Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

5:15. I'd like to call October 30th planning commission meeting to order. Please stand [clears throat] 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. [clears throat] Okay. Roll call has been taken. Looking for a motion to adopt the agenda. I'll make that motion.

I'll second. Okay, motion's been made by Susie, seconded by Donna. Is there any additions or corrections? Okay, all in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion's carried. Looking for a motion for the approval of September 25th, 2025 planning commission minutes read in your packet. I'll second it. Motion's been made by Jay, seconded by Susie. All in favor signify by saying I. All opposed. Motion's carried. [snorts]

Okay. Is there any public comment? Seeing none, we'll move on. Good thing for Irish Hills PL if approved. Created a resolution to council recommending approval. So, we did get the final flat from McMahon. Um, mostly anything that's changed from the flim that you saw is kind of procedural on our end. Make sure we had timelines and get stuff set up for a public hearing. So, I am recommending approval of the final plan.

And just to be clear that then we need to make a resolution that'll go to council. Council will also approve this for the fact that um for the fact that there's a roadway being dedicated to um the project. So um you guys need to approve it. Plus the council will be looking at a resolution as well. Okay. Is there any more questions on this? Okay. I'm looking for an approval for a resolution to recommend this to council. I'll make that motion. I'll second. Motion's made been made by Susie, seconded by Donna. All in favor signify by saying I.

I. All opposed. Okay. Number six is review a final draft of city of New London zoning code. Go over entire process and overview of executive seminar. Ben. All right, Ben, the ball is in your court.

Okay, thank you all. Uh, unfortunately my video is uh not working today, but um I can see you guys, so just get to hear me from the background. But uh [clears throat] the executive summary that I put together uh for you, hopefully you've seen this, is inclusive of basically summarizing the entirety of the process. And uh it includes uh the process steps that we went through, goals, and then uh the draft outline. Uh so you have all of the document there. And then I documented for you all of the different meetings that were held throughout this process and some of the outcomes of each one of those. And so I was going to walk through that uh with you in the presentation format just to uh reeval or you know sort of go over everything as a sort of rehashing of this process because it has been 18 months and uh get some feedback from you all. if you've had a chance to look through the draft, if you had any questions, comments, and that type of thing. And then we'll talk a little bit about uh next steps after that. So, in relationship to sort of how we got here, uh you guys are all aware this will be our ninth meeting in relationship to talking about the zoning code and the full rewrite process um that started back in 2024. As we move forward over the next couple of months, uh we will be targeting adoption, meaning that we will have some public review opportunities over the next month and then come back for uh plan commission public hearing and finally council adoption and we'll talk a little bit about the dates uh that we have tenatively scheduled at this point in time at the end. So going way back to the beginning, how

did we get here? Well, uh, you guys as the city have had zoning in place for a very long time. The last major rewrite, uh, we think occurred in the early to mid9s. And then a variety of amendments have taken place over time. And and what this resulted in was a code that is inconsistent, disorganized, and sometimes contradictory. Then in 2023, uh the city adopted the comprehensive plan which recommended that the zoning ordinance uh rewrite process take place and be inclusive of the goals and ideas and strategies that were outlined within that document. So that led us to the project purpose and our goals. What are we trying to accomplish with this rewrite project? Well, obviously it's to implement the comprehensive plan. It's to modernize the ordinance in a variety of different ways. but then also improve user friendliness, provide some additional flexibility, and then increase predictability across the board. So, here is where I'm going to walk through each one of those meetings just briefly uh to uh sort of rehash your memory as to what we've talked about throughout this process. We [clears throat] started back in May of 2024 with an issues identification sort of evaluation report. What this did is it included uh review of the comprehensive plan uh re our review of the existing zoning code, staff feedback, stakeholder feedback and sort of outlined what are our key issues, what are our key recommended uh potential solutions to address those issues and sort of set the framework. Uh so when you review that document uh that really sets the stage for all of the things that are within the document in terms of the zoning code uh draft that you have before you today. Then we talked a little bit about the zoning districts, the bulk dimensional

standards and the land uses. So your setbacks uh each of the land uses uh the zoning districts and we put them into these translation tables. And and I know you can't read these on the screen, but basically, if you remember, it was the red numbers or red letters and numbers were what was uh proposed to change. The black was what was in your existing code. And this provided a comparison opportunity for us to look at how we would uh propose go about changing a variety of different things. Uh these are really the core elements though that make up the zoning code itself. From there we brought it into the text format which is part one where we reviewed uh each of those different articles and really the core elements again were things related to the zoning districts, land uses and bulk tables. We discussed several key policy items if you remember uh back when we reviewed this uh how we would address the new land use approach with mixing of different land uses permitted on a site. how we would address mixeduse buildings. Uh the mixing of different uh you know residential and commercial in the same structure, accessory dwelling unit, home occupation, short-term rental and non-conforming situations and approaches were all discussed uh during that meeting and and you all provided direction that has been encompassed within the draft document. Then we talked a little bit about the zoning map development. How did we get here in terms of reviewing the process of how we created the map and discussing the key changes? Obviously, as we're talking about this new zoning map, every single property in theory is going to be technically changed from uh or reszoned, I should say. If it anything uh it's

going to be by name that every single property changes in terms of new zoning. However, we we did this detail analysis to correct errors that were out there today to uh also address the situation where there's going to be some downzoning and some upzoning like we talked about. Down zoning meaning that uh there's less availability for opportunities on a given property with this zoning change. Upzoning meaning there's more opportunities. And so we talked about the different scenarios in which this might apply and how an individual lot could be experiencing both of those two things, but what we really tried to prioritized throughout the process was upzoning and providing more opportunities as we uh could enable that through the new code. And so ultimately what we aimed to do with the zoning map was to best fit the existing development that was on the ground today, reflect that pattern and allow that to continue. So the pattern of how we got to the draft zoning map was taking the existing zoning, looking at the comprehensive plan future land use map, looking at existing conditions, putting all of that together through a parcel by parcel analysis review where we looked at each individual parcel, assigned a new draft uh zoning district to it, reviewed that in detail with uh staff, and then brought the draft back to you all in the spring [clears throat] for review and discussion as part of that element of this project. Then we transitioned into some of the part two elements uh starting with uh the parking element. And so we reviewed uh this table. I know you probably can't read this on the screen, but it was the uh sort of comparison matrix for parking in respect to the existing parking standards. Uh the proposed minimum and proposed maximum. We discussed a variety

of different things. One being uh retaining the single family and two family parking standards but reducing slightly the multifamily minimums, standardizing the commercial and industrial minimums and then uh retaining the require uh no requirement for downtown minimum parking and then exploring the opportunity to integrate a new maximum parking uh standard which would be 1.5 times the minimum. basically giving a range of opportunities for new parking uh on a given development site and then uh with the intent for the maximums to limit hopefully potentially underutilized large parking fields in the future. We talked later in the spring about exterior design and landscaping where we looked at a variety of different examples of different development that you all have existing today within the community and what type of standards we'd be looking at incorporating into the new code. Uh that would include new material and articulation standards in the metricbased form like we talked about. Uh but guidance from that discussion that you all provided was that we would only be applying these to the commercial corridor. So the corridor mixeduse zoning districts and for the downtown area. Uh so other areas throughout the community would not have these exterior design standards as drafted right now. Also with the landscaping a new approach was proposed. Uh this would be a point-based system by different areas of the site. We talked about the building foundation versus the interior parking area, paved area and street frontage. Again, the guidance of this discussion from the plan commission was applying these new standards to properties along uh the commercial corridor. And then in instances where there's buffers between different zoning districts. So if for

instance there was an industrial zoning district abuing a residential, that's where there would be a landscaping buffer requirement. And then finally, uh, in September, we talked about signage. Uh we reviewed the new approach to uh renaming each of the signs uh and creating summary tables clearly defining uh what we're looking for in terms of uh permitted versus prohibited signs and then moving the sign approval process really into the staff's court uh to expedite that process and remove any ambiguity as to whether signs need to come before the plan commission or not in the future. Uh and so we just had that discussion obviously uh a month ago and that has been incorporated into the draft as well. So a couple of different things I wanted to highlight for you if you've had a chance to look at the code uh that are not things that we specifically dedicated a working session towards. Uh so we did cover several elements of article 6 uh but there are several new elements uh that exist within this draft that haven't been specifically reviewed with you all. Uh the uh reasoning behind that in relationship to all of the things on the screen are the majority of these things are going to fall under uh staff's court to administer and they don't necessarily have a policy discussion surrounding them. We obviously want you to feel comfortable with this because at the end of the day, we're going to ask you to recommend approval. Uh so we're making you aware of it and want you to have the opportunity to review and ask questions. But generally speaking, a lot of these things are going to fall sort of out of the the purview of some of the things that the plan commission focuses on. So things like multiple buildings on a site and sort of how the the standards are surrounding that process, you know, access, visibility, driveways, that kind of thing.

exterior lighting, ongoing compliance standards, uh things that where there'd be a complaint or a violation with noise or vibration, uh fencing and swimming pools, things that we're moving into the administrative court in terms of staff approval, no longer requiring the plan commission uh to review things uh within that purview. Uh, article 10 being the administration and procedures section. This is uh a lengthy portion of the document admittedly, but what it does do is it outlines all of the steps associated with every single procedure. So, in the event that you need to reference it, whether it's yourselves or city staff or anyone, uh, you have a clear picture of what the steps are needed and how you can go about doing that. And then finally, article 11 is the definitions. So these are the terms used throughout the code and in the event that there would be an interpretation needed uh this is where staff would reference the definitions uh in use of the day-to-day uh code administration. So the changes that have occurred within the document uh since uh you all have seen it last obviously the policy direction has been incorporated into the code itself. All of the references have now been updated to be accurate. Uh the city attorney is still conducting a review of several key sections that we flagged for him. Uh we do envision that potentially some minor legal revisions may come in the future, but those have not yet been incorporated. And then finally, the zoning map uh remains unchanged from the version that you've seen uh earlier in the spring other than reflection of zoning amendments that have taken place uh and been approved uh so far this year. Uh so that's sort of full circle how we got uh to this point in time and

what you have uh before you this evening. Next steps when we're looking forward uh this is the schedule that we've put together. Uh this includes a public review period. So basically uh after today and any other uh uh revisions uh that may be requested uh we would complete another draft of the document and publicly release that hopefully with uh some of the attorneys feedback as well. And so there would be an online opportunity uh for people to review the materials and provide input. Uh all of the materials chat has been doing a great job of updating that throughout this process. Uh so every meeting and every summary is already there. Uh but obviously the document and all the maps will be there as well. We will be holding a public openhouse on November 17th in that room at from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. Uh this will provide an opportunity. We'll bring some boards and and images and provide a presentation and uh talk with different people who are interested about the zoning code. uh answer any questions, provide a brief overview, that type of thing. So, you're welcome to attend if you'd like. And then what we will be seeking is uh most likely in December, uh public hearing before the plan commission and then in January, city council adoption. Uh now, those dates are tentative right now. That's what we're targeting. Uh if anything else changes, uh we'll obviously let you know, but that's sort of our process as we have it outlined, uh remaining. So, with that said, I know it's a lot to cover. I know when you're looking at, you know, a 200 plus page document, it can be overwhelming, but hopefully as we've broken it down into these various chunks over time, you feel comfortable with the different elements that are presented within that document. Now, it's just sort of all together in the same space. So, with that, are there

any questions, comments, concerns, particular things you want to review? Um, I open up the floor to to pretty much anything uh because we want to move this forward uh towards adoption over the next couple of months. Um, and and have you all feel comfortable with that

as individuals are thinking about maybe some questions. Ben, if you could release um and I will share my screen. I just want to kind of show individuals on YouTube where they can go for the information that we talked about. So, if you go to the city's website, new lenonwi.org, on the website, if you scroll down, there is actually two spots right now in the news and announcements. Um, I originally had zoning ordinance map public input encouraged, but most recently I put in the information about the open house that Ben just um referenced. So, if you click on that, unfortunately, you got to click twice to get to the page, but um because the the news article goes into a news page. And then if you click here, this is the page where we've been documenting our progress um over the last year. So, it kind of talks about what's zoning ordinances, some information. We had some frequency frequently asked questions that Ben provided us. Like Ben stated, we've been giving a documentation of all the reviews that we've had at the planning commission meeting. I've got the minutes of all those um meetings and then the video. So if someone wants to see the discussion that take that took place on February 22nd 27th on the zoning review map, you click on the video and you can watch that video that discussion of that element. Um like Ben mentioned, we've got the different aspects of the zoning code. So for example, um here is the link right here for the proposed um draft map. Um if someone wants to see what the proposal is for the zoning designation of their property or neighboring property, this is excellent place to go for that. Um and then the uh the full draft that was in the packet is available on the website right here. Um then at the bottom here there's a little

bit more information about the open house that we are planning on November 17th in this room. Um then would you anticipate you mentioned the presentation? Do you think the presentation will occur at 5:30 or are you going to wait a little bit at 6? What's your uh thoughts about with the presentation start time?

Yeah, I think it will depend. I mean, typically what I find most often with a public openhouse is that people typically come at the time it starts and uh we don't get as many people throughout the event. Uh however, I would offer multiple presentations if that does occur in the event that you know someone comes at 6:30 for instance, but most likely I would envision that the presentation would occur around 5:40 or 5:45.

Perfect. So, I just want to let everybody um on YouTube and the public know that's that's where you can find all this information. There's a ton of information on the CU website. Sometimes it's kind of um tricky to navigate it, but I've got quick links again on the home screen and then under news and announcements, there's two ways that uh you can get to that page I just referenced. Are you going to put some of that on Facebook as far as notifications of that? Yes. um this that because that might be a little bit easier to to navigate it and to

correct that image of the open house that picture that flyer that Ben provided us. It's in Katie's hands already and I instructed her in early November to start making that post. So yes, that will also be on Facebook as well. Good. Who do you anticipate would come to that public hearing or that you don't know? Anyone? Is it like is it like um you know, realators, would it be developers or just any just anybody? I think anyone. Anyone,

you know, by far. Um, like Ben was saying, he made the comment that every zoning district's going to change, but it's not it's basically going to change the number, the letter, the title. You know, a single family home will still be in a single family residential district for the most part. Um, commercial districts will generally be a commercial district, but we have little nuances of, you know, what's available in each district depending on how we've we um structured this code. So, anybody who's interested in, [clears throat] you know, zoning, you know, definitely reach out. If it's if it's, hey, I want to know about my parcel, give us a call. We'll we'll look at the parcel on the proposed map and tell you exactly what's what it's looking at being. Again, not a lot of changes with that um with with the uses. Um but we'd be more than happy to have that conversation if someone's got a a particular um parcel they want to look at at the meeting or even beforehand. So,

so I do have a question. Um going [clears throat] back to when we were talking about setbacks, um we had talked about um changing [clears throat] setbacks, changing what can go on lots. My specific question is for example we'll pack a straight um did we change anything over there so that if we have another complete loss structure fire or anything that happens over there would the resident then be able to rebuild?

Then you want to address number one a rebuild situation um in a in a um district that had a building and had to rebuild. And then number two, address um our approach for setbacks. Specifically, I I'll take um residential housing districts and our approach that we specifically looked at um relaxing those restrictions due to the fact that we're trying to be more accommodating because of the state funding that's available. We just got this funding, but one of the aspects to unlock that for local developers, the local municipality had to look at zoning code and see areas that we could address to reduce the costs of housing. So, Ben, if you want to just address those two things quickly. Yeah, I don't know the proposed zoning for the property in question, but generally speaking within the residential zoning districts, what we've done is reduce the front and the corner sideyard setback to enable greater flexibility on a given lot. Uh so whether that addresses specifically the situation in which you're discussing, I don't know. But more than likely, and this isn't uncommon within a lot of different communities, there are zoning uh standards in place often today that do not reflect what is on the ground in older portions of older neighborhoods within the community. And so what we've intentionally tried to do is provide greater flexibility for those areas through the new zoning code. Secondarily, uh what we're proposing to do with the code is to make all existing structures, lots and site configurations fully legal and remove the non-conforming component of those uh

that exist today. The non-conforming component today basically says that you cannot improve the property greater than 50% of the value uh when it became non-conforming. Now, that's nearly impossible to figure out when it became non-conforming and what was the value at that time. So, with this process, we're removing that provision and inherently allowing for greater flexibility for people to maintain and rehabilitate their existing structures throughout the city. Now, state statutes also dictates that if a property is um undergoes an act of God, a fire, something similar to that, and the property owner can prove exactly where their property or where their structure on the site is today, they can rebuild it in that existing format. So, it's the burden of proof is on them to provide that to the city. However, with aerial photography now and Google Maps and all those things is very easy to prove exactly where that location is. Um, so I think from a variety of aspects of things, we are trying to enable exactly the situation you're describing to take place.

Thank you. I just want to make sure that we don't ever have another family lose their residence and not be able to rebuild and have the insurance company say, "Well, you have to rebuild or you don't get a settlement,"

which is what has happened. So, um, thank you [clears throat] for that. I just want to make sure that we are not ignoring that and that we have it in place that it's going to happen for anybody if it happen God forbid there's an act of God or something happens that a family doesn't suffer that again. So, I looked at the um [clears throat] the fencing ordinance and layout. Has anybody else looked at that? I mean, that's been a big thing that's come to the planning commission quite often and and questions about going into this

um zoning. Is that everything that everybody is okay with? Is this something that you're looking at sticking to? Is it do you want modifications for it so that you they don't come to planning commission as much? Guess I'm sure everybody hasn't had the opportunity to look at that specifically, but I would invite I was going to I was going to recommend invite that'd be a perfect example of things that check that out if you have questions and things like that. Even before the open house, you can reach out to Dave or I and we can reach out to Ben with those comments and um bring that up. But that's a perfect example of something that's got to just look at that and see what um see what you think. What page are you on? Page 140.

Page 140. And importantly, whether you want to look at it or not, if you rather want to just review through the zoning department as well. Well, we have this set up that it's internal review. It will no longer need to come to the plan commission. Right. But if they were dead set against that, then you know they could say, "No, we want to look at those." But to Ben's point, what you just said, the proposal is to make it a administrative internal review based on these parameters, these policies that you guys are adopting.

So then anything outside of these parameters would need to come to planning commission. If if somebody put if pardon me I'm not sure that option be available. Well, we've had a lot of fences come to us that were outside of our current standards that have either been declined or approved. And my question is if it's outside of the parameters, would it then come to planning commission or is it just an [clears throat] outright? No, I don't think the language in the letter has that

Ben, you want to comment on that? I we're under the impression right now that what is in the code that we're proposing would be it.

Correct. uh there does not exist as it's currently drafted the ability to go to the plan commission and say I want a waiver from X standard in the fence code right now and the reason for that is it's very hard to justify why one situation would need a waiver versus another and then secondarily the second that you grant a waiver you create a precedent and then the next person says, "I want to do the same thing." And so if you develop standards that you feel comfortable with and that staff can administer and we do not waver from, this is the opportunity with a brand new code to to start fresh from the president perspective. And so then my question on that is we have in fact recently we have approved fences that would not meet these fencing standards. If those fences come down, fall down, broken down, vehicle runs into them, damaged, are they now not allowed to put them back up? Well, I don't know exactly if this new zoning code would not allow for that particular situation. I mean, there are changes that have been made within this draft that aren't this isn't identical to what is in your existing code today. Uh so whether or not it is non-conforming in relationship to this new set of standards, you know, potentially it couldn't. it might be conforming is what I'm getting at. Um, but generally speaking, [clears throat] anything that changes, [clears throat] you know, anything new

after the code goes into effect is where the code comes into effect. Uh so when you have an existing fence up that's up there today it can stay as is but when you start making changes to it uh whether you know beyond sort of the maintenance and repair elements of things then that's where it needs to come into conformance

then to clarify that when when to clarify the word changes changes means additions or movements of the current location of the fence a change would not mean a car hit it, I got to replace it. That'd be a replacement of an existing allowed non-conforming use, just like the fire situation. But to add on to the fence, that would be a change that would have to comply with the new code, whatever those codes regulate. Correct?

Yes. That's generally the approach within the entirety of the code when it comes to the difference between what's going to happen in the future and you know regular maintenance and and structural repairs that kind of thing. So could you just review for me? Um say that somebody wants to put a fence up at their house. What do they have to do? go to Dave for a building permit or a permit. He looks at the plan. He says it's okay. They can do it. When they only and so then nothing comes to us.

Correct. Yeah. Okay. And if it's if it's a proposal that does not comply, then there has to be that interaction with Dave. Dave needs to say, "Oh, nope. You can't put a 20 foot high fence at this location. It can only be six feet. Okay. Location. Things like that. Okay. So, what happens if somebody just puts up a fence and they don't come to him? That'd be like any other building application or building that hap construction that happens in the community without a building permit. Okay. Do do you check on all that? I mean, when they Okay. I'm like, "Wow, it's a lot."

So, it'd be basically a civil infraction. If I got one of them, said you're illegal fence, you have to remove it. Okay. If they didn't, then we go to Got it. Okay, Chad.

So, some of the areas of the city now, we have manufacturing and business areas, stuff like that. It doesn't really fit. If we would have a manufacturing property that would close for a period of time and stand vacant, would we allow that to reopen as a manufacturing or would we try and move them to a different [snorts] place at that time to more appropriate to try and bring everything in line or same way with like Macy or something like that if that lot stood vacant for a while there wasn't even a building left on it anymore. more after a fire, would we bring that into our current zoning and kind of eliminate places like that?

So, Ben, correct me if I'm wrong. If a building [clears throat] is removed for whatever reason and it stays vacant for whatever, then the new codes would comply. They would have to work on those codes. Um, scenario B is that a manufacturing facility goes out of business. It stays vacant. The building's still there, stays vacant for three months, somebody new comes in there, I believe, if I recall, wasn't there like one year scenario where it can stay non-conforming? It's normally one year. Wasn't that what it was? One year. Yeah, normally. Yeah.

So, there is ways to bring things into Y. And then the other thing is under the performance measures, driveways like in traffic traffic circulation. So, we have areas of the city that are county roads, correct? Like W and D transport. We had the conversation about the driveway coming out onto Shauno Street or Highway D from Dollar Tree 100 feet away from the Verizon driveway.

Go out there at between three and five o'clock in the afternoon now. And it's I just noticed for whatever reason it's really getting different. I don't know what's changed, but it's getting busier out there. trying to get out of those driveways when you think you can pull out here and you got a driveway across the street and you the stop light changes and they're coming this way. So you think there's a gap there and you turn out all a sudden came somebody came out of Dollar Tree 100 feet away from you. Is there as far as I'm concerned we had this conversation that traffic should all been forced up the Henry Street to create a break there. The other problem is well nobody's ever doing 35 coming through there. I mean, they're coming through at 4550, but we have would on a county or a county controlled property like that, would we have a say in the closeness of the driveways? Another example is where Old Bies was, Dollar Tree, and then where the vegetable stand is there. There's three driveways. Bang, bang, bang. Every time you think you can get going, somebody else got the brakes on in front of you. Is there any do we have any say on a county controlled highway like that or

That's a good question. Uh number one I I don't have those memorized but we did I remember with Ben and Dave going through a lot of discussion about driveways and corners and where the locations are. Um then specifically the I think question is on a county highway but still in the city zoning code. What's your experience have been with who trumps who? Does the county still have the final say for a county road or does that city ordinance still take control of that? Well, the county is going to tell you if you can even have access or not, you know, to that specific roadway. So some counties in particular the DOT at the state level uh doesn't allow certain new access points to be created and so they trump anything in that respect in terms of not allowing it to take place. Uh whether the county exercises that or not, you know, that would be on an individual sightby-sight basis. But I would think that when your staff is working through the process of, you know, with the applicant before it comes to the plan commission, we're talking about how does it make sense for traffic to get in and out of here, uh, with the conversation with the county. I think that's where I would lean in most instances to finding a solution and then bringing it to the plan commission that everybody's happy with. Now, we have included some standards within the new code in relationship to, you know, orientation of access points and distances between driveways and things like that to try and uh facilitate better traffic circulation. Uh, but when it comes to multi-jurisdictional situations, I think it's best to just work with everybody together. And in all reality, yes, I think the county could trump this the local zoning code. But I think if you

said, "This is what our standards look like and this is what we'd like to see." And you worked with them, I found that most of them to be pretty easy to work with in that respect and at least be available for a conversation about what it could look like. And I'm assuming during a site plan review, yes, that would be our application to review that that driveway location. whether it's close to a corner or whatever, and make those determinations during the site plan review.

Any other questions? [clears throat] Been trying to find um corner lots and what is the front yard consist of? corner lot currently states that we have two front yards. What trying to find that in here and I have not been able to have success.

I do believe it's still it's still in there on a corner lot. It the front part of your house would be the part with the address on it, right? And the other one would be classified as a side lot. Even though there's a street there still think that's based in and that's in most zording ordinances I've ever seen on a corner lot you've got two front yards I can't I can't imagine we took that out like said we we've read this over and over and over

well the last time we read it for fences the what it stated was um yard uh road facing They called it road facing. So that meant that your front yard was to any any road facing was the front yard. I think Ben's got a nice picture indicating many different scenarios. So Ben, why don't you show what you got here?

Yeah, this is in the definition section. uh it's uh within 60 620.01 or.1123 I should say sorry. Um and and what it does is uh basically allows you to see a variety of situations. So this is probably the most common one down here in the corner. uh it's a corner lot, the front lot or the front yard and then what we call in the new code the street side yard. So the front yard is where your address is. The street side yard is the yard that's adjacent to the other street uh between your house uh or your structure I should say and the property line. Uh so the street sideyard is the terminology that we use within this code and then the front yard and then you have the sideyard which in this diagram is called is that's the interior street or interior side yard and then the rear yard is anything behind the structure. Uh so there's a variety of different obviously situations that exist um within a corner lot situation but uh from a lot of perspectives what we've done is try to simplify it. So for instance like the front setback is the same as the street yard setback meaning the corner uh so those two things are consistent with one another and so you'd only have to look in one place to find it.

The reason they have those two front yard, quote unquote, is so when you're looking down the street, the house on the corner, if it was a sideyard, it be six foot off the sidewalk and everything else is 25 foot off the sidewalk. You would be able to look up and down the street. They keep that corner loted like the whole street.

No, and I get that. We were just asking what they're called now because we had just gone through this as to what is your front yard. What is and what those because there are some places where you can't put certain things in your front yard, but can you put it in your street side yard? So, I think that's where you were going with that, weren't you, Mayor? Yeah. And with tied in with the fences. Yeah, because we did allow that. More than once.

Any other questions? What did and I think I might have missed that meeting in September uh when you were talking about signage and the murals and stuff like that and we always had those that we needed to approve. How did did we did that change or how does that going to affect them bringing murals to us to approve and Yep. Um Ben refreshed my memory. I think at this point we were going to hold off on defining murals in this section of the code. Okay.

Ben provided us with a um an example of another community that had its own little section um of code and I we really kind of like that. So

um eventually we would have to look at adding another section of code just to address [cough] section. [clears throat] Ben, we did not put that in here at this point in time. Correct. That is correct. Uh it's called a public art ordinance and we developed it down in Delivan which is in Walworth County and it's a model that I like and I've I've uh provided to a variety of different communities and and Chad and Dave uh liked it but uh it we thought it would be best suited to be in its own separate section of the municipal code and not the zoning code. So, right now there's references that just say X in the zoning code for the public art in relationship to where that will eventually be located. Um, in particular to distinguish murals from the sign code in the future.

So, if Okay, so say this is all approved in January and that's when we usually start getting those requests. How do we handle that? If we don't have a municipal code, do we go back to the old zoning code and they we go through that whole process again or do we just um I mean Yep. Yep. I mean, is that something that we need to address? You know, if it's going to be not covered in our new zoning code, I mean, we're going to we're going to be address somewhere. We're have to get that done sooner than later as well. Right. Right. So maybe we could draft that. Yeah. Kind of quickly to maybe have it roll out at the same time.

Yeah. Yeah. I would recommend if possible doing them simultaneously so then there's no gaps. Yeah. Is there anything else that is not going to be uh included in this new code that is normally addressed in the old one that we need to address? I guess is Ben, I don't recall us pulling out anything else other than like the example of the murals. Was there anything that you kind of remember?

No, I think what we did talk about though is that there will inherently be some conflicts between the new zoning code and the subdivision ordinance. And that's just inherently uh what happens when you do a zoning code rewrite. And there's references that are between the two. Uh, and in particular, uh, when we're talking about like in a subdivision code, there's often a reference to a minimum lot size. Well, if you change that in the zoning code, then you should change it in the subdivision code, right? Uh, so I talked to Chad a little bit about this and and it doesn't mean you need to address it tomorrow, but you will at some point need to do some work on the subdivision code to make sure it's consistent with the new zoning code. That was going to be one of the next processes.

Okay. I I just think that it because we're going to get them, you know, come in spring, you know, probably February is what I'm thinking that we'll start getting them again. Yep. And to Ben's point, I mean, the subdivision code is something we got to review. Dave has mentioned in the past the property management section there. There's more sections that we need to update. Yeah. Just because of uh how old they are and just to make them more user friendly for everyone. So, we're definitely not done after this section of the

I have one more question to for Ben and I can't remember when we approved this with them. How how much support now I mean this is done this will be done you know the zoning thing will be done how much support do we get from them if something like this comes up that we and it's not covered and do we get more support from them or is their job done with us who's Ben oh yeah Ben's job is pretty much done okay it's up now I'm sure they would subcontract with us if necessary

I didn't know if our if our contract with them extend it for say six months to a year in case that we came up with some of these little issues that were like, you know, we need to to address that. I didn't know that that was it. I'm hoping we got a good relationship with Ben that if we got a onesie twoosy question, we could, you know, ask them. Okay, sounds good. There's going to be more professional work. Obviously, that's that's something else. Good. Okay. And and one point I wanted to make too, Ben has made this point as well. Just because we've adopted this, it's new, it's fresh. we might find something we want to change. Maybe there's a standard in the fence in a year that uh that's not working for us. We go through a process to amend that section of the zoning code. Good.

And Ben made that point that that's not uncommon that we made a huge rewrite. We might find something that's not working that we want to we want to address. So good.

Ben, any last words? No, I appreciate uh the questions and the discussion this evening. I again am available to answer additional uh items as they come about and we'll see you hopefully on November 17th if you're available to join the public openhouse. Wonderful. Thank you, Ben.

Thank you. Okay. Anybody got any more questions on this? We can't talk to Ben, but otherwise we'll move on to number seven, Chad.

Okay. Review upcoming agenda items. The first one uh coming down the pipe, we have a potential um developer who is looking at um doing a residential apartment complex on the north side of town. Um it would then would stay on um it would comply with our zoning code, but it might not comply with our um comprehensive plan. So potentially we're just going to have to go through consider a comprehensive plan amendment. specifically. Um, we have a developer, maybe I shouldn't explain too much at this point. We we'll let it kind of go through, but there's a there's a potential for a developer to put some apartment complexes on the north side that will have to go through the process to review. We'll leave it at that. So, um, so that's coming down the pipe. And there was second thing, and I can't remember what number two was.

Is it currently in the city limits? Yes. Oh, they would have to annex. Yes. Um, is it that I mean, you probably can't say out by the Aldi thing or or further out. No. Yep. In in district number uh to district number seven. Okay. That this would would be there was one more thing that um upcoming for the plan commission and now it's slipped my mind. So, I'll remember it tonight at 2 o'clock. So, but there's another something that will come down in the future. I don't have anything pending to my office at this point.

Okay. Review the next meeting date. We're going to get up against Thanksgiving. I think we talked last I don't recall if we talked about this last meeting or not whether or not we're going to move.

Yeah, typically we've talked about shifting things around a little bit just because of Thanksgiving and then also we've got um Christmas which I don't think everybody wants to come on Christmas day. So um our regular meeting dates um we would talk about adjusting the November one specifically. Um I think then in his notes, where did he have his I think in December we were going to propose to you to consider the December meeting on December 18th because we would definitely need something um action [clears throat] from the plan commission to go to council. So if it works out for everybody at least in the December meeting on the 18th um November, would everybody be interested in going on the 20th in case we have to start a plan uh a comprehensive plan review amendment process? I don't know if we want to wait that long. There's going to be more discussions to see what timelines are for any type of developer and development, but uh I don't know what everybody's I mean, you're getting close to deer hunting situations right there for many people.

Everybody good with the 20th of November for our next meeting? I won't be here. I'll be traveling, but I'm not on the commission. So, okay. 20th it is. So, kind of plan on November 20th and then December 18th. Put that on your schedule for the next two years. That means deer hunting, too. Don't change it. What? No. No, that's fine. Good luck to you that you fill your tags before then. So, I got a lot of tags to fill. that there may be a chance we don't have anything on the agenda depending on the timeline for the November one. Yeah.

Yeah. December one. We're going to try to stick with the zoning code uh timeline. Yeah. Okay. Okay. [clears throat] No one else has anything. I'm looking for [cough] I'll move to adjourn. Second by Jeff, seconded by Susie. All in favor signify by saying I. I