Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call to order this meeting of the North Kansas City Planning Commission. First order of business is approval of agenda.

Move to approve. Second.

Second.

All in favor?

Yes. Aye.

Aye. Next item is approval of minutes from the regular July 2, 2026 meeting. Do I hear a motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

All in favor?

Yes. Aye. Yes.

Next item, comments from public. Hi, George.

Hi, how are you?

I'm doing good. Hearing none. On to the regular agenda items. First item, PC2026-0801, Cerner Campus PUD Amendment.

Good evening, Chair and Commission members. This item in front of you is really cleaning up one of the conditions that was approved by the Planning Commission in the last meeting. When staff went out to record as directed by the Planning Commission, we realized that the former resolution was never recorded with the county. Therefore, we cannot record this one. However, recording the plan is not a requirement for the process. So at this point, we just request you to remove that condition. We have prepared a new resolution, 2026-02, and the only change is to remove the condition number three that the planning commissioners direct the staff to record it with the county.

So the county doesn't require us to register it for you?

No, there is no code requirement to record it neither. Typically, it is a way of documented any rezonings or PUDs in the past. However, apparently what was done years and years ago, it was never corrected. It was never recorded. So now we find out we're just trying to fix this. Got it.

Yep. So aside from that technicality, Same thing we saw the last time? Correct. Nothing else changed.

The context is the same.

Questions from Commission?

Do I hear a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

All in favor? Yes. Next item, presentation on the North Kansas City Stormwater Master Plan. Hi, Anthony.

Good evening. So she asked me to come tonight to present on the Stormwater Master Plan. I kind of wanted to wrap that up in a couple other items. There's a couple water regulatory areas in North Kansas City that come up every so often, and I just kind of wanted to touch on those a little bit tonight, one of them being floodplain, which gets into the Stormwater Master Plan. But some other ones have come up kind of recently in the next item, which is the park and recreation building. There's a lot of conversation about that, how it's cited, why it's cited, where it is, and kind of the flood issues around it. So I kind of wanted to just shine some light on that, which helps, I think, what I do wrong.

Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. Sure. There we go.

Just wanted to kind of touch on what those areas are, because there are areas that, It's not areas that you can't develop in. It's just areas that if you are going to develop there, it requires more regulatory compliance, more review, sometimes from outside agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and things like that. Are you guys, are there technical issues up there?

This one's not turning on.

Oh, okay.

I got eyes on this.

Okay. Anyone? This screen's not on.

Let me check real quick.

It's just me.

It's just me.

Okay, okay.

Well, okay, so I'll just start here with, there's kind of three different areas I wanted to talk about tonight. One was the stormwater, well, regarding the stormwater master plan, the flood hazard areas. So inside North Kansas City, everyone knows that North Kansas, well, most people know, North Kansas City is completely surrounded by levees. We are in the river floodplain. We have levees all the way around the city. But that doesn't mean that there's not flood areas inside North Kansas City. So we actually do have mapped floodplain, and there's a lot of homes and businesses in North Kansas City that have to carry flood insurance and are still in that flood hazard area. So this is showing on the screen here. I hope everyone can see. The National Flood Hazard Layer from FEMA, and I'm going to turn it on here so you can kind of see the general outline of the city, 169, North Oak, I-35 here. So if I turn this on, the areas that are shown with the orange and black stripes, those are areas that are protected by levees. So they're considered Zone X inside North Kansas City, and you can kind of see the hash marks for the levee around the entire kind of peninsula that we're on. Up here, what you'll notice around the Mackin Park area is that this is blue. This is 100-year floodplain. So Mackin Park, the homes here in the avenues, I'll let that load here, that are kind of included here, and then a portion of Northgate is actually included still inside the boundary of the National Flood Hazard Area. Now Northgate, when it was built, they knew this, and they raised it up. So there are different provisions for Northgate that remove them from the requirement of flood insurance, but they are still inside the flood hazard area. So when people call me when they're buying new houses there in that area of Northgate or definitely in the avenues here, you know, I'll say, well, you know, you might have a letter of map amendment or some kind of documentation from FEMA that shows your house has been elevated or something like that. But again, it depends on your level of risk, right? You're still inside this flood hazard area. You might want to consider, you know, what that means. And it's like anything with insurance, right? It's your own level of risk of what you want to take on. Now, what that means for Mackin Park, though, is anything that's built inside Mackin Park has to consider this flood hazard layer. Most of the time, other places, when you're talking about, and I'll kind of bring up Rock Creek here, when you're talking about the flood hazard area, the flood plain, you're talking about like a river that will swell up during the rain, right? It'll get outside its banks and flood over to, you know, houses or something out beside it. we have something a little different, that we are basically like a bunch of little bowls inside a bigger bowl. And when Mackin Park fills up, it's basically like that little bowl there filling up with water. And if you think about a bathtub full of water, when you throw stuff into it, that water gets displaced and can push out for different areas. It can even overflow the boundaries of the bathtub if it gets too much.

Same thing can happen here.

And so when we're talking about the parks and rec building, one, it has to be elevated, right? And so that way it doesn't, if we ever get this size of rainstorm, it won't flood. But two, when you elevate it, you bring in all that fill dirt. And all that fill dirt is actually displacing water and hopefully not pushing it outright to someone else in the avenues or someone else in Northgate. And so the requirement is called compensatory storage. So when you develop something, inside this boundary. If you're going to elevate it, which you have to, so it's not inundated by water, you end up putting in fill or stilts. Most people don't put in stilts, but you can. That is allowed. In the case of Victoria's building, they're going to put in fill, but you have to make up for that displacement. I think the last time there was some conversation about the tension basin, if you will, and it's been labeled that because that's kind of a side thought, but you have two things happening. You have the displacement of the water from the fill being brought in. And so you have to dig a hole somewhere basically that equals that same volume so you don't push the boundaries of the floodplain out. So that was the initial thought with Victoria's building. And so as they got into this, they started looking at some of the other restrictions in the area. And so I'm going to switch over to Google Maps here. And I'm going to turn back on that same layer. It's kind of hard to see, but there it is. And so you can kind of see that same boundary. But then I'm gonna turn on a different water regulatory compliance issue, which is the critical zone of the levee. I'm gonna turn off the floodplain later just to kind of make it a little more clear. So aside from the floodplain, aside from some other things we'll talk about, you have the levees that surround the city. The levees have the property that the levee district is actually on and actually has the physical levee on it. But then outside of that, there's a zone called the critical zone. In the PID, for instance, you can see where that gets really deep. That's very, you know, under a lot of these buildings. A lot of these buildings have been built in the critical zone over time. That is an area where they consider that if you get into that, you're actually potentially causing undermining of the levy. So the Army Corps of Engineers, the levy district, reviews these documents and reviews the building of different structures in that area. But what they actually ultimately end up doing is sending that on to the Army Corps. And that's why it can actually take a very long time for that review is that The Army Corps can take 12 weeks sometimes to review something because you're going up to the federal level. So again, in these areas, it's not that you can't build anything, obviously. Things have been built there, but it requires a lot longer review process. So different materials, instead of using gravel, you have to use impervious clay. You have to use suitable material that the Army Corps designates. Your pipe material has to be made out of different things. There's buoyancy calculations. Things could actually pop out of the ground here. And the biggest problem they have with this is seepage. So in New Orleans, this was actually a problem during Katrina that water would seep under the levee and start to erode out the base of it and ultimately cause it to collapse and fail. So that's something that the levee district looks for when they're reviewing building in this area. So if you look at Mackin Park, Mackin Park has a lot going on, right? It's in the floodplain, but it is also majority covered by this critical zone. And it extends onto the wet side of the levee, which is over here. It's kind of weird to think about that that's the side that we're keeping water back from in this area. And then the dry side that goes into Mackin Park. And so anything that's built in here, like when they built the new renovation to Mackin Park, the baseball diamond, that was all considered at the same time. And Victoria's new building is sitting right here. So you can't build a detention basin, which again is different than the hole we need to dig for the compensatory storage, but kind of works as the same kind of function in that area because it can be compromising to the levee. So they ended up moving that over here outside of the critical zone. Still associated with the same floodplain that's in the same area, overlapping issues here. but outside of the critical zone for the levee. So the other thing is the stormwater master plan, and that's kind of bringing it back to that thing. So when I started with the city, the conversation was, you know, hey, North Kansas City floods quite a bit. You know, is that just kind of a par for the course thing, or is there something we can do about that? So set out to get an engineer on call. Olson is an engineer locally here in North Kansas City to create a master plan for the city that would look at flooding issues, ponding issues, different things like that, and was there anything we could do with it? So long story short, what we learned is that the 100-year flood plain is kind of a term you hear a lot. What that means is that every year there's a one in 100 chance that you can get a certain size rainstorm that'll cause flooding like what you see here in the blue. But there's smaller storms, right? So there's the 50-year storm. There's the 25-year storm. North Kansas City's pipes, because we're so flat and we are in such a precarious area with the river, we can only handle around the two- and five-year storm. So most pipes in the city will become overwhelmed in basically what can be a very small summertime storm. And that's why you see a lot of street ponding and things like that. So the question was, okay, knowing that, what can we do? Is there any projects we can come up with? Are there any improvements we can make? And the engineer, after going through kind of a lot of this study and doing a lot of calculations, and there's a hydraulic model now we give to developers, which is really handy. The long story short of it was that, and I'm sorry, too late. I'm very long-winded about this stuff. But you basically need to have the tension. You need to store that water somewhere. You're going to flood, right, is what they told us. but you can either flood in the street or you can dig a hole somewhere and store the water there and let it flood there until the storm passes and it can have time to meter itself out. Again, though, considering the critical zone, you can't do that in a lot of places in the city. You can only do that in certain places. So one of the projects they came up with was actually this one here I just randomly landed on, is actually digging these detention basins in Mackin Park deeper was one project considered in the master plan. And these, in case it wasn't clear before, these are actually already detention basins. These areas are designed to fill up with stormwater and hold that. This was actually created more so when Northgate Village was developed. And so a lot of the thought of, you know, that's why when Northgate Village was developed, you don't see a lot of detention basins over there. They built them over here to bring the water over to Mackin Park and store it. One of the concepts of a project that they came up with was called Mackin Park West Detention Basin. And that was this kind of larger detention basin proposed here. And what you can see is there's already a pipe right here that goes through the area and comes over and collects water from this part of the neighborhood. So the ultimate project was looking at upsizing this pipe that runs down 28th Avenue and creating a detention basin that would basically open that pipe up and when you got a certain size storm, water would just flood out of the pipe into that detention basin, and instead of flooding in the streets of the neighborhood, it would flood in this detention basin. So again, one of, I think, 10 different projects that the Stormwater Master Plan identified. So circling back to Victoria's building project, when we saw that the, again, not detention basin, but compensatory storage, volume metric basin, if you will, just call it that, um, was going to end up kind of over where the detention basin was. The thought was, Hey, wait a minute, recognize similar shapes here, right? That's all. We were supposed to dig a hole here for a different reason. Is there maybe a thought to combine these two things with this project? So that's the path we went down just kind of considering, you know, is this the right time to do that? Is this, um, you know, something we want to jump into and double up on projects here. And so that's kind of where we landed. And so I, there hasn't been, A lot of further thought there has been more, I think Victoria's going to present tonight. I think they're going to look at just doing the compensatory storage, um, right now instead of the full blown master plan project. But I did kind of want to just kind of come tonight to talk about the different regulatory areas that we have to contend with with development. And then also future consideration for, you know, this might be something, although it is Meckin Park limited space, um, you know, the goal of the master plan was to prevent flooding in the neighborhoods. And so it has a longterm beneficial goal. Definitely not something that has to be developed right now, but for the future, this same area that we're looking at for displacement of fill could also potentially be a storage basin for stormwater that would actually help some of the stormwater issues.

I said there was a couple other, there was three.

There's the critical zone, there's the FEMA floodplain, and then the newest one we have just recently is the stormwater protection area. I'm sorry, the source water protection area. This area we've determined our city wells for drinking water are right here. There's kind of a more irregular shape inside this blue box. That is the zone that when our wells for drinking water are turned on where the groundwater is pulled down from. And that's everything kind of in that blue zone. So the thought is that as time goes on, and we've just recently developed this plan, that we would look at developments that look at chemical factories, things like that, people that will be storing materials, gas station things, you know, that could be developed in this zone. We want to look at those with kind of a more critical lens on what they're doing and how they're protecting our source water for our drinking water. We kind of zoomed out here. These are kind of like three, just again, water regulatory compliance areas that again, not that you can't build there, just it's got to be kind of looked at with a more critical lens. So with that, I'll answer any questions, especially if there's anything more on the stormwater master plan, because that is what the item was called. But again, that was kind of the back story.

Is the size of the master plan detention pond approximately the same size as what?

It's much bigger. Much bigger. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, I think, again, we weren't prepared to do that project at this point. It just, because of where the other compensatory storage volume ended up, we were like, well, wait a minute, should we look at, you know, but again, we weren't entirely prepared for that or had not brought that to more, you know, out to be vetted more. And it is just a stormwater master plan. It's every project in the master plan, you know, you can think of it like a five to 10% concept. There's a lot more study that has to go into each project before it's actually implemented. It needs to be engineered, designed, and then, you know, kind of looked at with a closer lens. But no, so that, sorry, to answer your question, that was a much bigger volume.

And so there's potential that we could get both of these at some point in the future. We're moving ahead with the current one that we saw the last time. Potential still, although maybe it's a wish list more than like a specific plan.

Yeah, it's an identified project that can help alleviate flooding in the residential area. Again, there's only so much green space in North Kansas City, so when the engineer was looking for different places to put storage of stormwater, that area kind of, you know, you still have to stay kind of proximity to where you're trying to alleviate flooding. That was one area that was identified. So again, in the future, yeah, that is a project we would like to see, because again, it can help reduce flooding in the neighborhood.

clarify one thing about the stormwater retention last time you saw for the parks building and the next agenda item will show you the detail in a matter of fact the location for the stormwater retention from last time has been changed and the reason it is changed is that the real location now is more aligned with the stormwater master plan so you will see The changes over here, and that's why Victoria is here tonight to give you an update of what you have seen from last time that has been changed. It's really just focusing on this detention area, and she has more details of the size, the slope, and location where those are, and we'll show you here in a little bit.

So if it sounds like, I guess my question is when we, obviously I would want to do this, I don't want us to flood, but is there a version of this where, or maybe this is the version, where we're essentially laying the groundwork to be able to do the master plan version. But one, these are two separate projects, and it seems like if we were prepared to do the master plan version, then we wouldn't be spending, we're gonna spend money to do one, and then we're gonna spend money to do the other. But we're not prepared to do the bigger version, and the bigger version takes all that pipe from 28th Avenue and all that stuff. I guess my big question then is, or maybe it's just an observation, I'm assuming that what we're going to put in in Mackin Park related to the parks building is something that is able to be worked with when we do the master plan.

Yeah. It would be, yes. Yeah, this would be the same location. You know, the footprint would grow much bigger for the master plan, but this would be the same location. You would have to tie into the same storm pipe Because even though you're doing a smaller depression and bowl, if you will, you still have to drain it somehow.

Is there any way that you can kind of, can you make this version, the one that we're going to do right now as part of the parks project, like, I don't know, add something to it to make it even more in line with the master plan? I mean, I guess what I'm trying to do is, like, save us from spending, you know, money here and then money there because we weren't prepared to do it. And not, I mean, I don't mean, like, you weren't prepared. I mean, like, it was, it came up. And now it's a surprise. Maybe we could do this thing. Right. But if there's any version of this that allows us to kind of future prepare, even if it's not something that's necessary for the parks building, if a little bit extra would make it that much easier or that much less expensive later down the road.

I think the engineers have come up with that, and that's what Victoria is, I think, going to present after this. So that engineering team is working with Olson, who did the original master plan, And they're looking at tying into the existing stormwater pipe in kind of the same area they would if they did the bigger stormwater project. So I think it is laying the groundwork, yes.

Thank you, Anthony.

Thank you.

You're really good at this.

Sorry.

So good evening, thank you, and yes, he.

Oh, I'm sorry. Next item on the agenda is presentation, oh, I got mixed up too, project update on the North Kansas City Parks and Recreation Maintenance Facility.

So good evening, and yes, Anthony is way better at explaining all of this than I am. So what I wanted to show you is a lot of what he talked about. So this line right here, the dotted line, to the north is the critical zone. And right in this area where the hand is is where we were originally thinking that it would go. So aligning also with the storm master plan, now it'll be moved down here. So as he said, it'll tie in The area for the storm master plan Yeah, you can kind of see the dash right around there. So it is much bigger and it is much, much deeper. So our portion, this line right here is a sewer pipe that goes through. So it would be to the south of that. So just this area right here. And it would have about a total of like a three foot dip down to it. So over like it would go down one foot every six feet to a three foot bottom and then tie into the piping. So the overall area is about 143 feet by about 110.

So this largely looks like the same footprint, but just smaller than what's in the stormwater.

Correct.

It's about a third of the size, the footprint area. But then also, as Victoria said, it's about three foot deep, the stormwater area. the tension basement would be about seven feet deep. Okay.

So I just wanted to update you guys as far as like why we moved it, what would be happening with that?

Is there, no, I guess not. I was going to ask if this overlaps with the gazebo a little bit further to the south, but it doesn't look like it does.

No, I don't believe, no.

Yeah, so you can see at the bottom, the tennis courts, it's to the north of that.

So it's just to the north of the crumet, where the crumet little circle is. Down to, there's one bench that's kind of a little bit off of the Mackin Trail, kind of in the tree area, so about to there.

About halfway down Diamond 2.

This is really, it's just going to look like a divot, right?

It's just like all the other ones.

It's not like people can't still play soccer there. It's just a little, I mean, they'll be playing in a bowl.

Right. I don't want people to not, I mean, it'll be obviously, there'll be machines out there digging a pretty good size hole. It'll be graded out.

the edges but it's not unusable space at that point I wouldn't think so yeah it's just a little bit just have to rethink it we only have so much space we have to do what we got to do that's right the detention basin on the other side of the park how do we know how far or how deep that one is is that three feet

I'm unsure, but I mean, I would guesstimate that's probably about it. Anthony can pull that back up.

I just want to make sure we're talking about the same. Yeah, that's fair. That's what I'm thinking.

Over by the bandstand and the playground.

trickles on there these over here to the north yep that one that one right there yeah yeah on the edges again it's very gradual right so it kind of goes down you don't have as much room so you'll notice you know the edges be a little more steep but this one kind of goes down about the same yeah I think ultimately I think there's like four foot depth in the middle it kind of goes out the reason I ask is that space gets an awful lot of use when it's dry so yeah correct One thing I did notice on Google Earth, which is kind of interesting, you can see, again, a lot of this was put in back in 2002 with Northgate Village's development. You can kind of see on the ground where the storm pipe is. I don't know why the grass doesn't grow, but you can kind of see it actually kind of weave through the detention basins, catching each one here, and then ultimately going out through This, which ultimately leads out to the Rock Creek pumping station into the river. So this is actually, so going back to the proposed one in the future, the west side, this is the pipe it'll tie into, which is a very large underground pipe that drains this general area.

Would there be any reason to go any deeper at any of these already created spots? Is that something? Okay.

There is. And if I go back to the stormwater master plan here, again, that was something they contemplated as an additional project. That's why this is shown in here. Because again, they already are detention basins, but they've thought about, yeah, if you can make these a little bit deeper, actually open up the pipes instead of letting it be on the surface and fall into the pipe, actually open up the pipes and let it getting that actual depth of the pipe itself that you can dig out everywhere in there so again that that one though is um although that was identified as a project that one is inside the critical zone and so that one we'd have to work with the levee district on what kind of material that would be a much bigger again these are all very conceptual you know ideas of how to control flooding in north kansas city right now

Any questions from commission? Other comments?

I guess just how long will it be under construction and what season?

Well, okay, so it has to be approved by the Levy and the Army Corps of Engineers.

So probably, Anthony was thinking it would probably be early spring before we got...

I said late spring.

Well, I'm pushing for early spring. So...

The big question mark is because it is inside the critical zone still, the building itself. And so the building's foundation and everything with the design of the building has to be to Army Corps standards. So that will ultimately be sent to the levy district and then from them on to the Army Corps to be reviewed. At the federal level, sometimes it can take like 12 weeks. So we always, you know, we don't want to set the expectation it can move fast when it's out of our hands at the federal level. So, I mean, we're thinking, I think they're still wrapping up the design once that's done to be submitted. You don't want to start building in the winter. So it probably is a more springtime project.

Good question. Thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is a discussion of the development review process.

Anthony and Vic, feel free to leave. Thank you.

Good to see you.

I don't want to bore you. Good evening, all commissioners. In front of you is a quick and brief presentation, generally just provide you a guidance on what type of plans you typically would see in the near future or in the past, and then what are the criteria that we are going to use to review these plans. So I often find myself going back to these criteria from time to time as well. I thought it would be a good idea to share these with all the planning commissioners since we do have a few new faces over here. So if you have a question, feel free to stop me and raise your hand and I'm happy to just answer the questions as we go. So for the development review process in front of us, it really is governed under the chapter 17.08. And we all know title 17 is essentially what we call the zoning code. So all we're talking about today is embedded in the zoning code. And under this particular chapter, sorry, I don't know where this one is coming from. I got the wrong title over here. It is not about roof signs and cityscape. I apologize for that. It is about development review process. But all the contents over here is correct. So under the chapter 17.8, essentially it talks about who are the review bodies. It lays out a planning commission and what is your duty. It lays out city council and then the board of zoning adjustment. These are the ones that are usually involved in the development review process. And of course staff, that's another whole chunk of the review body. And then under Table 0.1 is the specified procedures for each type of application. And then after we talk about the introduction, we'll get to the review criteria for the five major application types that you typically would see. Then at the end, we'll wrap it up with questions. So the first part to introduce you to this particular zoning code, understanding what are the review bodies, what their jobs are, I have to start with staff. Often you'll hear their administrative approval or this is an administrative decision. That means this is a type of application. It is approved or denied at staff level. In that case, the Planning Commission would not see the application, nor the City Council. So these are administratively reviewed and approved. The good part for that is they're streamlined, they're usually faster, and the proposals are typically simpler. The next level, you'll get to the Planning Commission approval ones. And these are the ones staff make recommendation to Planning Commissioners. And then you planning commissioners, you will come with typically a simple majority to vote on whether we approve or deny a particular presentation. And then this particular proposal usually needs to be considered whether it is under the long range or comprehensive planning aligns with the city's goals. And essentially, you also have the particular authority to handle the approvals or appeals. Say if there is a type of application that is administrative decision and administratively staff denied this particular proposal and the applicant usually has the authority has the right to appeal it and you will be the particular commission hearing the appeals regarding to normally zoning related questions and proposals. And then the next level is city council. There are also applications that is recommended by staff to planning commission. And then planning commission review those and recommend to city council. And in this case, the city council is the final decision maker. And we'll talk about what type of applications goes to that particular level. And then aside from staff planning commission in a city council, there is another entity and we actually have one of the board members here tonight.

Yes. That means we have a successful zoning code. We'll get there and of why.

So the other board is called the board of zoning of adjustment. This is a very special board. It is a quasi judicial board. So basically meaning anything that they approve or deny will set a case. And any appeal of that will not be heard by the city. They will typically go to the circuit court. So for the Board of Zoning Adjustment, we'll talk about what their goals are. It's not the focus for our commissioners tonight because this is a different board. Their general focus is on variances or special exceptions that needs zoning adjustments. So get to the table 0.8-1. That's the particular laid out procedures for most of the application types that you would see. It starts with site plan. So site plan has two different tiers. There is an administrative site plan approval, which means the staff review it and make the final decision on it. There is also a type of site plan that is approved by planning commissioners. and you all probably have seen here, there, and one of the ones, the most recent ones that you saw was from the proposal from our Department of Parks and Recreation for their maintenance building. And then particularly in the zoning code it talks about under what circumstances the site plan needs to be approved by the Planning Commission. And then the next level you see is conditional use permit. And this is often, referred as special use permit in some of the municipalities. What this is, is it's essentially an entitlement process, meaning the use is generally permitted. However, you have to go through a public hearing process. So for conditional use permit, usually you review it on the case-by-case scenarios, because every conditional use permit is unique. It has its own operating character and has its own impact to the adjacent properties. So in that case, staff will be recommending the conditional use permit to Planning Commission, and then Planning Commission will make a recommendation to City Council. So the City Council is the final decision maker in this type of particular applications. And of course, for conditional use permit, there is also a public hearing process that the staff needs to post the particular notice on the newspaper, advertise it ahead of time, and plugging the signage on the property about the public hearing, and open up the hearing by the Planning Commission, and then close the hearing. And so you all have a chance to hear all the public testimony. So conditional use permit essentially will typically be approved as an ordinance by the city council. I believe one of those that you all probably can still recall was the last one we handled was the Martin Marietta's stone yard that was subject to a conditional use permit. And there was a five year timeline that the planning commission recommended to give them. Every five years they renew it and this is a particular way to make sure they're operating and maintenance is on track so the impact is limited and we can mitigate the odor, the noise, the vibration to the adjacent property. Then move on to the next one is variance. As I mentioned earlier, this is a special type of application heard by the Board of Zoning of Adjustment. they're typically handling deviations from lot and building standards, such as setbacks. Say if somebody say, my lot is a pie shape. I cannot have enough front yard setback. Otherwise, if I build a house, it will be not usable. I don't have enough land area. However, typically you have like a rectangle lot. That's not a problem. So the first question for variances by the Board of Zoning Adjustment that they check is, Is there a hardship? Is there a physical hardship? A lot of people confuse a physical hardship with financial hardship. Financial hardship is typically not a consideration for variances because variances, once when it is approved, it goes with the land forever. So it doesn't matter the transition of the land, who owns it, what the use of it is. So typically, variances are not subject to use variances. We cannot approve use variances. Essentially, that goes to rezoning. And then the next one is a pure of administrative decision that I mentioned earlier. Depends on the application type. It could be heard by staff, by directors like me. It could be heard by the Planning Commission. It could also be heard by the City Council. In some cases, it can also be heard by the Board of Zoning Adjustment. And the next one is a zoning map amendment. And this is what I will dive a little bit deeper later. I don't believe since I've been here, our Planning Commission has handled a full blown size zoning map amendment yet. That's what we typically call a rezoning. So what it changes is you will see a zoning map that changes a color from one district to another. And what does that mean? And then after zoning map amendment, you have a text amendment. So text amendment essentially means we're not changing the zoning map. we're just changing the zoning regulations that's embedded in the zoning code. We're changing the text. And this is often seen by you from time to time. There are periodic reviews that we conduct with the zoning code because there's no such code that's 100% perfect from day one. So it's always a modification and always a recheck on what we have. Is that still aligned with the city's master plan? Is the code still aligned with our policy and strategic plans? If not, then this is where the zoning code amendment could occur. And then after all those, you have master plan development. This is a newer name from the planned unit development. Those are the PUD, that's what we often refer to. They just got a new name back in 2019 when we had the zoning code reform. They call them master plan development. So for master plan development, you have a regulating plan and a final plan stage. And we can talk a little bit more of those as well. So far, is there any question, any particular interest in any type of application? All right.

No.

We'll just keep going on the slides. So the five application types that I want to bring to your attention, are particularly the ones that you handled before or you will hear in the near future. The most common one, of course, is the site plan. Given the scale of our city and the intensity of our growth, the development types are typically, I would say maybe 80% of the time, it is a site plan review. And among 80% of that 80% typically is reviewed by staff already. So they're at staff level. However, there are site plans that goes to planning commission. The last one you saw for the parks maintenance building was because I believe the chair mentioned this before was the reason you saw the parks maintenance building is not because of the size of it or because of the height of it or location. It is essentially because it is, a non-residential use at a residential zoning district. So you'll see all those type site plans. I don't have the authority to approve those. It cannot be approved administratively. And other site plans that can be referred to you can also involve new buildings that is located in our C2 zoning district, which is also referred as our downtown business district. because the city laid out a framework in a master plan. We would like to preserve our downtown character, so we want to give more thoughts. Instead of having staff approves it, we wanted the Planning Commission to have the chance to review, make sure the characters is preserved. That's why you'll see those as well. The next type of application is Conditional Use Permit. You've seen this one before as well. A couple examples I mentioned earlier, one is the Martin Marietta because I understand it is located in a railroad. However, because of the intensity and the impact of the operation, that's why you see this particular use. And on the use table, there will be a permitted use category, a conditional use permit category, and a not permitted use category as well. And then another conditional use permit example, which you heard before, I'm not sure if you all still remember, was the Genesis Health Club at One North Development. It did not go through. Now there is a lapse of approval because it sunset. However, at that time, the reason you hear that was because it was a primary outdoor use located at a certain location in a certain zoning district, a budding residential. So essentially that's why I say you have a case by case criteria and review for conditional use permit because every single one is different. And then zoning text amendment over here and the zoning map amendment, we'll talk about them hand in hand because they often go hand in hand. One and the other will impact each other at some point. And then the last part we'll talk about the master plan development. So there is one core piece here for all zoning reviews that is not often brought up by staff or by the planning commissioners. It's very common because people forgot about where is our zoning code from and why are they as code as of today. Our zoning code is a child from the development of our master plan. and I can't say enough and I really encourage everybody to participate in North Town 2040 because it's such an important process. I know the city council just heard our presentation for our strategic plan and you all heard this as well that the strategic plan is actually much recent focus and have a much smaller window and should be aligning to the city's master plan. So we're kind of going hand in hand right now and in the future we'll check the city's strategic plan as well. But what does a master plan do? So the master plan is not just talking about oh this is a residential area we wanted to build more houses over here. It's not just about future land use. A core answer to the master plan is what does the community see for themselves in the next 10, 20 years? Where do you see yourself? So that's what we often refer in the planning world as visioning. Because what you see I'm sure is different than what I see. What I see with my glasses is different than what I see without my glasses. So this particular engagement is important. It is trying to take as many input as possible from as many groups as possible. It's because we want to have a real specification of our vision of our community, not just from staff, not from one elected official, but truly from the majority of the community. So once when you laid out the vision, things get a little easier. because you can lay out the strategy. How do I get from here to there? That's where the strategic part comes. That's goal setting. You lay out your short-term, long-term strategies and how do you achieve it. And then essentially you implement the plan. And as part of implementing the master plan, there usually is a zoning reform or a large amendment to the zoning code because how can you apply, how can you implement the plan? You have to go through a codified process. And so the codified process is through zoning code. And this is why, for example, if we're trying to encourage more density in a single family zone area, we say, okay, we understand the pressure from the housing market and affordability. If we want to encourage more single families but we are landlocked, we don't have space to grow out and spread out, and what can we do? We can looking to build up vertically, add more density. We can also looking to add more density horizontally, meaning smaller yard, smaller lots, smaller building footprint. Is this what the city wants? If that is what the city wants, that's the vision we saw, and we understand that is the impact and layout and change of our character, there are changes you could make to the zoning code, such as get rid of the single family zoning district. There is no longer a single family zoning district. You can still build a single family house, but say anybody can build at a minimum a duplex. So those, I'm not saying this is what we're doing. I'm just kind of giving an example of seeing how we're connecting master plan and the zoning. And essentially there is another hot topic that's about our parking. We heard quite often we should get rid of the minimum parking requirements. Right now the parking ratio was, where was that from? THAT STUDY IS OUTDATED AND GIVING URBANIZED AREA AND THE FORMAT WE HAVE. absolutely something we want to look into and recheck on it. So we don't make a rush decision, but we need to understand what does the community want first. That's where the visioning plays a role. And then after you lay out the visioning, like I said, codify it itself is a process. It's a technical process, but we need to know what we want first. And I spent a lot of time talking about master plan, didn't I? And there's a reason for it. And I promise you that's not a waste. So for a site plan, and you'll see the criteria was laid out. I did outline them from the code, so you're not reading all those boring words. Not everybody likes to read codes. So the first part of it is there's a determination of compliance. And this is a thumb of a rule for all application types. If you determine that the proposal complies with minimum code requirement, we shall approve it. Because otherwise, you're blending your personal preference, your personal experience. So when staff make recommendation, this is also what we keep telling ourself. Do they meet the minimum code? Do they comply with the master plan? Do they comply with the city's policy? If not, let's take a look at what are the deviations they have. Is that a pro or a con to our existing condition? So later on, I will provide a little bit more guidance on what typically you would review for the administrative relief. Part of it is capacity. Does the land have enough capacity to accommodate this particular structure, the building? Can the land accommodate the proposed use? Some land might not accommodate the use. Say, if it was in the floodplain, I want to build a house here. And I don't want to take any other mechanism. I just want to build a house here. That's probably not a good idea. It probably cannot accommodate such use without investing a certain type of mitigation. And then there is also access component. Do you have a public access? Do you have a good enough access depending on the use? Usually, the larger the venue is, it will require a better access. And we were looking to a traffic impact. What does it bring? into the impact to the adjacent property. Can people come and get out here quick enough? Is there gonna be traffic congestion? Is there gonna be safety reasons over there? And the other design elements, it could be part of the site layout. Is there a good connection to the overall pedestrian and vehicular circulation? Is there enough architectural articulation? And so those are all the design elements we'll consider. And the last part is the right of way. and the adjacent property. The proposed plan shall not and shall never really impose an adverse impact to the adjacent property. Say, oh, by developing my site, I'm not addressing my stormwater and I'm flooding my neighbor. So those are the things that we need to look into. oh I'm having an outdoor venue every night until midnight and now I have a single family house right next to me that complains about it. So these are the things that we wanted to be mindful. And then you can also consider or should consider the existing natural conditions of the site and the good planning practice is that we want to avoid unnecessary grading because essentially we want to maintain a natural and the vegetation as much as possible. And we would encourage to minimize the removal of any existing natural features or vegetation because it's already there and it's typically a local native species. And if it's already there, why bulldoze over it?

So those are all kind of tied into a good planning practice.

And then there is also consideration of the architecture or the building design. And this is a tough one because everybody has different taste. So you might prefer one color versus somebody else prefer a different color. Some people like earth tone. Some people like a bright and more vivid color theme. When staff review those, we typically check and make sure the context is in general embedded in the surrounding, meaning what does your neighborhood look like? What does your nearby property look like? And then we'll consider from there. And then also there is overall design that is, is that compatible with the context and with the relationship between the buildings and the open space and a public streetscape. So those are all the items that we generally consider. However, there are particular sites that we need to consider additional conditions. Some of the sites are very special. Some of the sites, for example, I say some of the sites, for example, the Blumen KC, I'm not quite sure if everybody knows this, but Blumen KC was a site that was often getting ponding water over there at that time. So to address that, they actually elevated the entire site, and they put up an underground detention facility, a very massive one over there as well. So those were additional site condition, might apply to one site, but not apply to the other site. So there is never a... two sites are exactly the same. So when we review, the first thing is understanding the site, understanding the proposed use, and make sure it is compatible to a context. It sounds really easy, doesn't it? But at the end of the site plan, I want to mention that the director, which is me at this position, they have the authority to approve minor revisions as far as it is not materially different from what was approved by Blanding Commission or City Council. All right, so for a conditional use permit, this is the set of review criteria. It's interesting how the higher the level goes and the more precise the criteria is in general, that is how it typically is. It's not because it got smaller for the criteria, it's because it referred to what has already been talked about. So it basically says, You need to meet all these criteria, and you need to meet the criteria that site plan review does. And so it's add-on on top of that. So as you can see, conditional use permit, the first question is you have to determine, does it comply with the master plan? Is this helping us get into the vision that we wanted it laid out in the master plan? And then you're talking about accompanied by a site plan meets all that site plan review requirements over there. and any other methods to mitigate potential impacts to the public. This is why conditional use permit usually have like a time frame over there embedded in there because we want to make sure that the not just this use is being approved, but the real operation at real time is being checked and being updated and it's on track. And then it gives the city an opportunity to revoke it if they fail to comply with the conditions. And then also there is, you know, it's not hinder any other development or uses of the neighboring properties and typically they're recommended by professional staff and sometimes they will be accompanied with specific professional or technical documents. Say for example, the Genesis, Outdoor use, I believe at that time we required an outdoor sound level study and a mitigation plan to understanding how they're going to impact the adjacent residential properties and how can they mitigate it. So these are not a technical study that we typically would require for all type of applications. And then the next part is where I mentioned earlier the zoning code amendment or zoning tax amendment. So these are granted to the city by the Missouri statute that the city has the authority to amend their zoning code. And then when you are reviewing a zoning code amendment, typically you need to ask the question is, does it furthers the general purpose of this title? I know it sounds like a really high-level description, but essentially what it means is for a zoning code, there is a reason we have a zoning code. And the reason we have the zoning code is because we want to make sure the uses that proposed along with all the characters are generally compatible with all the neighboring properties. So we want a harmony. We don't want to, you know, neighbors and neighbors hate each other. That's the question you ask. Do I make this code amendment? Is that going to benefit our community more? Or is it going to hinder our community? Is it going to impair our community? If so, which area should we be looking at? And you can limit the boundary. The zoning code, you can also limit its boundary. It doesn't mean it has to be citywide. Some of those are. Then is the application in conformance with the master plan? So often you will see a staff analysis of how we believe this aligns with the master plan's goals, and it was goal one, goal five, and these are description of why. So that's also a criteria that we have to consider. Is there any question at this moment? Great. Sorry I did not bring popcorn. I know it's me talking most of the time. But I hope that you find this is helpful, though. So the next item is the zoning map amendment. And this is really a fun exercise. And by far, I don't think we have a whole lot yet. So in front of you is our current zoning map. And you can see there are a lot of colors. And it is very nice looking. It goes all the way from purple to yellow. red and to orange. So these colors are not just pick and chose by staff. There are particular requirements in the zoning code about what color means what type of use. So essentially for residential, they're typically in a more beige tone. So it goes from like a very light yellow tone all the way to orange. Darker and more saturated the color is typically means the higher the density would allow. So that's why you see R1, typically they're in a very, very light beige and yellow color, whereas R5 or R4, they're almost brown. And then for red, typically they mean the business district. So we go from C1 all the way to C3. C3 is the highest class for our business district, as you can tell. And then we do also have a large portion of our city is zone M. M is the manufacturing district. We have M1 and M2. M1 is a more limited manufacturing use, whereas M2 is more of a general. It means it allows more density and intensity type of use for M2. And aside from M1 and M2, we also have a G that is gaming. It is a very special and unique zone. that is created particularly for our city and for our casino. Because the way that we draft our code is make sure the use fit within the code, fits its purpose that's developed by the master plan. So at that time, the city decided to create a gaming zone. And then all the way aside from those, you have PUD. Those are the Planned Unit District. Those are essentially equivalent to the Master Planned Development District. And then at this point, you can see there are two big PUD areas. One is the North Gate Village, and one is Cerner, formerly known Cerner Campus, or now Oracle. So what PUD does is it has its own plan, and the own plan will trump base zoning code. However, it generally aligns with the base zoning code. And the reason for having a master plan unit or having the PUD is because it allows flexibility for a certain type of uses as far as it is a good planning practice and to establish their own criteria. So meaning, oh, I know I want a residential uses in the PUD, but my residential cannot comply with the general lot and building standards by your regular R district. However, there is a benefit for me to create whether it's a smaller lot, a smaller or higher density over here, And I'll show you what is the community benefits over here. They'll have their own justification. Therefore, I am proposing to rezone my area from R to a PUD. And this is my plan. I have all the detailed plan over here. And that's where the regulating plan comes and play a role. And then after the regulating plan, you have the final plan. so regulating plan is essentially the same as a rezoning process it is review recommended by staff to planning commission and then recommended by planning commission to the city council and it eventually approves by city council or denies by city council however the final plan are typically at staff level and the reason for that is most of the master plan development or plant unit development has a minimum five acre requirement It is a much larger scale with multiple or complex of type of uses in the buildings. And whereas the final plan usually is focusing on one phase of the overall plan. So that's why regulating plans are equivalent to a rezoning and reviewed by the governing body versus the final plan usually is at administrative level and equivalent to an administrative approval site plan almost. So with all that said, I'm going to stop right there and see if you all have any questions or comments.

My question is, can we get this via email, please?

Oh, absolutely. Thank you. You prefer PDF version?

I prefer something that I could look through it and absorb it a little bit more because I think you've done a lot of really good work on it. I think it's great information, but I have a hard time sometimes absorbing it. Totally get it. I want to study it.

Totally get it.

This is all really, really helpful. I think that this would be something that, no, we don't tend to do orientations with some appointments, but this would be really great to just send out to anybody who is new to the Planning Commission. I think it's really, really helpful. We'll absolutely do that.

And that was also inspired by our chair here that I realized there are something I need to do and to help the Planning Commissioners understanding what your roles are and how can staff better assist you and answer your questions. SO THIS IS WHY WE'RE DOING ONE OF THE EXERCISE AND I PROMISE YOU THE FUTURE ONES WILL BE SHORTER AND WE'LL HAVE DIFFERENT SUBJECT AND IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING A PARTICULAR PORTION OF THE CODE, I KNOW THERE ARE IN THE PAST PLAN COMMISSIONERS SPECIFICALLY INTERESTED IN LANDSCAPE OR IN PARKING OR PARKING LOT DESIGN OR IN BUILDING SETBACKS. or a certain type of use, feel free to reach out to me and I'm happy to bring these to the Planning Commission as a general public information. And that's part of my role as well. And ironically, I was telling Megan earlier today that the hardest part to do my job is to realize that I need to convert my planner's language to a regular message to everybody that can understand it. Because I've been in this field for so long, sometimes I forgot that, oh, this is, I need to explain what this is. So if I forgot about that, don't be afraid to remind me, hey, should I read, don't understand, what does that mean? Can you kind of explain this part for me? I'd always be happy to do that.

I just had a quick question. There's no zone for, like, green spaces?

Correct. We do not have a particular zoning district for park uses. And this is why, in the last meeting, our chair mentioned that the reason we see this site plan is because it is a residential zoning district for a non-residential use. However, we have been chatting with our parks department and talking about potentially looking into changes to the zoning district. There are benefits, there are pros, cons for everything. So we're considering whether or not to dedicate a particular zoning district for public, civic, or open spaces. So that exists in other cities? It exists in some municipalities.

There's pros and cons, too.

Yeah, the pros really for you that not having that is that you get more, I would say, probably review opportunities to see these proposals that typically would not go to you. And at that time, I know there is a specific reason why we did not dedicate Mackin Park and other park into its own zoning district because the neighborhood takes a look at it as a neighborhood asset and they wanted to have an input have this justification process to give their own comments and input to any of those civic uses in the area. So that's the real benefit of it. Yeah. All right.

Thank you, Shu. Yeah. Chapter 17. All right. Let's finish this up. Comments from staff?

I have no more comments. I just want to thank all the planning commissioners for all your efforts that you put in the North Town 2040 so far. And very soon, if not the next meeting, it will be the meeting after the next one, we will bring some initial findings and results from the studies that including housing, real estate, market, retail, and economic and demographic analysis over to you. There are a lot of interesting parts of it. So stay tuned.

Thank you very much.

Comments from commissioners?

I guess along with that, what is the next step for us in North Town 2040?

I'm glad you asked. This is my commercial time. So for Nordstrom 2040, we have done quite a few pop-up events right now, meaning staff and our consulting firm, we bring ourselves to the crowds. And we've also done our very first steering committee visioning workshop. I saw some familiar faces over there. time to time the next one which is a big event is our Charette event I cannot push out more throughout her social media channels but if you need a card or any of the reminders reach out to me I have a lot of those I would love to give those to you to distribute to your neighbors essentially what we do is on September the 2nd and 3rd, so I believe it's a Wednesday and a Thursday, there are two-day events for the community charrette. We're trying to recruit as many people as possible, whether you're a resident or businesses, if any business is watching, I doubt. We want you to come and give us your input. Help us design our future. This is a real, from visioning your head to the specific physical map out there. It is a two-day event. However, each day is a half day. And if you cannot make it for either of the days, it's okay. So on the Thursday evening, starting from 5.30, there will be a presentation of all the findings from the Charette event. And right now I'm trying to work with the mayor and the management team to see if we could do a community dinner. for that particular event and during that time so we can recruit more of the community and come listen to our findings and results from the Charette event. But that is our next big item. Thank you for asking.

For people who can't attend the Charette event, is there an option for them to

contribute thoughts or comments absolutely is that on the the website yes the website still have commenting areas and i believe the survey is still open if not let me know um we'll add a commenting area and you can always reach out to community development and we'll take your input no matter what um and the findings essentially will be posted on the website as well so if you miss the If you did not miss the dinner, but you missed the presentation, which is very challenging, if for whatever reason you cannot hear the presentation, I would always refer people to take a look at the Charette results from the work that was hard work from everybody on the website.

And what is that website?

The website is NorthTown2040.com.

Lovely. Thank you.

Thank you.

Is this your first planning commission? Congratulations. Welcome. We're happy to have you. Anything else? All right. Do I hear a move to adjourn?

Move to adjourn.

Second. You're adjourned.