ility commission here representing the you get to keep the excited we are live live it is four o'clock too it is time so failed it the municipal Planning Commission for January 9th 2025 will now come to order um uh Miss blanken hord please call the role mayor star here Mr saers here Mrs Ellsworth here Mr Hawkins Mr swallo here Mr deal here Mr West we do have a quorum we do have a quorum just as a matter of uh procedure uh i' like to go over this with uh every every time we have a meeting uh this is the the purpose of the NPC is to balance the public good with private property rights and interests also the commission carries out all of the Power powers and duties conferred upon it by the city of Mount buron zoning ordinance and other ordinances in the laws of the state of Ohio it ISS a public meeting there are rules of decorum that we follow we're committed to the democ Democratic process individual rights of expression robust debate and tolerance for different viewpoints uh the following General Rules of Civility are expected including addressing others in a respectful manner no insulting personal attacks intim minating or offensive Communications no harassment no willful destruction or damage of property and no disruptive behavior please silence your cell phones or electronic devices and refrain from private conversations during the meeting if you need to come and go throughout the meeting please do so in the least disruptive manner possible and if you are offering public comment today you must first be sworn in by reading the statement at the lecturn uh we ask that you keep your comments to four minutes unless you're actually presenting where we um may ask questions

again it's to the purpose is to oversee that the law followed and planning concurs with within which the spirit of those laws and regulations have been adopted by the city of Mount Vernon and state of Ohio so with that um commission members you had in your packets the uh uh Municipal Planning Commission meeting minutes from the special meeting on November 21st are there any additions or Corrections hearing none is there a motion to approve so moved then moved and seconded any discussion all those in favor say I I oppose nay any extenstions they are approved okay we have one item uh on the uh agenda for um this afternoon uh Mrs blanker will you uh review the uh the item and then we'll have uh have you come up and talk about it 2025 mpc01 and allei vacation petition vacate the 16 ft by 150 ft portion of platted alley north of Kirk Street between East Street and South McKenzie Street for the submitted survey and are you going to be speaking on the matter I assume you will come up and um read the uh the statement there U if you wouldn't mind pulling that microphone down a little bit closer to you that would be great I'm a teacher you probably would have been able to hear me even with that all right uh let's see uh my name is Shane filhart my address is 2011 Kirk Street I affirm that my testimony is truthful to the best of my knowledge and ability so help me gu or under penalty of perjury thank you welcome please explain uh what you'd like to do Mr F all right uh the property between um my home and two of my neighbors uh is designated as

an alley space it is 8 ft of my property line from that and 150 ft back so my two neighbors and I share it uh what we'd like because it seems the utilities don't utilize it anymore uh because we've had to replace a telephone pole in the back and they came in through a different way that was closer to the road uh they had proposed the idea to have the alley vacated so that we actually have as part of our property the yard that we're already caring for okay any questions for Mr Fart not really any questions from this group up up here we don't have anyone in the audience who would be speaking on matters public hearing so we generally ask for people who are uh opposed to this or people who are in support or people in general so see no need to [Music] um swing that hammer here so um Mrs blankenhorn did you U well before I I I close the public portion of this um are there any other questions or or concerns or comments for Mr filart so are there four houses that this would impact no three three cuz I actually have two lots okay a joined my backyard is one separate lot and then my neighbors to the East are Fred Honeycut the Jeweler MH and uh former police officer uh and they were both perfectly on board with doing that since we're already mowing it and all of that and is the is the electric the only

utility that's back there no we have other utilities there are four utility easements on this property okay yeah we have a 12in sewer M extends the whole length of this alley Street or whatever it is okay in addition there is a gas line alley uh easement there is a telephone easement and there is also a uh uh the electric easement runs the entire length of this alley right but when they've if you don't mind uh when they have had to service the electric they came in off of McKenzie to replace the entire pole yeah but the issue is there's a legal they the electric company has not done anything to extinguish their easement okay so they still own it and so that's still valid even though they chose to do something else at that point they can still choose to extend down here with the E easement I understand what you're saying MH our electric actually comes from the front for our house anytime there's utilities involved it's it's very very touchy and we're we we don't want repeat measures that have been taken in the in the past sure so there's there's a healthy bit of caution I think at this point particular point in time so any other questions then from Mr filart before we before I close the public portion of this public involvement portion okay that part will be uh uh we'll close the public uh participation portion of this and we'll go down the the uh uh the checklist of items um Mrs blackhart were there any Communications received either through phone calls or in writing regarding this there was nothing okay Mr ball engineering

concerns well we would not uh we would not be using this as a road but it is a 12in sub main so we would need continued access to it so um we would not allow any structures Gates buildings or anything to be placed on the city's easements sure so yeah the fence I have up and the shed I have is well back from that and my other neighbors don't seem inclined to build anything oh the one doesn't seem to make well Fred has a fence but if it's left to his devices it'll collapse here in a few years cuz he doesn't take care of it yeah it's just like a treeon so I mean yeah don't mow treons for individuals so it's it's an unimproved alley so it wouldn't be a lot of difference because the easements are going to cover the whole whether it's vacated or not it's going to basically be what it is now um any other engineering concerns the sewer line is what what worries me being being able to get back in there that really worries me mhm um do we know how old that line is we don't have dates on that part I mean uh you know we've already we've replaced the water lines in this area there have aged out we don't have a lot of record of SE backups that I know of it's probably the same age as the homes don't know okay uh Mr Boren legal concerns that you would have with regard to this uh request um I have concerns about the other three easements we don't know if there are uh gas lines in there keep we don't keep a record of the gas

lines we also don't know um if they've chosen to bury fiber optic or anything else there um you know even though the pole doesn't go all the way to Kirk Street anymore um it still could um I just I mean we've had concerns with vacating easements where there are vacating alleys where there are this many utility easements in the past and I think that that's that's good to show caution with this okay um any other comments for the general U good of this particular item sir yes Al so I have a concern with regard to zoning I see this often when something is vacated and there's a utility in it it uh we get requests to build a fence because people think they well they do own it and so they think they can build something on it and it's a constant battle uh trying to explain to them that there is a utility underground that they can't see but we need access to it at all times and it just it creates a lot of issues MH per Ohio Revis code section 72341 public util companies and other easement holders retain their rights to maintain operate remove infrastructure located in the vacated area unless explicitly relinquished by agreement that's even when a municipality vacates in alley existing easement typically REM effect right yeah I'm familiar with the code I looked it up okay yeah so the situation is I think as Mrs blank Andor just indicated we have not one but what four for well to my knowledge where the

line travels all we have is Water and Sewer back there the gas travels along the front and down east east Street cuz they mark it two or three times a year when they're doing something so gas lines are always marked out front and along the side street so they're not even back there the e in the alley the easement is there right mhm and I mean I have no issue you can see even by the aerial shot uh my fence is well back now my neighbor Fred yeah he's got crap right up to the edge I had to chop down two posts his dad put in the ground with concrete cuz they were actually on that line yeah you know we don't one of the issues we run into is that because we don't have a full-time zoning inspector we miss many people who decide to go out and build fences build other things and then we're left with the really unpalatable uh discussion of making people remove things because they think it's their property you know and so it's another issue that we deal with on unfortunately a regular basis city council did fund the city inspector which will take over a lot of the responsibilities of zoning enforcement officer and a uh utilities inspector so um keep that in mind as we move forward with doing a lot of these I think in the past as order already indicated we've made these uh decisions and a good neighbor attempt as opposed to a

thoughtful approach so sure um anything else before we move on here and Mrs blard this is a recommendation to the city council then correct okay that's what we be we will be voting on sending a recommendation to city council then so um could I ask a question sir sure the reason that you are asking for this to be vacated is uh basically we had just spoken amongst the neighbors that are involved here and having been there now uh going on 12 years uh we've never had that he's been utilized for any utility whatsoever uh but we have seen them come off of McKenzie cuz it's a straighter shot and shorter so logistically it worked better for the electric company uh so we had said well since we're already taking care of it why don't we petition the city and I paid for the survey which why did the price of those go up last time I had one done was back in 2013 when we bought the house and it was less than half of the 900 I paid this time but uh in so doing I mean I had them fill out the paperwork and explain to them what was was happening and all that type of stuff and uh for us it was just a matter of well it's 8 ft that we have to take care of anyway uh I have no intention of ever building anything on it or doing anything like that uh because like when I built the fence we stayed enough back

from the street and away from the property line is not to impede on I noticed that when I drove by yeah yeah yeah no I understand that you're operating under the advice of the electric company but the concern sure that I hear is the other the city and the other easements sure so I would yeah I mean I have no quals with the easement still being there that's that's no big deal I'm accustomed to that type of thing in previous properties I've had uh but as far as you you would excuse me for interrupting you would be fine with that but you're you're already mentioning that your neighbor is not as Cate of of things as you are and what happens when somebody sells that house and the next person comes in right and I understand that I I I get it okay thank you okay anything else and we will entertain a motion no one from someone other than me so moved so moved for for approval to go to city council is that what I said approval to vacate to vacate to vacate recommendation to vacate it's been recommended to vacate uh this alley and send the recommendation to city council is there a second to put it on the table to discuss second I moved and seconded for the vacation of this alley uh to send as a recommendation so any discussion call the question Lacy did you get the I didn't know who second it but he said saw

your no discussion um this is blanken horn or this is this's just r we are this the motion is to recommend to city council to vacate got it okay please call the rooll mayor star no Mr saers no Mrs Ellsworth no Mr swallow no Mr deal no unfortunately it is not uh vacated for you sorry sir but U recommendation is not recommendation is not recomend Council you will have the opportunity to make your case to city council for yeah when is the meeting uh this will have to go to council Council will then uh put it on its calendar it will have to have a public hearing yeah it'll have to have a public hearing and so that it will probably be it'll be read twice in February and then probably it'll come to a vote at the first meeting in March is likely the way it'll work because the public hearing has to be for days has to be advertised for 30 days and so it won't it may be the last meeting in February it depends on how once it gets to council and how they choose to do so okay all right well being a math teacher my view right now is I've pardon my French pissed away $900 MH and 50 to file the paperwork so I'm not one to waste nearly $1,000 MH I'm sure you guys can understand sure yep okay any other order of business [Music] um gu a question do we have a procedure for this on uh on the uh website or anything because I think this went to council and did not come to engineering until after he'd already done a bunch of

work on it so if there was a I was told I needed a survey even to submit and propose this which is kind of bass award normally we do a consultation on these things which I don't know that would have saved me $950 what I'm not sure what the question is that you're asking here do you have any instructions on the website well the website they scroll that that tells you you may be peeing into the wind if you try to do this well well no is that there are instructions but it's a it's a page attached in the packet the first time I heard about this was when Mel had it in council chambers which if you take a look I realize there's procedure baked into city code but that's not yeah and and the the and what happens is where did you get the application here at the city building you know what office it was attached in the uh in the packet I want to say it was sent to me by your secretary okay no he's pointing at the mayor yeah yes so from Todd okay okay so maybe we need to send them down to they all need to go through engineering yeah because because there was something about the the statute where or the ordinance where it h it's actually filed with Council and then Council by rule then goes and forwards it to Municipal planning we changed that last year to start with municip yeah but still they keep getting filed with councel and so we should put something on there that they should go talk to engineering first yeah CU like when we've had other ones we'll go and Lacy can coordinate with the power company check for

easements and we can coordinate with the gas company we can provide a hey this is you got a shot at this or not head of time is what we try to do but the first time I heard about this was Mel was it was on his desk in council chambers and he didn't know what to do with it yeah I think at that point he'd already done a whole bunch of work so as I said Todd just told me what the procedure is to file paperwork and what I needed and that was all that was offered up okay okay well like I said I know we're there's a lot of stuff all right well that is a recent change that it starts with Planning Commission yeah so okay well um at this point I mean we can't you may be going to city council without a recommendation from MPC at that time and the internal um system will address so okay when is their next meeting because I have another bone I want to propose to them with regard oh yeah on Monday okay 7:30 vacation or another oh no no this is about water and being overcharge when I water my lawn because they charge you sewage even though it's not going near the drain you can uh go to the water office and ask for a deduct meter yeah they don't they don't do that seem to offer that they used to do that it's still in code yeah they don't offer anything for us when I've gone there they have there's paperwork that you fill out right you can get a deduct meteor are you sure it's in the it's in the rules if the people in the water basally told me tough well we will we will have

a discussion with the people in the water billing office okay um because that is not the way it's supposed to work okay Monday night is that in the you want to reach out to Todd again you can be uh speak on matters of public concern uh during the legislative session hold on one second wait a minute did you go through the chain of command when you went to the water billing office I went to the window okay so when you were told that there's no credit available did you ask to speak to the manager of the water billing office I said is there anyone else I can talk to and at the time said no and then you just accepted that so then you're going to go well I didn't have time to stand there screwing around at a window okay but you do have time to come to city council today I did yeah okay this isn't City Council so what I'm going to tell you is that there's that's evening there's a chain of command that can address these problems internally so you want to come here and explain about how you just spend $1,000 which I can appreciate and we can handle internal processes but I'm not going to let you throw employees of the city under the bus because you didn't bring it to the administration's attention to address it in the first place okay cuz Okay I had no idea other than going to a meeting that there was a of command forth water department of course there is well you say that I'm in that chain of command okay I'm glad to know okay okay okay um I think we we we've accomplished all the business we need to take care of today so uh is there anything else and is there a motion to adjourn so moved second all those in favor say I I those nay we're adjourned thank you all thank you hey Rob yeah does he want us I don't

know is that your jacket okay all right making sure it was everybody everybody's happy today well I guess I was confused it doesn't matter either way