Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

And we'll start with To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Roll call. Miss Dobson here. Mr. Hehart here. Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Aravalo here. Miss Kier. Mr. Sly here. Miss Squire. Mr. Morris

here. Chairman, we have a quorum. Thank you.

Approval of agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. It was adjusted, but I'll didn't you take off number five, but it's on the It's off of this, right? It is. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as it stands. Second. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

All those opposed? It passes. 500 citizen participate. Okay, we don't have anybody on our formal list, but if there's anyone that likes to would like to speak, you can come forward. If not, we'll move on to our uh first item on the agenda, which is approval of the minutes September 4th, 2025. Um, I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from September 4th, 2025. Even though I wasn't here, I did read them. So,

I second it. Got a second. All those in favor approving the minutes as presented, please signify by saying I. I. I. All those opposed? Abstain. It's four 0 one. I read the minutes but I was think you can improve your next meeting if you'd like. Well, yes. If I was Yeah, I was I was too if you read them. Yeah, you still approve.

I approve it. Great. Uh, next item is uh public hearing on conditional use application for CU-25-1 Spring Green Hill Elementary School. We'll call the Hearing open got presentation. I think you need to make sure

sorry conflict of interest. Is there any conflict of interest or exparte contact on this item from the board members? No. Okay. Any conflict of interest? No. Okay. set presentation.

Good evening. Um this is a conditional use permit um for the Spring Hill Elementary School located at 300 South Webster um with the site plan um attached. Um the original um cup was approved I believe back in 2011. Um, and so this they're just adding on like a 5,500 square foot building addition. Um, so we needed to come back and kind of amend that to include it in the cup. Um, that's going to house some classrooms and some office space. Um, there's no other public improvements on there. Um, it's not going to impede traffic. It's all going to continue to flow. No additional parking is going to be needed. Um, so staff does find that um it meets the intent of the original cup and we do recommend approval of of the conditional use permit and the site plan.

We have somebody from the school district. We do. Any Anybody want to

Good evening. My name is Mark Williams. I'm the executive director of operations for the Spring Hill School District. Um, this is part of our bond that passed for us to help with capacity issues at Spring Hill Elementary. There'll be four generalsized classrooms about 900 square foot, two smaller classrooms and then a couple offices um to be used in this expansion.

Any questions? Thank you. Any other comments? We had some dialogue when when we when we reviewed the site plan for this. I think there was quite a bit of dialogue about emergency exits and things. Planning commission was satisfied with the site plan at that time. Obviously, this is the C. Sound like has any concerns. It's a good point. Yeah, it was already reviewed.

I I don't have a problem with it. I think it's it's not a large addition. It doesn't require any other modifications to the area. Right. And at the time, as Chuck pointed out, nobody had any concerns if those concerns were addressed.

Entertain a motion. Are there any members of the uh audience that would like to comment on this particular item? Okay, hearing none, we'll move forward. Commission members, any other comments or if not close the hearing at this time and we can further discuss this or I I'll stand for a motion. I move to approve the amended conditional use permit and site plan for the Spring Hill Elementary School to allow for building addition subject to the conditions listed in the staff report.

I'll second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor starting from the left. I I 500 Next item, we'll start another public hearing. Uh this one uh related to unified zoning and and subdivision regulations. Any exparte relationships or on this item? No. Any conflicts of interest?

No. No. Okay. You want to comments? Sure.

I'll take turns tonight. How about that? Uh I'll do my best impression of her and Pat. So, uh zoning code amendment here before you. Um this is a change to permit uh technology in data centers. a little broader than just data centers, but that's probably a good catchall short phrase of a development we're all kind of familiar with. Currently, our code doesn't really contemplate them anywhere. Um, so if someone were to come ask the city if that was possible, the city has to say no. Uh this change is adding in the capability of putting in data centers um in our

yeah in our M1 industrial zoning districts um just as a permitted use rather than a a conditional use permit or anything like that. Um similar to when we changed building heights in M1 recently. This is more about giving the city, you all, the governing body and staff a toolbox to work with developers as it's possible. Um this isn't necessarily in response to anything specific. Um you know, you're not going to see 10 of these pop up at your next meeting. Uh but it is something that as this becomes a more common uh development, especially in the region, uh the city wanted to open this up and have it be a possibility. You will see we're adding a definition of what an information technology center is uh and then adding it as a permitted use there. So there's any questions happy to talk more. Most people want me to talk less so I can turn it over to any public comment and you all if you'd like.

Thanks. Actually Mr. Lao I've got one question. Can I take that?

Okay. Um, well, just simply so when I when I look at the list of allowed commercial uses and I won't read them to bore everyone, but obviously we're we're looking to add information technology facility and I I feel like there are other developments which we've approved which are not specifically enumerated in this list. So that which makes me then think does this one really have to be enumerated? Um, you know, for example, uh, the truck stop, the cold storage facility, those types of commercial uses are not specifically enumerated. They might be inferred from retail, maybe limited in general, vehicle repair, general, um, warehouse, you know, perhaps. So, so I'm just kind of curious why do you feel like information technology cannot be inferred into any of these other categories

or is there a reason those others don't need to be specifically listed just from my own knowledge?

Yeah, sure. No, I think staff felt that because this is a specific type of development that is being proposed more and more. Um, we wanted to kind of just get out ahead of it and rather than coming in and saying, "Oh, well, we can shoehorn it in here." And then you all ask us in the future, "Well, hey, why does it feel like you're shoehorning this in the same way maybe you shoehorned in something else in the past?" We figured it'd be best to put this in here. And importantly, not just say we're permitting data centers in M1, but put in this definition in 17302 B70 that kind of outlines what it is. Um, candidly, fairly broad. We want to be an an over-inclusive definition rather than underinclusive so that we're not coming to you all with variance requests and deviation requests and things like that. But uh more about just putting this in our code to show that it's a permitted use and available. Um so anything else? Any other question? I I think it facilitates also people looking at the list that or and seeing that definition in there. So

yes. Yeah. Hopefully. Also, yeah, if a developer is looking to see if they can build here, it saves them from having to pick up the phone and you know, as uh younger and younger generations take over, you know, we all know younger generations might not want to pick up the phone and ask questions. So if it saves them having to do that or saves them that five minute phone call to Amy, that's a plus. So so I've got a few comments. Go ahead.

Whenever. So So I'm I don't see any downside of adding this to the list, but I but I was doing some research as a part of this on data centers and it's pretty interesting. So the net of my research is that I think you know adding it as a permitted use in M1 I think that's fine. I think the location will be key though because there's a lot of reporting out there about the noise of data centers and obviously they consume a lot of electricity. They consume a lot of water potentially depending on how they're cooled. Um and then the electricity is is interesting because then you you potentially would need high voltage lines with those very tall high voltage transmission towers through existing properties in order to serve the data center. Um, and I I just I found three articles just by searching data center um from the Wall Street Journal this year. And I'm going to read just the titles in order just to give you kind of a sense of some of the reporting that's going on. The first article is from February and it says the AI data center boom is a job creation bust, which basically means lots of jobs during construction, but really not many people required to operate it. But maybe that's a positive because if we compare that to a 247 place that has a lot of trucks in and out, you know, that's probably a positive. But but you know, it's not necessarily a job creator for the local community. The next article from earlier in September is data centers that don't exist yet are already haunting the grid. It just has to do with utility providers trying to anticipate where these data centers go and trying to figure out how much capacity they'll need because the especially for AI driven data centers it's it's tremendous you know the amount of the power requirements are just truly tremendous I mean on the orders of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of homes so that's kind of interesting the other thing I read was how in the past data centers were located close to population areas because that would actually improve the speed of your internet service. AI data centers are totally different. These

large language models, these can be, you know, you're not producing queries. These are just churning data and and sort of developing its models so they can be located more remotely. They don't have to be close to population centers. And then the last article that the title is spending on AI is at epic levels. Will it ever pay off? And and that just this article is talking about uh it's comparing it to the boom of putting fiber optic cable in the ground in the late 1990s and how there was a bust when the internet bubble happened. But eventually we did use all that capacity for that fiber that was in the ground. But you know several large companies who put in these global fiber networks went went belly up during that time. And then the AI data centers clearly it's a gold rush right now and no one knows are they going to be able to monetize these where will it end? But I also would encourage you, I found a a YouTube video that was um posted two weeks ago. It's had almost two million views from Business Insider and it's it's titled it's a 30-minute video, so it's pretty detailed. And it's called Exposing the Dark Side of America's AI data center explosion. And the net net of that story is that when they're located close to residential neighborhoods, the noise, it's not like a loud noise, but it's a neverending noise. It's it's almost like a lowlevel hum of a train and it just sort of makes people crazy

and uh affects their mental health. Um the HOA reported painful and debilitating debilitating levels of noise from the operations of Amazon Web Services Tannerway uh data center um which was adjacent to its homes and in this case it was it's this is in Virginia it's very close to neighborhoods. So just something for us to keep in mind. So you know if we want to telegraph that to potential um developers for data centers that you know location would be key. You know, I I live about a mile from the railroad tracks and and the train shakes my windows, but it's intermittent. It's intermittent. It's lowle vibration. It's intermittent. And the train was there a hundred years before I was. So, it's okay. You know, it was there first. But if neighborhoods are there first, you know, I just think we need to be sensitive, you know, once we look at where would be an appropriate location for data center. But, you know, the upside is that they're not going to have much traffic. That's for sure. And they're pretty self-sufficient.

Probably of light pollution. Yeah, that's true, too. Yeah. And it's not going to be 140 feet tall. Might be 70 feet. Hey, I would request too that maybe Chuck can submit those to Amy and have that those articles sent to Not everybody has the Wall Street Journal. I do, but I mean everybody on the planning commission and the city council should see those. Is that okay? I think it's just general background knowledge is and since there's no specific proposal in front of us, this is a good time for us to arm ourselves with some based on

it starts to fold into that like M12 discussion almost you know the low impact high impact industrial areas and how do those and where do those locate within our city and then where does this because yes some of the networking stuff just is just so overbearing it's like we're going the other way sustainability when you're talking AI with the energy it's consuming right now is ridiculous, but that's a whole another discussion. It's but I think it starts to fold into those two industrial zones we're talking about. Yeah, it's a good point.

No, I I think it's good information to have. Uh I don't think that that's AI, although that's what's dominating people's discussion, are not the only forms of information technology centers that pop up. So, yeah, good talk, but no. I'm not opposed to listing it at the end of the day. Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Okay. Anything else? If not, is there any individuals in the audience that would like to comment on this particular item? not discuss it some more or we can close the I formally close the hearing and we can move forward with member discussion or recommendation. I move to recommend approval to the governing body of a text amendment to the zoning codes to amend section 17302 and section 17.330 of the Spring Hill unified zoning and subdivision regulations. Third addition to add a definition for information technology facility and to allow it it as a permitted use in M1 district as presented to the staff report.

Second that's mouthful. Yeah. Have a motion and a second. All those in favor start on the left. I I I I I 500. Thank you. Next item. Uh final plaid application. Prairie Ridge subdivision.

Yep. All right. This is for Prairie Ridge at Spring Hill number five. um Barstow Street and 195th Terrace. Um they have submitted for um about 45 residential lots and a tract. Um that's on about 17 acres. Um staff finds it to be in compliance with the preliminary plat. Um it was sent out to all the consultants and engineering um fire department. Um we have any engineering comments have been addressed. Um any easements, additional easements can be um done through the construction design process. Um not much going on here. Um staff does recommend approval of it and I know there's some representatives here and the owner. Um, if you have any questions that I can't answer.

Any questions? I have an easy question. Yeah. Um, and I could probably discern this from the plat, but I get confused. Um, so I'm pretty sure this is a neighborhood that expressed concern here before about only having one entrance in and out. Does this add an entrance to 99th Street or is it still the single entrance? It's still the single entrance. Okay. And staff doesn't have any concerns with that in terms of emergency services or um like it was sent out to the fire department and they didn't express any concerns with it. That was one question. The the other and this is R1 or RP1?

This is R1. R1. Okay. Since it's R1, the lot size has to be larger setbacks and all parking and I assume it would be probably pretty compatible with the existing face

for that. Nice. Any other questions or not? I stand for a motion. If Troy were here, he would find one lot and ask a question. I just I don't have that talent. Very thorough, right? Well, it has to follow all the R1 guidelines. Yeah.

Staff pretty much has done that review, so I don't have Right. Yeah. Okay. You'll entertain a motion. Yes. Okay. I move to recommend approval of application FP25-9 final plat of Prairie Ridge at Spring Hill number five to the Spring Hill governing body, including any conditions as print presented in the staff report. I'll second it. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Sorry. The left. Hi. I I I I.

Motion passes. 500. Okay. Announcements, discussion. So, at the September 11th uh city council, there were no agenda items from the planning commission. And then at the 25th meeting, um they did approve uh the resoning application, the ordinance um from R1 to C2 over there off of Woodland Road as well as the reasonzoning for Oakwoods going from R2 back to RP1. And that's all I have. I I had a question that Amy, you or Spencer could answer. We've talked a couple of times about uh putting more definition on the M M1 and splitting it out. Is that something that we I know the the council is interested in

yesing that separation and I don't know what Sure. Yes. So, it's definitely been expressed from you all and council um at the moment and I'm going to use this as a perfect segue for what Amy was just asking me. We uh the city's a little lean on planning staff. So, the goal is to hire some more folks so that a new community development director gets to be a part of that discussion rather than have it placed on them. That said, I think Amy, we have extended an offer to a planner. Um, yes, we have hired a city planner that will start um late October. So, they'll be involved in that as well and with the comp plan and all of that.

So, that'll help kind of start diffusing some of that workload so that Amy and the staff have time to to look at this as opposed to just sort of being in triage mode, which I think has been what we've been doing for the last few months. So, great. Is there any sense of when a new director will be? They're still interviewing. I don't know that they have found the candidate. I'm not real sure, but I know they're still interviewing. C can you for those for those of us who are still going to claim that we're new, can you give us a sense of the city planner role versus the community development director?

Um, sure. Sure. I mean the development director obviously has more the more managerial role there over the whole department. So there's a supervisory capacity there. There's also more of a broader aspect to the community development role that looks at attracting in businesses being a liaison with the community. Uh probably a deeper need to have understanding of financing and incentives. Um whereas city planner probably is more hands-on with the plan review bringing things to you all. um platting requirements, things like that. So, there's a significant amount of overlap between the two, but the community development director role is going to be broader than the city planner. It's going to be additional obligations beyond just the planning aspect. I

I think it's great. I mean, it sounds like we're adding resources and this should allow us to have more focus at at both ends to be the the granular detail and and also the big picture based on what how you just described it. So, I think that's terrific. Cool. Look forward to meeting them. It's a positive move. Yeah. You do you have any designs to add any other staff um for the for this department or citywide? No, for this department. Two more. Building official and building inspector. Okay. And inspector sounds self-evident. What does the official do?

Oversees the permitting process. the inspection process does some plan review hopefully. Um like building plan review. They'll they'll do most of probably the commercial and industrial inspections. Any other questions? not extend you guys. I don't know if I want to journ

here for 30 minutes. A second. All those in favor of a motion to adjurnn, please signify by saying I. All those opposed none. We're ajourned.