Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

SPEAKER: Good morning, everyone. At this time, I'd like for you to put your cell phone on vibrate or cut it off, whatever convenient for y'all. As long as you do not disturb us up here. OK. SPEAKER: Yes, sir. Good morning, commissioners. Thank you again for your attendance today. We have two items on your agenda and, of course, the approval of the minutes. The other thing I wanted to mention and I mentioned to you beforehand is our November meeting is scheduled for November 12th, which is Veteran's Day. The city hall and business offices are closed that day, so we will bring next month a request to change that to a different date. And I'll email you to discuss some options for alternative dates and times if we do wind up having the meeting. But that is all the announcements I have. SPEAKER: The roll call, please. SPEAKER: Oh, yes, sir. I apologize. Mr Payne? SPEAKER: Here. SPEAKER: Miss Miller? SPEAKER: Here. SPEAKER: Miss Harvis. SPEAKER: Here. SPEAKER: Miss Melnick? SPEAKER: Here. SPEAKER: Mr Hilyer? SPEAKER: Here. SPEAKER: Mr Anthony? SPEAKER: Here. SPEAKER: Miss George? SPEAKER: Now, we are ready to get a motion for the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. SPEAKER: I'll entertain a motion. SPEAKER: Second. SPEAKER: We have a motion and a second. (INAUDIBLE) ready to vote (INAUDIBLE) saying aye. ALL: Aye. SPEAKER: Nays likewise. Motion carries. Alright. Back to you. SPEAKER: Yes, sir. So the two items we have for you. The first is a request for a variance.

It's actually a couple variances on Cunningham drive 211. Cunningham drive. This is a request from Samford Group, representing Cate Burdette, the property owner. The request is requesting variances to the front setback, the first being 13.5 feet from the front yard setback to the minimum 25-foot front setback. Second is a 5-foot setback variance to the minimum 10-foot side setback on the side. And then the third is a 5-foot setback variance to the minimum 20-foot side on street setback. This is for a new proposed development called Brookhaven Townhomes. It's a 49-unit townhome subdivision located at Cunningham Drive and what will be a new extension of Hi Pack or Thomason Drive. And so if you're not aware, the city of Opelika is looking at a new road that would be kind of an east-west road that will eventually go from where Veterans Parkway meets Pepperell Parkway, all the way down across the railroad tracks, through Airport Road Cunningham Drive, and then eventually to where Gateway and Thomason intersect now. This would be one of the first legs of that. The applicant is working with the city to provide the right of way through this area as part of their development. And so they're giving the city the land so that the street can be built. As part of that, though, their proposed development

is having to shift down some, and so they're asking for some relief so that they could meet the required setbacks as proposed. It would be their contention. And I think it's probably accurate that without the new street, they would be able to meet the setbacks from any property lines. And so with the street coming in, they're asking for some additional relief. Again, you have what would be... And here, you see a side setback on the street, which is probably the largest kind of right here where the new roundabout would go from the new street and Cunningham Drive. You would have a setback right in the corner where this is kind of chamfered. So it's kind of cut at an angle to allow some additional right of way for that new roundabout. And then just slightly again on the curve on the front side where they're asking for... I believe it's 13 feet of relief. We did send the letters to the adjoining property owners and posted a sign. To my knowledge, we have not received any feedback. We are recommending approval of these variances. And here, you can see kind of some of the additional landscaping that's being proposed through the area. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. I don't believe the applicant is here for this item.

(BACKGROUND CHATTER). SPEAKER: At this time, I will open the public hearing. SPEAKER: That's just for the variance on 1? SPEAKER: That's for the variance on the first item, not the second. Yes, sir. SPEAKER: I'm going to close the public hearing at this time. SPEAKER: I move that we approve the 13.5-foot front yard setback variance from a 25-foot minimum front yard setback. I move that we also approve the 5-foot side yard setback variance from the 10-foot minimum side yard setback, and that we also approve the 5-foot side yard on street variance from the 20-foot minimum side yard requirements. SPEAKER: I second. SPEAKER: We have a motion and a second. (INAUDIBLE) you're ready to vote (INAUDIBLE) by saying aye. ALL: Aye. SPEAKER: Nays likewise. (INAUDIBLE) they may continue as long as they come through you.

SPEAKER: Yes, sir. We will continue to work with him on this project. SPEAKER: Alright. SPEAKER: Item Number 2 is a request for a variance to the minimum lot size. The proposed variance is for 3100 Hamilton Road. This is in the R-2 zone. So you see kind of the property located on the screen here as well. It's kind of Hamilton Road just after it crosses over Interstate 85, across the street from Hamilton Gables. The applicant is Southern Plains Development Services, representing Donna and Christopher Clemons. They're requesting a 328 square foot lot variance - the minimum lot size requirement of 15,000 square feet - to divide a property. What you'll see here is there is Lot 1 of the Deer Run section of Bent Creek subdivision. It's a somewhat older plat, is approximately 29,672 square feet. It's a somewhat long, skinny lot. So it's got a lot of road frontage, but it doesn't have a lot of depth. And what they are requesting to do is basically split this lot in half and then have a second home built on the property closer to I-85. When they split it in half, you have one lot, which is 15,001 square foot. So one foot over the minimum lot size for that zone. The second lot though would be 14,678 square feet. So again, 328 feet short of the minimum. Excuse me. That should be 322 feet short of the minimum.

So we had some bad math there. I apologize. The way they have it shown now, they would come in off of a shared drive. And this would be something that would be required through any sort of planning process. Because of our minimum roads spacing. Hamilton Road is considered, I believe, a collector road, which means carries a fair amount of traffic on it. And so we have spacing between where driveways or road intersections can be. And so this would not meet the spacing requirement to have an additional driveway on Hamilton Road. It would be required to share a driveway with the adjoining property. This property, if you look at the map again, the yellow, the R-1 behind it is all part of the Saugahatchee golf course. And then across the street, you have Hamilton Gables, which is a neighborhood with quite a few condos or kind of combined units there. The rest of the area through here is all R-2 or R-1. Again, here you kind of see the location. This is the original plat. Again, I believe this is back from the early 80s. Yeah. It looks like actually late 70s, maybe '76. So you can see this plat has kind of been in this configuration for quite some time. And you can kind of see how this lot at the top is somewhat long and skinny. We reviewed this. They appear to be able to put a home in the footprint, just barely based off the proposed setbacks. However, looking over this, the lot itself currently now has the ability...

It has use through a single-family home. There's not a particular hardship necessarily requiring that a second variance would be granted. It would just be something that would allow them to build a secondary unit. Again, because of that, we haven't put a approval or denial for the variance itself, noting that there isn't necessarily a reason that we could say that a variance should be granted. But at the same time, there's some reasonableness that the planning or... Excuse me. The zoning board could look at and grant a variance if they deem fit. The applicants are here. And I believe we do have some other people who'd like to speak on the issue as well. SPEAKER: At this time, would the applicant come forward to the podium? State your name. SPEAKER: My name is Cole Seferyn. Quickly just want to say thank you guys for hearing our little bit of unique request today. We appreciate your time with that. Just to give you a quick background of this intention and heart behind this request. So the Clemons approached us about a year ago. They were looking for advice on what to do with their excess land. They felt that the Lord had a bigger purpose for that property, but didn't quite know what it was, and they wanted to support entrepreneurship in the process. So that's when we stepped in. Josh and I worked to figure out a solution of what we

could do on that property to make use of it. So we envisioned building a new home for a new family to join this golf course front subdivision that so many other families already enjoy. But that vision quickly evolved into something much bigger. And so it became a platform for us to make history in the Auburn-Opelika area by being the first student-led development. And so we wanted to create hands-on learning experience and contribute to Opelika community in a meaningful way. So if we get this approved, we have multiple student-led businesses that would partner with us in this from Auburn University. So anywhere from site work, utilities, clearing and grading, marketing and sale of a finished home would all be led by us students. And so we think that brings a unique model into this that promotes mentorship and innovation and practical learning and to help foster the next generation of professionals in this community that's shaped around the university. And so our proposed builder, he is fully aligned with us in this purpose and vision. But he also brings the professional expertise we need to make sure we deliver a quality product, but also creating space for us students to get that hands-on experience. So that's the background. I'll turn it over to Josh to tell you a little bit about our vision. SPEAKER: Thanks, Cole. Thank you all for y'all's time this morning. I just kind of want to paint a picture in y'all's minds, of what our vision. Is in this. SPEAKER: Excuse me, sir. State your name. SPEAKER: Yes, sir. Josh Decker. SPEAKER: Alright, you may proceed. SPEAKER: So our proposed vision is a 2,800 square foot home. This is going to be... We envision this to fit the size and esthetic that is currently achieved in the neighborhood.

Not having anything stand out like a sore thumb, like you see on some of these new construction homes. As shown on this floor plan that we try to lay out for y'all, this will include a shared driveway that will mirror the driveway on 3800 Hamilton Road. And so this will be a side load garage, which will open up space for two cars within the garage, as well as two additional cars on the shared driveway as well, without encroaching on the set cut line that we're proposing. This design is aimed to maintain efficiency and functionality of the driveway, even though it will be shared. Hopefully not impeding much on traffic, seeing that we can't make a separate driveway for this area. Architecturally, we've envisioned an exposed brick look just to keep that same look that's currently within the neighborhood. This this home will include a three bedroom, two and a half bathroom styled construction. And this is just, again, to keep with what's normal within this neighborhood. We would also like to highlight our plan for a rear patio. This is going to be strategically positioned to kind of give you a sense of privacy from the homeowners on 3100 Hamilton Road, yet also give you that view of the beautiful Hole 5 of Saugahatchee Golf Course. So how we're going to achieve this is by putting a kind of fireplace on the back patio to make that little divider between the house that's so close next door, also maintaining a view of the golf course as well. We respectfully submit this variance in light of the unusable land to the right side of this property. And as referenced in the planning committee staff notes, we do not have a typical hardship for this land. But in this variance, we were highlighting that since there's no usable land currently to the right, and with the given lot size, we can almost ensure that there will be little to no construction disturbance in this area.

In closing, we humbly ask for your careful consideration of our request, and we thank you for your time and attention this morning. Thank y'all. SPEAKER: Thank you. Thank you. SPEAKER: Hold it. Do y'all have any questions for him? Questions? Thank y'all. At this time, I'm going to open the public hearing. SPEAKER: My name is William Brunson. I live 3406 Hamilton Road. If you look at your original plot plan, Lot 15 and 16, I purchased both of those and combined them into one lot. It's now called 15A. It's been called that since 2003. I would welcome new people to the neighborhood. I do have reservations about safety. That bridge be very close to that driveway. Recently, the suggested speed limit has been lowered from 45 to 35, which nobody observes. Two years ago, I was pulling in my driveway and I was struck from the rear end. A car had left 97 feet of skid marks before they totaled my car. It was a very hard impact. I had a grandchild and my wife in the back seat. And it scared me so bad, they checked my blood pressure, it

was 240 over 200. And they said, did I that I want to go to the hospital. I said, "No, I gotta stay here with my baby." So I didn't have any physical complaint damage. This has nothing to do with y'all, but Alfa Insurance was their representative, and I lost $18,000 on that wreck. The speed is terrible on my street. From our house, if you're familiar with Hamilton Road, mine is the last one on the right before you get to the seventh tee box adjacent to the road. Every Friday night from 8:30 to 10:00, and Saturday night from 8:30 to 10:00, they're drag racing. They stop in front of my house and buzz off toward Publix, high rate of speed. Now, me pulling out of my driveway, I can only see two driveways up and a partial of a third. Now, the lots between me and (UNKNOWN)... I apologize for my voice. I'm not scared. I'm just aging. (LAUGHTER) SPEAKER: I'm old. Two lots there, 116 feet each. That's 236 feet. A vehicle traveling 60 miles an hour goes 88 feet per second. One going 30 miles an hour will go 44 feet per second. That person that left 97 feet of skid marks, I don't think they were doing 35. I'm sure they weren't doing 35. We are in a DMZ zone between Opelika and Auburn. Nobody patrols it. Fire trucks come down it every day. Ambulances come down it every day. We have a really bad speeding problem over there.

Now, if you go back into some accident records, the driveway coming out of Hamilton Gables, there's been a lot of wrecks there. There are plastic bumpers laying all over the street. And I don't want to impede anybody from building a house, but I want them to live long enough to enjoy it. We really need to do something about the traffic there. Now, the roundabout has helped some. It's fun trying to get through it, but the traffic is dangerous there and we need to do something. Secondly, I can't get out of my driveway because I don't have... I think you call it a driveway apron. SPEAKER: Yes, sir. SPEAKER: I driveway buddy into a 45 degree angle concrete ditch. I cannot go in and out of the driveway squarely. I have to come in at an angle, one wheel, and then the other wheel. Now, I've got two low slung cars, but they were factory cars. And it takes more than three seconds to get out of my driveway. When I started over here a while ago, it's a busy time in the morning. I had to wait for 22 cars coming from Albany and 12 going from Opelika. I was almost late. I'm not trying to be obstinate. I'm truly concerned about the safety on our street. When I moved there, it was out in the country. And then three months later, they built Tigertown. (LAUGHTER) SPEAKER: But I don't know what connection you have with public safety or the... This planning committee, is that the one that makes the setbacks?

Because my backyard, there's a 30-foot set back from the edge of the golf course. I've had to have my lot surveyed five times. I bought Lot 15, had to have it surveyed. When I bought Lot 16, had to have it surveyed. To put a house - I wanted to center it - a third survey. I wanted a pool put in the backyard. It couldn't be any closer than 30 foot. It's 48 foot, and they couldn't recognize it, had to have it surveyed for that. I built a sunroom on the south end of my house, and it was 35 feet from the property line. And I think I have a 15-foot variance there. Now, the 30 foot, how close to your back line are you going to be? 30 feet? SPEAKER: I think that's the variance (INAUDIBLE), sir. SPEAKER: I've had two windows broken out in the back of my house with golf balls. But if you're on the tee box, you're not in that big of a danger. (LAUGHTER) SPEAKER: But it's fun living there. Golf courses are nice neighbors. They keep their grass cut. SPEAKER: Yeah. SPEAKER: They do blow it into my yard, but (INAUDIBLE). But we get along pretty good. But there was a tornado that came through on November the 16th, 2011 that came down Number 2 Fairway, hit my backyard, took a tree off the golf course, planted it in my pool. $40,000 damage to my roof. But we lived through it. Now, it also took a power pole out of the front yard. They had to pull it up and they stuck another one back, and it's still leaning at about a five-degree angle. They never came back to straighten it up. But those aren't my complaints. Those are just my experiences. I've been there 22 years.

I appreciate your time and consideration that if you could get some of the other agencies to help us survive over there. Thank you for your time. Good luck with your house. (LAUGHS) SPEAKER: Oh, the neighbor next to you, their driveway columns were knocked down a month ago. And the next house down, a car turned over in their yard, not going 35 miles an hour. There's been a lot of wrecks on that road. SPEAKER: So no one else, so I'm going to close to public hearing. OK. SPEAKER: Matt, are there any other lot... From looking at this, there's no other lots that this could be done to. Is that correct? SPEAKER: I don't believe there are any other lots that could be divided. Lot 7 possibly could be turned into one lot facing Hamilton Road and one lot facing Stony Brook, but I think the house is probably center to where that wouldn't be possible. And then as Mr Brunson said, he has two lots - 15 and 16. I don't know if his is built in such a configuration that he could ever redivide out his lot again. SPEAKER: No, I can't. SPEAKER: That was the stipulation if I built the house that I would have to shift it. So the other lot... For the other lot, Lot 16 was only 78 feet wide at the back and 200 at the front. SPEAKER: Yeah. SPEAKER: If they would have had to build a four-storey house, it'd been 12:00 before I could see the sunrise. (LAUGHS) SPEAKER: I don't believe there are any other lots on Hamilton Road, at least in this section of Bent Creek that could be

divided out and be close to being a secondary plot. SPEAKER: Excuse me. I know I had my turn and you adjourned that, but across the street from me is considered county. They don't maintain the... I cut the grass over there. Try to kill as many snakes that I can, but... And why is that? SPEAKER: Just the way... SPEAKER: From my house to the bridge is county. SPEAKER: Yes. So the way it works is inside, you basically have to ask to be annexed into the city limits. Directly across the street, most of that is in the city limits, just past this yellow section here. There is a significant amount that is in the county. So it is not under city jurisdiction other than dividing lots. And then when you go further down Hamilton Road, of course, once you get towards the end, you actually move into the Auburn city limits for a little bit. But there is quite a bit of county interspersed in between all of this property. SPEAKER: The property across my house cannot be built on because it's in some type of floodplain or watershed deal. The traffic has thinned out the deer population, though. SPEAKER: Has the golf course said anything? SPEAKER: To my knowledge, we haven't heard anything from the golf course themselves. And they were sent a letter. SPEAKER: Matt, who would be the appropriate contact for the traffic issues? SPEAKER: So there are two issues that you always run into with traffic. There are designing and control, and then there is enforcement.

And so it sounds like there is a large issue with enforcement in this area to make sure that people are driving the right speed limit. The other is design, is, you know, how do we make it as safe as possible? And Hamilton Road, when it was built, was built in the county. So it is built to those standards, which means that's why you have some ditches and pipes and things like that, as Mr Brunson said. So what we do is we look at the sections that we have jurisdiction over as we try to limit the number of possible places where you could have an incident or a wreck or something like that. That's why with this one particularly, we would not allow a secondary driveway. Truthfully, if this neighborhood were to come in today, we would probably require either that there be some sort of rear street or that they would have a lot more shared driveways, because I think the spacing on this road for the amount of traffic it carries is something like... It's either 2 to 4... It's 200 to 400 feet between driveways. So that would put you at least at having shared driveways the whole way through if it were built today now. Again, this neighborhood was constructed in the 70s. So that was before there was a whole lot of traffic on Hamilton Road. But we do try to slow people down. A lot of what we see out here right now, though, is just dealing with the amount of traffic the way it was built and then simply trying to enforce the speed.

And that's really kind of where we're at. What we do is we ensure that whatever we do, we don't make the situation worse. And so that's why we've mentioned that, you know, if this is approved, that it has to have a shared access, has to be similar character. But we don't want to create a situation, especially here, where anybody would ever try to back out onto the street or to create a situation where somebody is... SPEAKER: They have to back out. SPEAKER: I don't believe in this layout, they would have to back out. They could back out in their driveway and then pull forward out. SPEAKER: Well, one of the city commissioners is... There's two of them running for Ward 4. Anyway, one of them come by the house, and he's the first one to ever come to the house in 20 years. And I told him to back out on my lawn and turn around on my grass to go out forward. I said it's too dangerous for you to back out. SPEAKER: Yes, sir. SPEAKER: Matt, would the city engineer be able to look at this and maybe... From the speeding issue, perhaps, have have they looked at this? Would there be anything that they could do that could help improve his concerns? SPEAKER: You know, really, the only thing that you can do at this point... And it is either you figure out ways to make people not make left turns, which is extremely difficult when you've got a lot of houses through there, or you start putting in some sort of something to physically slow people down. This isn't a street that you would typically see somebody propose speed bumps because it does carry a lot of traffic. And so that would not be something that would be

advantageous to anybody. What may potentially happen in the future is either they put something like an additional roundabout at some point to slow people down, or put in stop signs at an intersection to make people come to a stop and then go forward. But again, you're balancing the need to carry a good deal of traffic on this road versus the need to make it done in a safe manner. SPEAKER: Do you know the traffic count on that road by chance? SPEAKER: I don't. I would guess you're probably around 10,000 cars a day. SPEAKER: OK. SPEAKER: On average, about every eight seconds. I timed it. On Airport Road, there is a blinking light sign that reminds people to slow down when they're speeding. Its solar power doesn't take up that much room. SPEAKER: And that is something I can talk to the police department about, potentially seeing if there's an ability to put something on there, at least. And they'll do that occasionally on a temporary situation where they'll come out and put it out and just remind people that, "Hey, you're traveling too fast." I'll talk to the police chief about the gentleman's issues as far as speed. SPEAKER: And there's not a lot of room for them. It's kind of like Morris Avenue. It's hard to patrol traffic when you've got just such a small street to... There's not a lot of safe places to pull people over. SPEAKER: Pretty much the main (UNKNOWN) from Auburn to Tiger Town. SPEAKER: Alright. But it sounds the issue is... The speeding and the house are kind of two separate issues, right, that we've got right now. SPEAKER: Yes, sir. I would say that that is correct. I think while we don't want to make an unsafe situation,

talking to the city engineer, he doesn't feel that sharing a driveway, this would be a situation that would be a significant increase in traffic. And it wouldn't create any more issue than currently exists right now. SPEAKER: And how if how... How do I word this? So we're looking... If I'm doing my math right, we're around a 2%. 2% to 3% is what they're going to be short with the 14,600 to the 15,000 somewhere right in there. I haven't done the math, but eyeballing, yes, sir, it sounds about 2%. SPEAKER: It's close. If we do this for one, how many are there... Like, how often does this come up when we're this close on something? SPEAKER: Not extremely often. I think we had one last year that was... Again, I think the one last year we had was less than 100 feet they needed for a lot size. There are some areas in town, especially in the historic district, where there are quite a few lots that don't meet that current size requirement. We still have... We have some non-conforming standards that allow me to administratively approve certain things. But generally, you know, if this comes up, we start by saying, "No, it doesn't meet the standard." If someone wants to look at it, they can discuss it with us. We'll go through some review. And they always have the option to come before you to request relief, but it... Usually, we don't get very many of these, and usually, it's... Again, you don't get a whole lot of them. If you approve one, based on the configuration here, it doesn't necessarily mean that you approve every one in the future. You're not setting... You typically don't set a precedence with approvals of variances. SPEAKER: OK. And then am I correct?

I think they're not asking for any... There's no variance on any of the required front, back, side. SPEAKER: They are not requesting any variances on the setback. I will tell you they are extremely tight on that. And so that's something where I hope that the gentlemen know this going in, is that they're going to have to make sure they have a really good survey and know how it fits in. Because again, that would require a additional variance if they needed a setback, any setback relief. And again, we typically discourage coming back for that type of thing because we... SPEAKER: Well, it's kind of like if we were to approve this with it being too small as part of the deal is that you got to put it at the right spot. SPEAKER: Right. And that's exactly it. I would say, you know, if you approve this variance, we would probably not recommend approval of a setback variance unless there is an extreme hardship, which, again, to a degree they're creating any hardship that may be there. SPEAKER: Yeah. Which would mean under no circumstances build anything that's over the spot. SPEAKER: You ready for a motion? SPEAKER: I make a motion we accept the 322 square... Is that correct, Matt? SPEAKER: 322 square feet. Or you can say 28. That's what we put down on here. That gives them a couple extra feet just in case (INAUDIBLE).

SPEAKER: Just in case. OK. That we accept the 328 square foot lot variance from the minimum 15,000 square foot minimum lot area requirement. SPEAKER: I second. SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE) motion and a second. (INAUDIBLE) ready to vote. (INAUDIBLE) by saying aye. ALL: Aye. SPEAKER: Motion carried. SPEAKER: That is all the business we have before you today. SPEAKER: Ya'll make sure that y'all get with Matt moving forward. SPEAKER: And put the house in the right spot. SPEAKER: OK. That's all, Matt. SPEAKER: Yes, sir. SPEAKER: OK. Can I make a motion... Can I get a motion to adjourn? SPEAKER: I move that we adjourn the meeting. SPEAKER: Second. SPEAKER: (INAUDIBLE) saying aye. ALL: Aye. SPEAKER: Thank you. (BANGS GAVEL) SPEAKER: We adjourn till the next time we meet.