Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Commission meeting 430 p.m. Thursday, August 27th, 2026. First item will be approve the minutes of the July 30th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting minutes. Has everybody had a chance to review the minutes from last month's meeting? Yes. Any discussion? We'll look for a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. Any further discussion on it? Everybody signify by aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. Item three will be a public hearing today, 3.1, ordinance amending appendix A to the New Ulm City Code, the zoning ordinance of the city of New Ulm to update the uses allowed in the B3 zoning district.

Ordinance amending b3 uses staff report We'll look for with John Good evening evening planning commission members John nicely planner at the city of New Ulm This is a public hearing to consider an ordinance authorizing the issuance of a conditional use permit allowing designated land uses to occupy a building with a footprint in excess of 50,000 square feet in the b3 That's the Community Commercial Business Zoning District. This ordinance applies to certain land uses in sections 5, 6, 9, and 13 found in Appendix A of the Zoning Ordinance of the City Code. The applicant is the New Ulm Planning Commission. The status is this matter was reviewed and discussed at the February 26th, 2026, March 26th, 2026, April 30th, 2026, and the June 25th, 2026 Planning Commission meetings. At its June meeting, the Planning Commission directed the staff to draft an ordinance and then conduct a public hearing on the ordinance at the commission's next meeting. And we didn't do that in the July meeting and had to wait an extra month. The ordinance would identify new land uses that would be appropriate as permitted or conditional uses in the B3 Community Commercial Zoning District. The ordinance would also include other associated items and conditions. The chair had suggested that using 50,000 square feet as the minimum building size, that would be subject to the ordinance. Background, there is no deadline for a decision on this ordinance revision. Notice, public hearing notice was published in the August 14th, 2026 edition of the journal. To date, we have not had any public comment come to staff regarding this matter. Here's some history and explanation. The purpose of the B3 Community Commercial District is to provide for the establishment of major retail and service centers in the city, where both adequate land area and transportation access can be provided. This district will allow for the concentration of business uses that draw customers from both within and outside the community. At the present time, B3 zone property can generally be found on the north and south side of New Ulm, On the south side, this property is generally located in areas fronting South Broadway. That's Trunk Highway 15, 68, and 20th South Street. On the north side, the B3 zone property extends from North Garden Street or County State Aid Highway number 29 along 20th North Street, and then transitions to the United States, US Highway 14, Trunk Highway 68. The north side has more property in this zoning classification than the south side. In both instances, the R3 zoning district can be found on both sides of the above-named roads. If you refer to the map that's pulled up on the screen here, the B3 zoning district that we're referring to is anything in this dark red. on the map the commission had previously discussed the challenge of finding a suitable tenant for the target property the building was constructed in 1998 and then closed in 2016. the building had a total area of 90 000 square feet and parking exceeded a minimum the minimum of 450 spaces um THERE EXISTS AT THIS TIME A TOTAL OF SIX COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS IN NEW ALM THAT EXCEED THE 50,000 SQUARE FOOT SIZE. USING BUSINESS NAMES, THOSE INCLUDE THE FORMER TARGET BUILDING, THE MENARD'S, WALMART, FORMER RANDALL'S SLASH RUNNING'S BUILDING, THE FORMER MARKET PLOTS MALL, AND THEN THE FORMER RUNNING'S BUILDING ON THE SOUTH SIDE, WHICH IS NOW RIVERBEND SCHOOL DISTRICT. It was noted that there have been potential businesses that may have interest in the target property, but could not occupy the space due to the existing zoning of the property. The commission had asked staff to review the zoning ordinance and identify any uses that could be appropriate in the B3 zone. This would include uses that would be permitted with a conditional use permit. Staff reported back to the commission that there were approximately 13 uses that could be appropriate in the B3 zoning district. At the commission's last meeting, staff had conducted a more detailed review of these uses to determine if they would be appropriate in the R3 zoning district. It was hoped that staff would be able to expand the number of eligible land uses that would be permitted in the B3 district. It was agreed that the new land uses should comply with the following standards. One, be appropriate and compatible with land uses currently found in the B3 zoning district. Two, be appropriate and compatible with neighboring land uses. Three, currently have a building footprint in excess of 50,000 square feet. And then four, be able to accommodate most of the business activities indoors. Staff was further directed to prepare an ordinance making the necessary zoning changes for new land uses in the B3 zoning district. The land uses initially considered for this zoning change included the following. One, agriculture. Two, bus garage and maintenance facility. Three, industrial services general. Four, landscaping slash nursery business. Five, machinery slash truck repair and sales. Six, manufacturing minor. Seven, repair establishment. Eight, research and development slash testing laboratory. nine self-storage facility, 10 transportation services, 11 warehouse and distribution facilities, 12 wholesale, and then 13 wholesale sales. Staff reviewed this list with the commission and further decreased its size. The land uses removed from this list include the following. Agriculture, this use is intended for an area where the land is devoted to the production of plants and horticultural products. Further states that this type of area should not be used as in an area with buildings. Staff would recommend no changes to this land use. Bus garage and maintenance facility. Staff recommended removing this land use, recommends removing this land use from the zoning ordinance since it does not have a definition, chapter 13 rules and definitions, and could already be covered under the definition of transportation services. Three, machinery, truck, machinery slash truck repair and sales. Staff's opinion that this use would not be appropriate in the B3 zoning district. has felt that many type of its activities could take place outdoors would not be compatible and permitted with conditional use in the B3 district. Warehouse and distribution facility. This land use is a permitted use in the I1 and I2 zoning district. It's a conditional use in the B2 zoning district and it's not allowed, sorry, it is allowed as a conditional use in the B3 district as well. Staff does not believe, sorry, little mistake there. That's already permitted as a conditional use permit in the B3 district. Five, in the B2 and B3 zoning district, wholesale sales are allowed as a permitted use. Wholesaling, warehousing, and distribution is allowed with the CUP in the B2 and B3 zoning district. In the I-1 and I-2 zoning district, wholesaling, warehousing, and distribution are permitted uses. We would also recommend that the definition of wholesale should be removed from the definition section. Wholesale sales already covers this term and will remain in the definitions. This use is listed as a permitted use in both the B-2 and B-3 zoning districts. Staff's opinion, there are six land uses requirements That could be appropriate in the B3 zoning district that currently aren't allowed. Most would be subject to one or more conditions. The recommended land uses are as follows. One, industrial services general to allow this with a conditional use permit and it is located inside of a building. Two, nursery slash landscaping business allowed with a conditional use permit. With the conditional use permit, the city can establish conditions that would mitigate any adverse impacts, outcomes, or results generated by the use. Three, manufacturing minor, allowed with the conditional use permit and is located inside a building. Four, repair establishment, allowed with a conditional use permit and it's located inside the building. Five, research development slash testing laboratories allowed with the conditional use permit and located inside of a building. And then six, transportation services allowed with the conditional use permit. So the purpose of the zoning amendment. This amendment is being proposed by the commission and staff to increase the number of permitted and conditional land uses eligible in the B3 zoning district and to remove unnecessary land uses from the definition section. The minimum building size per lot for the specified land use would be 50,000 square feet. This time, the number of estimated buildings that would exceed the standard was six. The proposed ordinance would address a need arising from a changing condition affecting the subject properties and surrounding areas. Big box retail buildings have not had the same degree of success as they have in the past due to other competitors such as Amazon, Google, eBay, Walmart, It's more challenging to keep large stores open and prosperous in smaller market areas. New Ulm qualifies as a small market area and has found it difficult to fill an empty big box retail store target with other permitted uses. As a result, it is to increase the number of potential uses for this property and others like it with the hope that appropriate use will occupy the space. We had three attachments in your staff report. First was the proposed ordinance. And you'll see that, MOST OF THIS CHANGE OCCURS WITHIN THE USE TABLES IN THE COMMERCIAL BUSINESS DISTRICT. SO THAT'S TABLE 5, OR SORRY, TABLE 5-5 IN THE BUSINESS USE TABLE. YOU CAN SEE THE SIX LISTED USES THAT WE'RE PROPOSING TO ALLOW AS A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT WERE INSERTED INTO THAT B-3 DISTRICT. WE HAD TO AMEND TABLE 5-6, which is at the end of the business zoning district section, which has a special provision that says those uses listed in the table that we just discussed would only be allowed with a conditional use permit in buildings in excess of 50,000 square feet. We also had to amend the industrial zoning table to remove bus garage, a maintenance facility, and also wholesaling. And then IN SECTION NINE, THAT'S THE COMPREHENSIVE USE TABLE. THAT HAS ALL THE DIFFERENT ZONING DISTRICTS, AND WE HAD TO ADD THOSE SIX PROPOSED NEW CONDITIONAL USES IN THE B-3 DISTRICT AND THEN REMOVE remove wholesaling and, uh, bus garage and maintenance facility from that table. Um, you can see in section chapter 13, sorry. Um, we have to, we are going to recommend removing the definition of wholesale. So that's attachment one. Um, attachment two is an aerial photo, um, with the zoning districts over the top of it showing the different buildings or properties in the city of New Ulm in a commercial zoning district with buildings in excess of 50,000 square feet. So on the north end, we have Menards, Walmart, Runnings, and then number four here is the old Runnings slash Randalls building. Downtown, we have the Market And then we have target on the south end. And then lastly, we had attachment three. That's the staff completed findings of facts recommending that the Planning Commission would approve the amendment. So following the public hearing, the Planning Commission shall adopt findings of facts and a recommendation using each of the review criteria outlined in section 2.4b.5. Recommendations and decisions on zoning amendments shall be based on CONSIDERATION OF THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CRITERIA. A, WHETHER THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT CORRECTS AN ERROR IN THE ORIGINAL TEXT OR MAP. B, WHETHER THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT ADDRESSES A NEED ARISING FROM A CHANGING CONDITION TREND OR FACT AFFECTING THE SUBJECT PROPERTY AND SURROUNDING AREA. AND C, WHETHER THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT IS CONSISTENT WITH ACHIEVING THE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES OUTLINED IN THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. So for Planning Commission consideration, does the Planning Commission believe the proposed amendment complies with the review criteria outlined in Appendix A, that's the City Zoning Ordinance, and are there additional or fewer conditions the Planning Commission would like to see incorporated into the amendment? Staff would recommend approval of the zoning amendment described in the proposed ordinance. The ordinance amendment takes into consideration present business situations in New Ulm. This ordinance amendment will hopefully generate more interest in the use of large vacant buildings in the B3 zoning district. Lastly, we have two motions, one to recommend approval of the ordinance amendment and one to recommend denial. And that would conclude the staff report.

Thank you, John. Yeah. Well, this is a public hearing. Is there anybody in the audience that have anything that they would like to comment on as a public hearing or any of the commissioners? if you can Please state your name and address for the public record.

My name is Dave static. I live at 1605 North Washington Street, New Ulm So I'm a little new to all the stuff that you're talking about. But what I kind of heard out of it was using conditional use permits for a variety of uses in b3 one of them that I heard was warehouses and And I guess, let me back up. The idea of conditional use permits, what I've learned from it, it's a very scary tool to have. A lot of people in this community don't realize that conditional use permits, once they're issued, it's permanent and there's nothing that can be done about it. The reason I know this is because I'm still living through it. Once they get issued, it's done, and then you find out later, and like I said, most of the people don't know that's what goes on. It's permanent, and it's done. We have, I think, interim use permits? Correct. That's something I would say just in general to be looking more at. You know, if you got an idea for using a building, that's great. But give yourself a way to back up, that if it doesn't work out, you can make changes. Because what I found out is once they issued a permit, there's nothing they can do.

Right? Mr. Snowbrick, am I right?

Is that a question to me?

Yeah. It's permanent. There's nothing that can be done.

um it depends upon what um you know you're um talking about i guess um the old runnings building yeah yes they do that's there's nothing that can be done about that you mean about how it's used or well see what happened was it got started and then it was 24 7.

And 3M, out of the goodness of their heart, they've reduced their hours, but there's nothing that restricts that site from running 24-7. If 3M moves out or if somebody else comes in or 3M changes their mind, I fight this thing all over again.

I think Mr. Stoddart brings up a good point. If we were to have conditional use permits at these locations and for these uses that are maybe a little bit more intense than some other B3 uses, I think it would make total sense to have restrictions on certain things like hours of operation and that type of thing if we were to allow a conditional use permit or do a conditional use permit for one of these types of uses in one of those buildings.

John, is there a reason that staff didn't bring it to us, say, to recommend an interim permit and then for discussion?

Yeah, I think maybe we discussed interim permit briefly. The challenge with an interim use permit and a business of something that would be of this scale is they'd be investing a lot of money for only a five-year permit, not knowing that it could be renewed. it might not be renewed. So that was kind of the idea behind going with a conditional use permit rather than an interim use permit.

But my question would be then if you issue the permit and then you find out a few years later it doesn't work out, why would it matter how big the company is or how much money they got invested in it if neighboring people are suffering as a result of it?

SO THAT'S WHY WE WOULD HAVE CERTAIN CONDITIONS IN A PUBLIC HEARING ON ANY OF THESE TYPES OF USES THAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT TONIGHT. AND WE WOULD TRY TO, WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND STAFF'S RECOMMENDATIONS, CREATE A SET OF CONDITIONS THAT WOULD APPLY TO THAT SPECIFIC BUSINESS IN THAT LOCATION AND HOW IT RELATES TO THE SURROUNDING AREA. AND THEN WHAT YOU CAN DO IS IF THEY FAIL TO MEET THOSE CONDITIONS, YOU CAN HAVE THE CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT REMOVED, BUT YOU HAVE TO HAVE THOSE CONDITIONS IN PLACE.

I guess in closing, that's just what I would like to add is that you people sitting on this commission, you're like the last defense against people in the city. You know, city staff may come and make recommendations. You can have people come up here and say things at this podium that may not be true or accurate or whatever. The rest of us are depending on you to sift through and ask yourself, does this make sense? Because it might not. But like I said, once it's done, there you sit. And that's a sad feeling. You know, if you want to go get an attorney and fight it, yeah, but it's... How many people have the money for that? So, like I said, I would just urge... You got to be cautious with those things because if you think it can fail in a certain way, be patient. It just might. Thank you. Thank you.

Any further discussion?

No, other than I do agree that you should take a close look at any conditions that you would put on any type of these operations that would be allowed in any of these types of buildings. But for that matter, any conditional use permit that the Planning Commission is issuing should take that same approach.

My personal opinion, I think staff shouldn't be thinking that if a business has got so much money that they're going to invest significantly. We have to look past that, like look at the better interests of the community or the neighboring surroundings. That one was a relatively unique one. I remember being on the commission at the time with it, and we have residential right across the street, which became a 24-7 warehouse across the street. And one of the comments back then was, well, it was a grocery store 24 hours, but The grocery store was more on the front end, and then it was a warehouse on the back end, which was affecting that neighborhood there. But, you know, and I read the, you know, staff says the Market Plus Mall for a larger building, you know, one of the potential buildings here. I just, I think when we're trying to get residential in our downtown, we've got to be cautious there that, you know, we don't affect things, you know, with what that could be. you know, for one of the buildings that was identified here.

Just for clarification, that's a good point. The Market Plot Smalls in the B4 zoning district, these uses wouldn't be allowed in that zoning district. We have it just in the B3, at least in our ordinance amendment here. But I'm glad you brought that up.

You know. Was there a reason the current runnings wasn't identified at all in here? The former Kmart?

The current runnings is.

Because I thought you said the South Runnings or Riverbend maybe.

Yeah, that one is too, I believe, over here. But the current Runnings is as well.

Okay.

I think all three Runnings locations would be subject to it.

You know, out of all the businesses that you mentioned, six of them, three of them are empty. And when you look at that, I think it means that we have to make some changes to make it easier to get something in there. But we certainly don't want to make it Set it negatively impacts the neighbors. I mean, I would think that Setting a stipulations that the business operates similarly to the one that was in there from the get-go Because if you move into a place, you know target was already there and you move in then then you know what you're expecting but if we then allow somebody to move in that say is operating 24-7 or creating a significant amount of noise that I understand why neighbors would be upset and So do we need to do that with the conditional use permit at the time that they ask, or can we set a stipulation now?

Well, typically the conditions would be more or less customized to the operation that's going in. Because one might have different types of... They might have different types of things that might affect neighboring property. Maybe one that goes in... it has more truck traffic, or one that goes in, it's, I don't know, generates dust or something like that. But we would typically try to customize that. Now the Planning Commission, if you want to make specific conditions, I mean, we already sort of did that with the 50,000 square foot size being the minimum. Something we could take a look at as well, but I don't have that, I don't have a recommendation on that tonight.

John, we'd also be able, the option to just say no outside storage. Yeah. I think that was one of the conditions with the former Randall slash runnings, not with part of it for like, say additional storage of items or something.

I'd have to take a look back at that one. But when we did warehousing for this, for the target building, As a conditional use permit, no outdoor storage was one of the conditions.

That would be like trailers or anything, basically.

Usually materials.

Materials.

Yeah. But if trailers are the issue or trailers are something that the commission wouldn't want to see stored outside, you can make that a condition.

Or I think maybe even demographics, if the roadways can take it, if it's going to be a big warehouse, or how traffic patterns are. There's a lot of variables, I guess. It's just treating it accordingly.

and i think that's the idea behind the conditional use permit is you take a you take a much closer look at that individual request for that specific site and that's why we would go through that process i think this corrects a significant issue that we have and will help get businesses in there

It's a question for staff. When you think of the businesses that had potentially expressed an interest in those properties, do the changes that we're making here, do you think they address the challenges that were there with those requests or that interest? You know what I'm saying?

Yes.

It does. And I think I really appreciate the point that our community member made in that this commission needs to be very diligent then when we're looking at a COP. That's our job, you know, to be diligent in understanding what the impact to the neighborhood can be.

What was somewhat unique about this situation, though, is that the I'm going to call it the Randalls Building because that's who originally built that. They were there before the residential development was.

So you had, you know, if you built in that area, you know, you knew what was across the street. Built or purchased, yeah. Yeah.

But I think sometimes, you know, like I said, the demographics change, have changed over 50 years, and the uses, and it obviously affected, you know, he has concerns that affected his neighborhood, you know, on that aspect.

I would think there's a difference, too, between vehicles and cars driving into the front end of the parking lot versus heavy semis coming into the back, which is what I'm assuming it is, is semis. Yeah. Is the issue that it's noisy? Do we know what the, I assume that's the problem? But it's lighting.

Loading docks, you know, backup alarms, you know, and it's 24-7. And, you know, truck traffic driving, you know, around the block and they're not supposed to be on the side, on the street and stuff like that. They're not, you know, the ins and outs. I know it as a 3M employee as well.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. I can see how that's difficult.

Well, and the building that we've been discussing, the Target building in particular, has loading docks on the northwest corner that could accommodate semi-traffic and trailers.

The Target building is also not right across the street from any residential. I mean, it's insulated by storage and other to the residents.

Yeah, South Market Park is in between there and the nearest residence.

Yeah.

Yours residents would be on 19th there in Washington or State, I suppose, off to Hedy's down there by the park. I think it's 18th. Yeah, 18th.

Because the backside is 19th of the Target building.

No, there's residences on 17th and 16th.

18th is the road that goes to Schall's Brewery.

Yeah, Perkins is right across the street there at 1727.

So there's really, there's two houses that are on Washington that are closest to the Target building. And then there's some that go up

It's more of a distance away, though.

They're not real close.

I'm just saying it's more insulated than the Randalls right across the street.

Distance-wise, yeah.

You also have more mature vegetation in that area. You've got trees and you've got other stuff that Helps absorb sound. In this particular situation, there's nothing there. Although they did extend the concrete walls to, I assume they did that to reduce the impact of noise.

Yeah, I think this amendment does a good job of correcting the issues that we need it to, and I think the way to address specific issues, they're so nuanced, is to address it with CUPs going forward with each individual one.

Great.

Or, you know, potentially when they apply, recommend an interim, you know, to the developer and or try to think of all the conditions.

Yeah, yeah. It's hard to look at all the conditions and all the what-ifs that could possibly occur.

but it's kind of by a site by site.

Agree. Maybe if it was kind of not necessarily written in, but assume that we do an interim for the first five years and after that, if you do an interim for the first application and then everything works out after five years, it changes to a conditional. I don't know if that's...

I like that idea. Do you think it would impede the businesses?

I'm not sure but our zoning ordinance does give the Commission the option to anything that's listed as a conditional use permit. It can be changed to an interim use permit Yeah, we've never you can we can you could instead of issuing a conditional use permit you can issue an interim use permit We've never done that before

You're referring to the front end, not after.

Front end.

Yeah, right at the beginning.

So maybe, I mean, just as a point of practice, maybe it's better to think about issuing anything that's a conditional, optional, is to exercise the interim first after five years. Then the next time, all right, it's been five years, you've done a, you know, whatever, and you reapply in, we'll change it to a conditional kind of thing. You know what I mean?

It gives us a tool.

Yeah.

You know, but right now, do we have a time frame that we've based historically off of for an interim permit? Is it three years or is it five?

Well, everyone that the commission's issued so far, the city council has issued so far, it's been five years.

Okay.

That's the maximum term.

That's the maximum, but it could be, say, if the Planning Commission recommends three years as an interim, set it for review, come back, and then the Planning Commission could say, we recommend going to conditional use or another interim to make adjustments to see what's working for our community.

Yeah, I like that idea. I think that would be an option.

You know, we've got to give ourselves a tool and not just... Every property is going to be unique.

Agreed.

And we also have a lot of locations in town where we have an alley that splits business uses from residential uses. Think of South Broadway where we've got that kind of situation. We've got some of it on North Broadway as well.

And it's one of those types of things where you have to draw a line someplace. Or you have to, I guess, identify your conditions at that time.

I guess that's the point of the interim is you don't know what you don't know. And if you don't identify it, like was brought up with the Randalls example, if you issue the interim, you got an opportunity to come back and correct it after some years of Them using it and be like, all right, you know, these are the kind of complaints that we're getting. So we'll have to relook that at the review process, you know. So that's the point of that tool. That's kind of why I'm bringing that or advocating for it.

I would just want to, for clarification's sake, our ordinance under the tables, it says anything that's conditionally permitted could be issued as an interim use. But it wouldn't allow us, if we had interim use instead of conditional use permit in the table columns, we couldn't then, after five years, say, well, now we're going to issue this as a conditional use permit. It doesn't work that way. Just for clarification.

Why not? That sounds... Yeah, if it's original... If we decide to... restricted to an interim, why not at the review process couldn't we then issue it as a conditional?

Because the conditional use permit is like, let's say, that's the ultimate decision they could have for that property. The interim use permit is a tool like you guys are talking about where you can test the waters on that to see if it's going to work for that site. Yeah. But if in our zoning ordinance it says, well, this is only issued as a conditional use permit, And then five years, you're like, oh, well, this is great. I think we should just give them a conditional use permit. Our zoning ordinance doesn't allow for that because that would allow that for basically the lifetime of that use on that site or anybody else that is going to use that site that way.

How do, John, how do other cities handle it? Do they have, do they go from an interim to a conditional?

Yeah, our ordinance was set up based off of many other cities, and we looked at a whole bunch of other cities, and we were using their same types of tools that they had, this being one of them, where they go interim, or you have the option to, issue an interim use permit for this proposal versus a conditional use permit. But you can't go backwards. You can't just automatically say, well, this is not working nice and we're going to turn this into a conditional use permit because that's for the whole life of that use.

So you're saying it's either or. It either has to be interim or it has to be...

What I'm saying is that our ordinance says anything that's listed as conditional use permit, you can issue an interim use permit for. But anything that's listed as an interim use permit in the table... Yeah, we're not saying that.

We're saying that we're using the interim in lieu of the conditional. If they come back and it's listed in the table that they can get a conditional? Then they can. Then, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Right.

So we would have to make an amend it? No.

No. You wouldn't need to change it from an interim to a conditional. As long as the table says you can issue a conditional, you can upgrade it to a conditional. Correct.

Got it. But you can't upgrade an interim use permit if it's listed as the table?

That makes sense. That makes sense.

An example of something that I think we have as an interim use is excavation or mining. uh... historically most communities treat that as an interim use every five years they have to come back and you know you have a chance to see what have they done and where are they at how much longer do they need to Yeah, so there are certain uses that, you know, fit, you know, that category pretty well. I think as John indicated before at the start of this discussion, sometimes you have businesses that have to make financial commitments.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, the payback of that financial commitment might extend beyond five years. So then you've got, okay, how do you, how are you going to deal with it?

I think that's a discussion with that company at that time.

Right. I would agree with you. I agree.

I would imagine that every business coming forward is going to extend beyond five years of financial commitment. I think we understand that, but we also want to stress you need to be a good neighbor and This gives us that ability. You know, are you being a good neighbor?

Well, staff has identified how many buildings, but we don't want to just become a warehouse district, you know, within our community.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, because all of a sudden, you know, we go from having one big retail center to a second mill.

Absolutely.

And then everybody goes by and sees that big parking lot. Why don't you have any retail? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. We want to fix a problem. We don't want to create another one. Absolutely.

Sorry, not to confuse the matter. This is what's in the zoning ordinance. Community development at its discretion recommend to the applicant by any commission of the city council that any use designated as C, conditionally permitted, be instead considered as an interim use permit. THAT'S WHAT OUR ORDINANCE SAYS.

YEP, MAKES SENSE.

A LITTLE CONFUSED, THOUGH. SO IF WE HAVE SOMEONE WHO'S INTERESTED, A BUSINESS WHO WANTS TO COMMIT TO ONE OF THESE BUILDINGS, AND AS YOU SAID, THERE'S A FINANCIAL COMMITMENT. Would businesses be unlikely to be okay with an interim use permit? Because they're shorter term. And so if we're thinking that we can suggest or we can say, no, we want you to work with an interim and then we'll talk to you in three to five years and then maybe you'll get a conditional use permit. I don't know that that's not how this will work either, right?

Yeah, I see your point. I also think at the same time, we're allowing these new additional uses that weren't otherwise allowed in that zoning district. And we can tell them that, well, here's the conditions that are being recommended. If you can meet these conditions, we're going to look at this as a conditional use permit. But it also might weed out the bad actors who can't meet those conditions. Yeah. It's not a good location for them.

And I know there have been situations that the commission has faced where there was some discussion, well, maybe this would be appropriate for an interim permit. And the applicant would say, I can't make that work within that time period. Right. And so then the commission had to rethink, okay, what...

Under what conditions could you potentially offer a conditional use permit?

Are there conditions that would address the issue at hand?

Yeah.

I initially thought the same thing, Kate, but I think when we're looking at this as a case-by-case situation, it's going to be, we're going to be talking to them about You know, we're looking at doing an interim basis on this, and if they have any argument over it, they'll bring it up at that time. And maybe somebody that comes forward to move into one of these buildings, we don't have any concerns, and we want to do a conditional use permit right away. It'll just depend.

Yeah, the goal is to try and get someone in these buildings. That's our goal, and yeah. Absolutely.

And I would note that, you know, both interim and conditional use permits require a public hearing, and we notify everybody within 350 feet, you know, of that fact. Yeah. And they are welcome to come to the public hearing end, too.

Yeah. I think we're doing our due diligence by trying to make everybody as happy as we can and fill those buildings.

Dave, maybe just touch base. So if we do get an applicant, say, for the future and we do hold a public hearing, then they would have the public hearing and then they would go to council and then it would be adopted immediately that they have the conditional use permit or the time frame that they would have?

The conditional use permit, when issued by the city council, it's usually in the resolution, but it's basically once... We issue them a letter that it was approved by the city council and we record the resolution. It's official then.

Yeah, okay. They get a resolution that's been recorded at the county recorder's office against that property. And that is there then permanently unless... You know, you would redo your zoning ordinance or, you know, it makes some fairly major changes to it. I think then there'd be some questions. Do they then become non-conforming uses? How do you deal with that?

But it's not like a zoning amendment. A zoning amendment goes to the council twice and then has a 30-day period after publication before it's incorporated, adopted, not in a conditional use permit or interim use permit. It's after the council action.

Yeah, I knew, but I wanted to make sure the other commissioners were on the same page, that they understand the process for the time. I think we've had a lot of good discussion. Well, this is a public hearing. Obviously nobody else is coming forward, but we can close the public hearing and we can go for a motion. Well, or do we have to do the findings of facts? Well, you all have the choice.

We can either read through the findings of fact or what's typically been done is if you've had a chance to read them and you either agree or disagree with them, you can accept them or change them.

Well, commissioners, you had a chance to read the findings of facts.

Yes.

Would you like to go through the findings of facts or you're okay with it?

No.

We're opting to table that. So then, as a commission, we'll look for a motion. There's been two motions provided by staff.

I'll make a motion to recommend approval of the ordinance number 26-whatever. Making amendments to identify sections of Appendix A of the New Ulm City Code.

I'll second.

So we have a motion and a seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor, signify by aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. So next item would be number four, 4.1, City Council Decision Concerning Planning Commission Matters in August 2026.

At the August 4th meeting, they had a public hearing on the vacation of 11th North Street between North Front and the DM&E Railroad. And council approved that on a 4-0 vote. We had one member of the council that was missing. Council also conducted the first consideration of ordinance that's 2026 blank, but that had to do with the development standards in the R3 zoning district. Remember that we made a change there where we went from eight units per acre to nine units per acre. And that then also impacted our lot area requirement, which became a little bit smaller.

Yeah, it went from 5,500 square feet per unit to 4,850 per unit.

That kind of concludes what happened at the meeting on the 4th. Meeting on the 18th, they had a public hearing on the final plat of Oak Bluff's 11th edition. That's the one that's across the street from the Diocesan Center. And that was approved on a unanimous vote. And so I haven't heard anything further since then. I don't know, Elwood, have you heard anything about their plans? But we have not yet had the plat presented to us for our signatures, so they have a ways to go yet.

We also have a development agreement that we need to do. That would conclude what happened on the 18th.

Okay.

So the next would be 4.2, heritage preservation activities. So hell would sand nothing. Well, any other discussion by the commissioners?

If not, meeting adjourned.