Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

5:15 April 24th, 2025. I'd like to call a planning commission meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance 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. Roll call has been taken for a motion to adopt and adopt the agenda. I'll make that motion. I'll second. Motion's been made and seconded. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All opposed. Motion's carried. Looking for a motion to approve February 27, 2025 planning commission minutes is read in your packet. I'll second it. Motion's been made and seconded. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion's carried. Is there any public comment? Um if it's pertaining to the reszoning of South Lane, we'll get to that in a minute. Is there any other public comment? And is there any other public comment? Okay. Public comment is closed. Okay. Continuing the discussion to consider petition to reszone addresses at 1800 through 1931 Southland Lane from R1

single family residential to R2 single and two family residential. So this was on our point of order here please. Just wait a minute. No just wait Ry's a point of order on the way this is proceeding. There was no motion made or seconded at the last meeting to table this to bring back under Robert rules of order. Therefore this issue is dead. Was there a motion made in second at the last meeting? Bring table this to bring back to this meeting. Yes or no? I talked to the city attorney and the city attorney did advise us that it can come back to plan commission for further discussion. There's going to be no action. This still should not Robert rules. There was no motion made and it was not seconded. So therefore it was not properly tabled to bring back to this meeting. Therefore there's no discussion on it. Again I am a parliamentarian. So I know what I'm talking about. All right. You're going to proceed with this illegal meetings. I'll have to take further actions. Continue. Randy, you want to come up and tell us what your plans are? No, come up to the mic to the mic so we can hear it on the mic, please. And why you want it resold? Okay. Is that okay? Right there. All right. I had this change from uh originally R2 to R1 with the

intentions of putting 1500 to,800 square foot homes in that subdivision for the simple reason. It's some beautiful land. They're uh third acre properties and uh that was my intentions. We got two houses put up already. The second one's not quite finished yet, but uh the first one we started at 1760 square ft and the second one is 650 square ft. They all have uh extra foot ceilings in the basement for uh running your plumbing and everything. They have windows throughout the basement. They've been done nice so people can finish them up. It's going to I expected this to be a really nice neighborhood. We've had uh both homes on the market now for over a year and we've had no inquiries for because of the cost. Well, the cost is what I got into it. I'm just trying to get my money out of it right now at this point. But, uh we've been dropping 20 30,000 a crack and uh to sell houses right now in our market, the realtors are telling me that you got to be in that 3 to $350,000 range. There's nobody looking for above at this point. Uh at some point I had to make decision. I was looking ahead that if for some reason I couldn't continue with the single family homes. I I' possibly put in duplexes which were we have the water and sewer lines already ran for that. We're already sized up for that. Uh the other option would be to build small homes. And by small homes, we're talking 1,200 square f feet to,300 at tops. That would get us in that 300 to $350,000 range. To me, a small house on these third acre lots is going to look

out of place. But if that's what I have to do to sell them, I guess that's what I'll end up doing. Even though I don't want to. I want that was going to be a nice looking neighborhood and still can be. Uh when we partitioned to have it changed to R2, the intentions were to just put in a duplex here and there on certain lots. And by that I mean I have three lots coming up that face the apartments that I just built. So the back side of them apartments, it' kind of be a buffer between uh the eight units and the single family which would still be across the street. Now, every every day things change. Uh we're running $250, $300 a square foot to build. And if you start doing your math, it takes, you know, you got to get a pretty good dollar to sell these properties, you know, and and people just aren't getting loans for that. Uh in the valley, they are, but uh we're still a ways from from the valley, so it's not happening here. Uh so I have two choices. I can put in some duplexes which would probably be in that uh500 to $600,000 range per building per property or we put in some 1,200 foot houses and get the value is going to be down to 300,000. So that's going to hurt the city's income for taxes besides what I'm able to recoup from it. So it's kind of it's either going to be a win for all of us or a loss for all of us. You guys uh hold the card. So, uh, I'll let you guys decide what you want to do. You know, uh, I'm not going to be hurt either way. I could, uh, sit on it for years if I have to. No sweat off of me, but uh, that isn't what I started out doing. I want to finish it, you know, but, uh, and

again, it's possible that we may not even have to put any duplexes up. You know, the market changes daily now. you know, it's just not you don't know what's going to happen the next day. So, but we do know for a fact that uh prices are going up, fuel prices are going up, lumber prices are going up. Our relationships with our neighboring countries is changing fast and not for the better. So, so that's where we're at. Any questions, I'm I'm here to answer. I just want to state your name and address, please. my name and address. Uh my name is Randy. My wife's name is Ingred Rzlo. Uh we live at E9346 Greenfield Drive in New London. For anybody that's not familiar with that road, you take Highway D past the cemetery, the first road to the left into the old Christmas tree farm. That's where we live. They built the house in 2000. So, thank you, Randy. Just some comments um and comments to everybody here. Most of you know that I'm a realtor. Duplex lots in New London are hot right now. I don't see anything wrong with what Randy wants to do there. He could also do if we change the ordinance. I believe he could do a twindo there where you put a zero lot line in there. You build it like a duplex but yet people buy each half of the duplex. That's an option. Um, the other thing, Randy, you talked about building a smaller home and it' be looking out of place on those bigger lots. What if you planned it out that eventually when people got the smaller house paid off and they needed more space to make it easy to add on to it with your direction of your roof lines and stuff like that? Would that be possible in your design if you started out with a,200 square foot home and somebody wanted to add an extra bedroom

or bathroom or something? something to think about a little bit. Yeah. I'm not into adding on to something that's new, right? You know, but I mean down the road for down the road. Yeah. To give them an option. We see it all the time where people add on to a home and sometimes it's because of the roof lines and that it gets to look kind of funky. So I mean if it was a single family home that might be an option. Yeah. Markets again these lots are, you know, roughly 100 some feet wide by 200 some feet deep, you know. So, they got a lot of depth and they got big backyards and I just don't want the home to look like a a peanut in a shell. You know, it's When I developed my subdivision on the north side of town, we made that so that you could put a duplex on any lot. They were zoned R1 and R2 out there. You could put a duplex on any lot, but you could only put a single family home on an R1 lot. you couldn't put an R1 or you couldn't put a single family home on an R2 lot. So, if we if there was some adjustments to be made here to help him out so that he would have that option that he could somebody comes along and wants an R wants a single family, they could put it out there or something. I mean, we don't have to carve this in stone that everything is R2 right away or whatever. So, the R2 we do allow single family on those. It does. So that's just opposite of what I have out in my subdivision, but that was 2008 that we did that. So I think as a planning commission, we're going to have difficulty not um allowing this because of all the other allowances we've done in the city of New London just recently with some of the zoning changes as well as there being a duplex on the lot that borders this property. And a lot of the discussion from our zoning is we're not island zoning

anything that would prevent us if we don't have anything in the area, but we do have a number of duplexes on Persian Road as well as Southland Lane. So I think it's very difficult for us as a planning commission to say that we would prohibit this with what we've done in the past. I agree. You know, and also I'd like to throw into this is if you take from Becker Road to where my property starts on Salty Lane, there's currently seven duplexes there already. And then if you go continue to go east by the pond there, there's a duplex there right in the middle of nowhere. So, there are a lot of duplexes there. But I don't I'm not going to do anything to hurt the whole subdivision. I I take a little pride in my work, you know, and I I want it to be nice, you know, but by the same token, there comes a time to the reasoning depends on how much money you don't want to be losing $50,000 every house you put, you know, and u so with that, you know, that being said, that's I I think if even if he changes only R2, doesn't mean I'm going to slap up 18 duplexes. You know, I still want to see single families go in there as much as possible if if not all of it. But if if not, I'd like to have the the playing card to where I can put in places because it takes time to go back and get things reszone, you know, if I do it three, six months down the road. This way here, if I have it approved, I have the the cards in my hand to where I can go ahead and I don't have to wait. going keep moving forward, you know. So, Randy, the what's the price point of the one home right now that you don't have sold? How many square foot is it and how many That's 1750 square feet. Uh we started out, it appraised at

515,000. Um, I think right now we're down to 259 and we were just looking at dropping another 20 off of it this year next week here. So, be down to 239. So, somebody who buys that house is going to jump into almost $75 to $100,000 in equity right off the bat. But where are these buyers? You know, we haven't heard from any. We got it listed with a realtor. It's on the MLS. You know, if if I was looking for a single family home and I was in my early 20s, I'd jump on it in a heartbeat. Where else can you get that kind of equity? 1,700 square foot for 239,000. No, for 439,000. Yeah. Okay. Call somebody. Yeah. I thought I heard 200. I heard you said 200. I was like, oh boy. I'm sorry. I'm moving. I'm like, wow. Yeah, I missed that one today. But I lost. I'll be right over. Let's leave right now. Um because you're saying like $200 a square foot or $300 a square foot on a 1500 square foot home is $450,000. You know, when you start, you're looking at almost $3,000 a month in payments for a 400, you know, and interest rates right now at six and three/4ers. They were a little bit under six back in August, but that takes away buying power in that, too. I don't I don't know anything about building materials or anything, and I'm not going to pretend to, but yeah, those are those are expensive homes. What I mean, right now in the market today, when I looked, the cheapest house in the New London school district was 209,000. The next house was 329. Yeah. The next house was $439. So, and those were older homes and yours are brand. Maybe that 439 was yours. I

didn't look that close, but there's just nothing that I consider affordable for some new people starting out. Anybody that's buying a home at those prices right now is looking at their second home. Yeah. And then why do they want to leave a 3% interest rate and go to a 6.75? Got to be a sweet deal to do that. Yeah. Right. So, I don't know. I I think you got a good plan for your land there and stuff and I don't see any issues with it. Just trying to throw some ideas out for you. So, yeah. And again, you know, I may that third home, I may drop it down to say to,400 square feet, make it so they can still finish off the basement and see how that flies. You know, I'm kind of playing with the market, see what's happening. You know, uh but at some point, I got to say, this is what I'm going with. This is what it's got to be. And that's why I wanted the duplexes as my AC in the O. If things didn't work out with the single family, I could put a couple. And we got some nice plans for for uh duplexes, too. They're not your boxy regular duplexes that they used to be. They got some pretty snazzy looking duplexes out there nowadays. And that's probably the way we would go if we did put a couple. So, anything else? Anybody got any more questions for Randy? How much would the duplexes rent for sell them for? How much would we sell them for? Well, that depends on square footage. We haven't even looked at square footage on places. If we did, they probably be in 11,200 per side square. Now, just for comparison, the Celestial Hills apartments we built, the three bedrooms uh apartments were are 1,700 square ft and the the lowers are 1,450 square ft,

you know, and so and them are pretty spacious. Now, the duplexes would probably be 11,200. That's too cheap. two bedrooms, possibly three, but uh we might do one with two and one, three garages in the middle. Different plans we have looked at that we go on the duplexes. We go too fast. Did I answer your That's good. Thank you. Anybody else? Thank you, Randy. All right. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else have any comments? Comment now. Greet your gift. Patty Derson, 1835 Mayflower Court. Um, well, the uh subdivision is not exactly in my backyard. I can see every car in the evening that goes back and forth. I can sit in my lazy boy and watch all the traffic again. Um, our whole community down in that area and some of the neighbors on Ash Street really do have some questions. I agree that there are other uh duplexes on the other end of Southland. There are seven. There are 17 regular homes on Southland. And I was wondering if you all want to do a little quick math regarding the number of cars. Most homes probably have two cars. It's hard to really figure out exactly

what the number of cars would be at a duplex because similar to his apartments, there could be three people living in it each with a car. So we are talking about 28 cars per duplex in those seven and 24 cars right now at the 17. So, it really would depend on how many duplex lots you decide to let him have. We're wondering why all of a sudden we're going to the R2. I understand it's because he can't sell the R1's. I don't know that that will help him sell the R2s. Because lumber is lumber and the cost is the cost. What we are all worried about is once you give him our twos, that whole road will be our twos. And we're pretty much single families in that area. And we kind of like it that way. I mean, we're sad that you bought the area. We miss our deer. They do and they sneak around the other way trying to get down to the pond. Uh which brings another question um I guess to Randy and to all of you. Um taking care of the water on the situation as you know it all comes flows downhill and it all goes to the little pond on Mayflower Court. We go through three sump pumps every five years. There's so much water that comes down there. I do worry when you change

all of this to hard surfaces as opposed to at least now there's something there that would absorb the grass and the runoff and those kind of things. So, I didn't know if you looked into um any of those kind of things, but um our neighborhood is hoping, sorry, Randy, um we're really hoping that you keep it a neighborhood and that it's just single family. We've, you know, tolerated all of the apartments up there. Sometimes it gets loud, but um we're really asking that you keep it at R1. um that's what he signed up for and I'm sorry but that's sometimes the cost of doing business. So just want you to consider our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. Does anyone else have any comments? My comment to that statement is keep in mind that sometimes I've had them duplexes down on Beacon Avenue to Warner Allen. I bought Stanley Kacho out at that time and I had them for long, many years. But I could I had a lot of little old grandma's living in all. They were perfect tenants. But what happens sometimes when you go with square footage homes that are small, you get people that never had a home that can buy a home. And sometimes these people aren't always what you call the type you want for your neighbors, you know, and not to pick on somebody because they don't make much money or something, but them if you if if I start putting up 1,200 square foot homes, what type of people you think that neighborhood is going to become? I'd rather go with the duplexes where I could control them than than to go with

the small single family homes. But again, that's just keep that in mind, you know. So, would you be in charge or would you ing all those Yeah. Fred Graham, 1928 Persian. Once again, I'm going to reiterate, none of us residents were ever informed about this. Coming up, we went and did all this. The letters that people did receive in a neighborhood was for the third reading. A lot of them said we're effed. They already approved it and passed it. Where is our respect that you never notified about us about this project? Secondly, he's like a prospector going after gold. He speculated. anybody in their right mind wouldn't go and build two homes hoping somebody's going to come and buy them nowadays. If young couples or anybody's going to have a new home, they're going to want it their way. And secondly, putting homes there with them big apartments in 8 months to have a house there. So this reszoning, I'm going to ask it right out. What was that property zoned at to begin with? Nobody can answer me. It's currently zoned R1. It's been R I did ask that chat. I said, "What was that property zoned before you started this?" R1. It's been zoned R1. I looked at the map from 2008. It's been zoned R1 at least since 2008. Okay. Simple question. You answered it.

So are them apartments back there? Is that considered commercial, residential? What are they? Well, there's zoned R4 for multif family. So we should have received notice for that change then, right? All the residents around that property. The notice by ordinance goes out to anyone within 100 ft. So depending on where his property is to your property, if it's less than 100 ft, you would got a notice. I don't know what the distance is between his property for the apartments and your property. Well, it's all the same property. Doesn't matter. It's joining. It's 100 foot from the boundary of the property. Yeah. My his property is your mine's yours. I didn't get no notice. You sent notice. Well, I didn't get one. Neighbor next door when she was alive didn't get one. So, nobody received notices. Huh? I don't know if you receive one or not. Well, like I said, a lot of us have discussed that we never knew about what was going on back there. So, it' be changing us again like she said, leave it as it is. Let him suffer. Like I said before, bringing us back to this meeting again was not legal. Any more comment on this matter? Jim Huffman, 1826. So, uh, he's right directly behind me, you know, and I I seen the work and

the sweat that Randy put into that. I mean, he's I got a great hand to him that he just it was a lot of time and effort on his part, you know, and I I thought originally that uh if your property line touched that property that we're talking about now, that's when you got that notice. I'm not sure about the 100 feet or 50 feet or whatever it was. I don't know. But I know what I got a notice on it came at me. I don't know where they live from there. But but uh you know I I uh I've seen duplexes all over the place. I mean and I I know people that own duplexes and they they've got wonderful renters. The renters are awesome. you know that it keeps it somewhat high-end and you're going to have wonderful renters. Yeah, you're going to double the the uh traffic. I would imagine if we had a few more cars and stuff, but but uh I know but the pictures that I see of some of their what they're proposing for for duplexes are beautiful. My god, they're awesome look lot nicer than some of the houses up in that area, you know. So, so I mean I don't have a problem either way. I mean I'm probably the closest guy uh here tonight talking right now. So, but uh I would say that I'm fine with it either way. That's that's I guess pretty much. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Any more comment? I guess this is just really a question for me. I was talking about putting trees around everything like going into the subdivision to block some of that off. Is that ever going to be done or you have to wait until the houses are in? I

mean, I was a little concerned when the city or whoever um paid for it. I don't know who that is. um black top that whole road and now we'll have to have all of this construction machinery on this road and then we'll have another road that London likes to drive on. But are you going to do something about the entrances to it so it's nicer off of Ashkosh? I mean we try to keep up our church property also so that I can know for that. I'm asking for someone. Yeah, we we got some ideas that we want to get the housing situation. I understand. But as far as the trees, we've already planted trees on the west side. Yeah. For them to be. We're going to be doing more each year. We're do we kind of concentrate on the area when we get to the the further part down by the stuff that's the article mention they set up the trees I was going just let me get to that area first it's not like I got 20 people working that's city gets their taxes, we get ours, everybody just happily ever after, you know, but I'm directionally challenged. So if I'm going that way, south towards the houses that are already there, the house that you have for sale, I call it the giraffe house, kind of beigish ones with the brown rocks. Can you do something about all the runoff from there? It's going down and it's sewer.

I don't think all of that. So, ma'am, I I'm gonna interject interject. I just want him to know that other people we're concerned about all the runoff when he was first building those apartments and totally totally understand, but we are actually what's on the agenda to be discussed is not typically that we are to discuss the the resoning. Is there any more comments? Okay, seeing none. All in favor, I need a motion to uh looking for a motion to consider this resoning. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Okay. Motion's been made and seconded to approve reszoning of Southland Lane from uh address 1800 through 1831 from single family residential to R2 single and two family residential. I'm sorry, Bernie. You said 1800. You said 1831. Well, it should be 1931. Correct. I just want to clarify. It's 1,800 through 1931 South. Perfect. Okay. Motion's been made and seconded. All in favor say I have I have a question for for the committee. Is is there any reason that you see that this shouldn't go through? Is there anything that sparks concerns that haven't been addressed? Has anybody The only thing I see is the

traffic over chated stop part of this. We're going to look at the stop signs and how that intersection interchanges because if you pull them out on Oshkosh, they're stopping again in 20 ft. And nobody's going to do that. But that's a different discussion. Perfect. At a different time relation to this. You see what I'm talking about? I think that would be a board of public works discussion. Yeah. you know, to talk about the stop signs. You come out that there there's no reason why there needs to be the stop sign on Ashkosh right there. Stop sign coming off of I don't know, Manurva. I don't know what the name of that street is. I think it's Manurva that ends there. So that does affect Manurva. Yeah. You know what I If you you come out where his subdivision is, you got two lots and another stop sign in the middle of that guy's front yard. They're not going to go that way. They're going to start going down other lanes. So, that board of public works stop. So, that was that was my question, but that was that was discussed. That's all I have. The only thing I got is for that retention pile. Mhm. Retention pond he has down for waterhed. Yep. Um if he could, you know, before it that place gets full and it gets full of little kids, do something with a retention pond because I don't want to have to go there as a member of the fire department. But you can't just designate that one. We have several retaining ponds in this community that have been there for 20 years and they're not and I don't think there's any restriction on that either. I'll just put in 20 seconds quick because I know the retention pond's been a little bit of a comment and questions, but the retention pond

was designed by an engineer, Ry's engineer. The retention pond, the engineering for that was reviewed by our city engineer. So you had two engineers, professional engineers who developed retention ponds look at that and the entire storm water management plan just is a storm water management plan which is 255 pages tons of engineering um tons of looking at the the foils and everything else in the area all looked by an engineer and I just want to comment I'll share this I'll share it on so people on YouTube can see it. There is a typical embankment design for that. So there was concern about being too steep. You can see the um some of the numbers here were adjusted after the retention pond was built. But um there is a the main retention ponds about four to five feet where the normal water surface layer is. But you can see there is a safety shelf that's designed in there for being able to if you get in there you can crawl out. So it is designed professionally by an engineer and designed with safety features in there. So just want that's something we don't really talk about too much. So that's the design in the um typical embankment cross-section of that retention line. So thank you chair. Uh so in ' 08 when I built my subdivision there was the neighbor had a pond there and out of the kindness of my heart I was going to spend the money and build a fence for the same reason keep kids out of that pond if somebody built a duplex or something like that there. And while I was going through that process, my insurance company called me and told me that if I built a fence around there, I was admitting that there was a problem and I was more liable with a fence than without it. So, I don't know things times may have changed, rules may have changed, but that was my experience with wanting to build a fence around the retention bond.

I have a question. Thank you all for your comments. You'd think it'd be the right thing to do, but I did talk to Robert too from public works about the traffic and he said it would create any undue stresses on that that aren't already there and they kind of figure that for the amount of traffic that you know could handle all that. Thank you. Isn't there a a kid district too up there with Ry's um the apartments and would it go down to that area if that was necessary that any kind of infrastructure would be needed or so the apartments are in a tid district. The single family houses are not in district. We did that on purpose, right? So that the increment from the apartments are helping finance the development of road which Randy, you know, paid for the road. So the increment from his apartments has helped paying for that. But we specifically left the um the lots single and or two family depending on if you change it. U we specifically left those out as hopefully to capture that as net new construction for our taxes. I just was I knew we had one up in that area that so yeah, his apartments are in the tid district and it's helping finance the single family which is helping financing that new construction for our taxes. So it's all been part of the the overall plan for that TID district. I'd also like to thank the public for coming and making comments as well. Okay. Is there any further comment? We have first and second on the table. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion's carried. [Music]

The action has been referred to city council. So, the next city council meeting, the council will take up the uh question again and we will talk to the city attorney just to make sure everything's on the up and up. So, okay, moving on. We have Vandy Wall and Associate for We'll continue discussing zoning ordinance rewrite. Hello, Ben. You're on camera now. So, um, do you want us to just kick it off to you or do you want us to read something off? No, if you Chad could put the table on the screen, that would be fine. Absolutely. Um, I don't have a formal presentation this evening. Hello all. Uh, nice to see you again. Uh what we aim to do is uh work through part two of the draft zoning code. One of the aspects of part two is related to the parking standards. And so some of the goals of what we were trying to accomplish uh with this particular section of the new ordinance is related to providing clear standards for all land uses. there is a little bit of ambiguity today. Uh we do want to improve clarity and make it more user friendly in terms of making uh common standards across the variety of land uses. Uh we want to explore the opportunity for potential of reducing some parking minimums. Uh this is an opportunity to avoid requiring more parking than what's needed. On the flip side of that, also explore the potential of a potential of a parking maximum. And this is a mechanism that some communities use uh to create a threshold or a cap in terms of avoiding or trying

to avoid large unused parking fields uh that sit empty for a variety or a very long time outside of those very peak uh times where there might actually be parking cars parked in that area. Uh parking ratios are essentially how many parking spaces are required on the site per the amount of building area or per dwelling unit. Uh you all are familiar with parking ratios as as this is something that you all review throughout uh site plans and for different uh proposals as they come about. And so that's how the the new ordinance is oriented the same as the old ordinance or old ordinance or existing ordinance I should say in terms of those parking ratios. Uh one change I wanted to note uh right now in the existing ordinance uh you utilize primary floor area for a variety of commercial land uses and primary floor area is the area that's physically being used by the business for that business operation. So if you think of a business having a front of house and a back of house, the primary floor area is just the front of house. Well, this presents some challenges uh partially because uh when a site plan is reviewed and approved by a plan commission, uh oftentimes the inside can change a little bit as they're working through the building code and construction. Additionally, long-term, uh, different tenants could come in and out of that space and potentially reconfigure the inside of that building, meaning that that front of house could change in size. And to avoid both of those two situations, uh, util what we've utilized in the past is a gross floor area uh, metric. And so this basically says the building footprint itself is what we're going to base it off of. you would have that information when you're reviewing the site plan and that information

wouldn't change unless they change the site plan. Uh so there is an opportunity there to hopefully remedy issues that could present itself. But I just wanted to make that note as your existing standards is based off that primary floor area. What we would recommend is the gross floor area. Additionally, there's a pretty lengthy list here and that was intentional. We wanted to list every single land use and a proposed parking ratio for it. Uh what our goal is is after the review of this uh and as we're all sort of working through it is to consolidate it like I said uh there's a variety of uh land uses that will have the exact same parking requirement uh in terms of that ratio. And so what we would aim to do is consolidate this table into hopefully about a page uh from where it is today. But we wanted for transparency purposes uh to provide it all upfront. Additionally uh within the text of the code uh we do build in flexibilities to allow for an opportunity where the planning commission cons can consider unique situations that may warrant reducing minimum parking requirements. and what we have written and we can review this as we're working through the text itself but uh reducing those parking minimums could be because of a parking study uh that you receive from an applicant uh or it could be in relationship to a joint parking facility uh where there might be a parking lot that could facilitate multiple uses uh that have different peak demand hours. And so we build in those opportunities uh with the intention of having a little bit of flexibility for the plan commission uh when you're reviewing these types of things. Now I wanted to hit the highlights. I won't go through every single individual land use listed here. Uh but starting at the top is residential. The single family and two

family residential standards for parking is uh two spaces per dwelling unit. We would propose to retain those parking standards as they are today. Uh the only change that we're proposing is related to multifamily development. And right now you use a metric that's basically says two spaces for every single dwelling unit. And when multifamily, you're familiar with this as as you look at a multif family development project, there's different types of units that are within that structure. And that has an associated differentiation between the demand associated with parking. And so what we were aiming to do is provide an opportunity to uh best fit the parking minimums to uh the unit types, meaning one stall required per studio or onebedroom and two stalls required for anything above that. And that was a way uh to account for that variability that might take place. And that's just a standard that we've developed over time and and used in a variety of communities. Downtown is the next uh item there. Uh downtown land uses today do not have parking requirements. Uh that is the only area of the city that does not have those. Uh we would propose to maintain that moving forward uh with no uh parking minimums for those land uses within the downtown zoning district. As you move further down, commercial land uses are the next set. Uh we did aim to define uh more standards for the land uses that are within uh the draft new code. What we also aim to do is uh slightly modify the approach. Um and like I said, you know, the difference between the the um uh you the floor area that we just discussed and having it be instead of the primary

floor area be the gross floor area. Uh so the common standard that we've developed worked with a lot of communities on have seen this uh work very effectively is one space per 400 square feet. And so that's what's proposed here. Uh institutional land uses are the next page. Uh this basically uh accounts for a lot of variability. So when you're thinking about institutional land uses, a school is very different uh from a church which is very different from city hall which may be very different than a library. And so how to account for this is what we've built into the code as a determination by staff. uh they could require staff can require a parking study or the plan commission can require a parking study associated with that. Uh but instead of putting a metric and trying to uh sort of box in uh these situations, we wanted to give a little variability to the unknown factors associated with some of these types of development. And then finally industrial and several of the other land uses below that. Uh what we've also proposed is making a pretty uniform common standard across the board for one space or one stall provided on site for the number of employees on the largest shift. This is to account for the largest peak demand that would be associated with the property. Again, this is a standard that we've worked with a lot and seen it worked very effectively across a variety of communities. And so that's why we're proposing it here as well. And then to wrap up, I do uh want an opportunity for you all uh to ask questions. We would also like to get any feedback from you in particular on the minimums and the maximums. So the minimum simply stated it just requires that there are some level of on-site parking provided. It does not say that

the land use or the developer couldn't exceed that minimum and provide more. it's it's trying to account for the bare minimum in terms of what uh we think is needed uh to supplement the demand associated with a particular project. Now on the flip side, a maximum would establish a cap or a ceiling in terms of the amount of parking that could be provided on the site. Some communities have used this, others have not. It's it's sort of 5050. Uh when we're talking with staff, what we wanted to do is just present it as an option. uh we think that it may not be best suited for New London at this point in time and uh what we would prioritize is the minimums versus uh pursuing a maximum. But we did want to provide you with an idea of what that could look like. How it's drafted right now is basically 50% of the minimum would be the maximum. So that would provide a range for the site. uh otherwise if we just kept minimums like we do have today then they could exceed that in any capacity there would be no ceiling on that. And so with that said um I wanted to provide an opportunity for you all to weigh in if you have any questions and then specifically if there were any concerns or feedback and opinions related to the minimums and maximums. Uh that's uh what we would like to hear from you all this evening. Thank you. All right, any questions? Any thoughts? Um, like Ben talked about, we did talk about the maximums. We really don't have that right now. I can see maximums being a little bit more important in a um heavily urbanized, you know, downtown Milwaukee where where Madison where space is like at limited. So, they want they're going to want to, you know, um regulate that a little bit more compared to London. I mean, we're in a little bit different type of scenario with that.

So, um, just want to kind of throw that out there. But any questions? Any comments? What do you guys think? I think it looks good. The parking, if you what I I took a 24,000 square foot building, divided it by 400, that's 60 parking stalls. That doesn't seem too unjustifiable. What do you guys think about the maximums? Because what you guys give us input right now is going to be related to the continued process for us. So you guys like the maximums or just one less thing to regulate. I think for the future you might as well have the maximums in there, right? We don't want somebody flowing down Main Street making enough big parking lot to stop private business from tearing down that building and making a paid parking. Yeah, Ben, there's a good question. I don't know if we've addressed like just creating a parking lot for like there's places like Milwaukee, they can just do a parking lot for paid parking. Have we addressed that scenario? Well, downtown would have no minimum parking requirements like it does today in terms of a associated with a a land use itself. Uh what I'm trying to look up as I filibuster here is uh what our land use table looks like. And we do have a designated land use called offsite uh parking. And that would be what you're describing as the only use on a singular property. And so I'm just

trying to look at if we where we had that in terms of a um permitted use. You typically we see these in institutional zoning districts associated with city uses. Uh that's that's very common. Uh what we have it right now drafted as it would be a permitted land use in downtown or along the corridors. Basically all of our mixed use or uh industrial districts have that being permitted right now. So in the example you mentioned about downtown in theory uh that could be possible. Now if we wanted to exclude that possibility that that's fine. uh we could remove that. Uh but as it's drafted right now, it would be permitted. And um there are singular sites that are just parking downtown. So that's why it's reflected as permitted right at this moment. Cool. Thank you. Thoughts, questions? And obviously what you're seeing right here isn't the final version. We're taking this and then like Ben said, he's going to kind of modify it and get it put into part two of the code. So, but this just gives us some direction of if you like this, you'll continue to go in that direction or if there's certain things that you feel that um we need to change, now's the time we're just collecting your input. I don't think we need a lot of the maximums said it's not real cost benefit of business to have 40 more spots than what they need anyway. So the market would kind of dictate that a little bit. I just I'm really thinking oh why

restrictions on more parking and what what's the thought process behind there and is that property being used as a parking lot instead of something else that could be there that's tax based you're you're talking about downtown or all over all over in general. They probably obviously don't assess as much as a business would. So I can see where you have a lot of usable space that was park a lot that's unused might not be a good benefit. Ben, do you typically see the maximums and all the other, you know, tables you went through or is that is it a hit and miss thing? Yeah, like I said, I I've had some communities who have a very strong opinion for or against it, and I would say it's it's about a 5050 in terms of if you want to regulate it or not. Uh, in relationship to why you would want to, uh, it does get to the tax base point, uh, parking lots are basically the lowest tax value you could possibly have. Uh, and it could be more developed in terms of that site. It also could be green space as a as an opportunity instead of paved surface. And then secondarily, the age-old uh you know situation of a parking lot is built to accommodate uh you know, we'll just use a big box store example. It's built to accommodate the Black Friday peak demand scenario. uh the other 364 days of the year 3/arters of the parking lot sits empty or half sits empty. A maximum tries to avoid that situation and saying uh we don't want you to essentially overbuild the parking for that one peak day demand

uh associated with the use. Now, if we want to let the free market control this a little bit more, like to Dave's point, I I wouldn't be opposed to it in either capacity, whether you are for maximums or against them. I really just wanted to essentially provide an option for you guys to consider and think about. I mean, we basically have it right there. Well, that's there's a lot of space there. parking lot that could be other things. I asked that because I felt the same way. I mean, we have a lot of parking lot deserts and that's what what they're becoming because standards before were just like said for big times and and they're just not usable for that anymore. It's more feasible to have them smaller. That's why I was just curious where you're coming from and keeping the maximums in. to Ben's point that he hit before, um, even if you had a maximum and somebody for some reason wants to go above that, like Ben said, there's flexibility in here that they can do a parking study to show us and justify why that's necessary. So even though it's a maximum, there is a way that, you know, a developer can justify why they need more stalls. Yeah. As long as we have that language in there, I'd be comfortable with some of some of the maximum Okay. Any more discussion on it? Yeah, I'm not hearing anybody saying that they really are die hard to pull it out. So, I'm guessing that now, correct me if I'm wrong, we'll leave the maximums in there for now and we'll direct Ben to keep on going with that. Um, the way he explained the use of the maximums, I would probably definitely leave them in there. Since there's flexibility to move

either way on it, I think it it makes sense just to leave it in there. Dave was asking about like a parking lot or something. What if you had an outdoor storage with a fence around it? How big of one of those would you want somewhere? Is there something in this that covers that? So, you got indoor storage, but it's like one person per employee. Well, you don't have employees at storage units. I was just looking through there. Yeah, there is. Dave, is that kind of what you were thinking about like or just a parking lot for overflow parking or what? We Yeah, just I I look at this parking lot here that right across the street here. That's 90% of the time is bare. Yeah. I mean, it's great for shamrock pasture. I mean, it's great for we we could use it, but there could be stuff there. I mean, 90% parking lot is if that strip mall was occupied, it wouldn't be so empty, but it would still be there would still be plenty of spots there even when it when it's even if it was fully occupied. But like I said, for an indoor for an outdoor storage like what they got down on 96 and and 45 down there, they've got that outdoor storage there. Would we want to limit the size of something like that that was built? Then um I'm assuming we're talking about personal storage. Is that what you're talking about? Personal storage. So that's this category here. Personal storage facility. Um and if there's no employees, there's Ben, correct me if I'm wrong, there's no minimums. Obviously, you're going to need just the way they're designed, they have access to the the garage doors. Um but Ben, you want to make any more comments on that? Yeah. Typically associated with a personal storage facility, there's paving between the buildings for access, but there is no designated parking associated with the property. And that

would be reflective of how the standards are drafted right now. You're you're talking more of like outside storage, storage of trailers, motor homes, that Yeah. A lot of you know, if you're in the city, you can't store them in your driveway or park them on the street. So, you take them out, take them somewhere. So you're making a parking lot storage, right? We want to limit the size of how big something like that. It's a good point. And what land use would that go? The scenario would be a parking lot. It's got fencing around and be just a storage area for or kind of personal storage. Storage area for boats or campers or whatever. Would that just be personal storage facility? It's not really a facility. It's just outdoor storage. You're just talking about a parking lot pretty much. Parking lot with a fence around it, you know, that's got limited access. A private private parking lot pretty much. If it's a private parking lot and there is no use on the site itself, then it would probably just be considered the land use of off- streetet parking facility and there would be no uh requirement in relationship to the parking ratio at least associated with that uh particular use. I think that's something actually to look into where it happens. Well, there there's a land use for that. What you just talked about, you know, is it this one here, Ben? This off-site parking lot. Yeah. And that would be if there was a separate parcel and the only thing on that parcel was a parking lot. And typically that it at least what I've seen the most often is that occurs when the city has a public parking lot or where there is a parking lot that's shared by multiple tenants that might be in adjacent parcels. Um and so typically

the parking demand is associated with those other uses not the physical parking lot itself. Any other comments, questions? All right, hearing none, I think we'll uh continue with our process based on what the information we got tonight and um we'll continue to work on um part two of our document here. So, Ben, any any last words you want to part with? No, I'll let you guys all get to the NFL draft if you're if you're going. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. Okay, next item on the agenda is to consider approval of a CSM for the lot split for partial 333-065- 612. that would be out on Industrial Park for North electric. I'll I'll grab this one. Uh this is for that Northland Northland Electric development proposal. So up on the north side in our Northeast business center, Northland Electric has made us an offer that we are going to be running through um it started with economic development. It's going to go in the council um eventually that this parcel right here would be a split. they want to purchase half of it. Uh you can see the the layout from our surveyors which done which did their homework and it's going to be a twoacre lot and then a 1.9885 acre lot. So nearly two acres each lot. They're going to they're offering to purchase lot one for their development. I think we brought that development uh to the plan commission already what they're proposing. U so the

commission would have to consider the approval of the lot split for the project. Any questions? Didn't they get first right or refusal to on that second lot if they're asking for it? The the offer still has to go to council. So, um that was that was in the offer that they want to do a first rate or refuse it for lot two. We're working through that process. This is just to talk about the lot at this point. zoning stand. Lot two has technically two possible entrances. You look at um more than likely come off. I guess you know they come off of just saying they're not necessarily restricted to only having one access to limit the use. placement, that kind of stuff. Depending on how we may have a drainage addiction here for storm water runoff. So, we may or may not. We have to look at all that, consider that. But, uh, the road access is seeing if there's enough room in between the intersection and a driveway going over the potential drainage ditch. We don't want to we want to make sure that the the storm water ends up in the retention pond that's currently there. So, things to look at, but it be two corner lots pretty much for the most part. Would would that second driveway or the potential off Hinsky Road, would that be up to the city or the town of Maple Creek? Because that's a town road. I would guess the city just because it's on the city side. The city, this is city side. So, obviously, we would not be able to approve a driveway on the township side. But since it's on the

city side, I'm I'm thinking that it' be a hard kind of decision. Again, looking at our code and make sure there's enough room in between driveway access the between the intersection and things. Okay. Is there any more discussion on splitting that lot? There's none. I'm looking for a motion to approve the split of parcel 333-065-6 2 or 612. I'll make that motion. I'll second. Okay. Motion's been made and seconded to split the parcel and industrial park. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion's carried. Next item on the agenda is to consider approval of CSM for lot combination of 33-01-72-5 and 33-01-72-8. This is the gentleman 534 there. the outline of that house. He is also putting a large addition on that right now more driveway. So he purchased the lot of Willow Court that to the side of his property. He's looking to join us. He doesn't want someone building there. So his plans are to fence that whole property. From a zoning standpoint, I am recommending approval of this lot

combination. Okay. Any more discussion on combining those two lots together? Seeing none, I'm looking for a motion to approve the combination of lot 33-01- 72-5 and 33-01-72-8. I will make that motion and I'll second it. Motion's been made and seconded. Ernie, what what was the reason again for him wanting to combine them two? He just doesn't want someone building next door to him. He's kind of wants to spread out. He's gonna fence all that in for him to put a fence across the lot line. It's got to be one lot. So, okay. Motion made second. Is there any more discussion? Okay. See none. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion's carried. Okay. Review upcoming agenda items. Just continue discussion of the reasoning. I don't have anything for next month yet. Okay. New next meeting date tenatively May 22nd, 2025 at 515. I think I'm going to be gone. I am on vacation for a motion to adjourn. I'll make that motion and I'll second it. Motion's been made. Seconded to the meeting. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion carries.