Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening and welcome to the city of Topeka Planning Commission meeting. We are a commission appointed by the mayor and the city council to plan for the orderly growth and development of the community, to hold public hearings, and to make recommendations by the governing body on planning items. Please note that the governing body rules state that the public hearings for planning cases shall be conducted solely by the planning commission. No additional public hearings will be conducted by the governing body. Tonight's cases are tentatively scheduled to be heard by the governing body next month. Agendas can be found at tpika.org. Some of tonight's cases involve public hearings. For those cases, the procedure will be as follows. First, the planning department staff will summarize the case. Next, we will hear from the applicant applicant and their representative or the representative. Then we will receive public testimony. Comments are limited to four minutes. For agenda items that we do that do not involve public hearings, public comment is allowed provided the person has signed up on Topeka speaks or has notified staff prior to 5:00 p.m. today. Comments are limited to four minutes. Finally, at the end of the regular business, the commission will entertain general comment regarding matters relating to commission business, provided the person has signed up on Topeka speaks or notified staff prior to 5:00 p.m. today. Comments are limited to four minutes. Amanda, take the role, please.

Mr. Lai, here. Miss Heron, here. Mr. Brooks, here. Mr. Nagger here. Mr. Bowling present. Miss Hannon here. We have enough for a quorum. Okay, we'll move on to approval of minutes. I make a motion to approve the minutes. Second.

Miss Hannon. I Mr. Bowling. I Mr. Nagger. I Mr. Burks. Hi, Miss Harren. I Mr. Lai. Hi. Minutes passed. Okay. And uh we'll move on to declaration of conflict of interest or exparte communications by members of the commission.

Uh so one of the applicants was one of my professors when I was at college, but I feel like I can make a fair judgment. All right, we'll move on to action items. Um, first item is CU2507. Thank you. All right, good evening, commissioners. Uh, tonight I am presenting CU2507.

Thank you.

No problem. Um, this is a conditional use permit that would allow social events like parties or uh receptions to be held at an existing short-term rental. Um, this short-term rental is at 1200 Southwest Taylor Street in Holiday Park neighborhood. Um, it's been operating as a permitted short-term rental for a few years now. Um the uh basic standards for short-term rentals uh prohibit events like parties or receptions. So this cup is just to allow for those kind of events to be held uh accessory to the short-term rental. Um there are going to be a few conditions on it. Um, all of the standard short-term rental uh restrictions will still apply, including quiet hours from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Um, we are proposing a limit of four events per month just to have some upper bound on it. Um, there are parking requirements for u both short-term rentals and for uh social events. We feel that the parking is sufficient. Um there is uh an adjacent property just to uh the rear of the home that is used as a parking lot. They also have permission from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas to use their parking lot on the weekends. Um and that is the lot just to the northeast um across 12th Street. This is just a simple site plan. Um, we did not include this site plan in the uh big packet, but we did print it out and it's provided. It's the 11 by7. Um, the zoning map and the future land use map, neither of those are changing with this conditional use permit. Um, this is a residentially zoned lot. Um,

it will remain residentially zoned and staff is recommending approval of the conditional use permit. Any questions for staff? Oh, um, so in general, uh, these events are not permitted on short-term rentals, but this would create an exception for the specific short-term rental.

Yes. Um, I guess are there particular reasons? It sounds like there aren't heightened concerns doing that here in this specific case, but I guess like if every short-term rental that currently exists in the city apply to do events and had the like four times per month, those kind of uh the quiet hours restrictions that you currently described. I guess is there a reason that some of those would be approved, some of those might be not approved? Just thinking more broadly than this, what kind of parameters or

uh why make the exception for this one? Yeah, that is a good question and I'm going to pass it to the people who wrote the short-term rental code.

Yeah, commissioner. So, I think one way to look at conditional uses is that under certain conditions they're fine. Other conditions are not. And uh one thing about this property is it's kind of at the edge of the neighborhood. Uh there's actually quite a lot of on street parking, especially on 12. Um there might be situations where this would not be appropriate. Uh smaller yard, smaller unit. It's pretty goodized house. Uh I don't see this setting a precedent if that's a concern because it's a different set of conditions. And when the uh regulations for short-term rentals were adopted, one of the concerns was people would use these as party houses. Uh which sometimes does happen. Um and uh so this is a different different property. It's not the doesn't have the same conditions as other properties.

Thanks. I have a question. Uh, is there a way to make sure that the short-term rental agreement with the occupants has those quiet hours published in there so that there's no confusion for the people who are using these because if they're from out of town, they may not know these quiet hours and I just don't want to ruin it for everybody if we start doing this and then we get a bunch of complaints. I would say that's a good question for the applicant who's here and they can probably answer that question. Would the applicant like to come up?

Hello. Hello. Sorry, didn't get to the microphone first. Don Philippi, Manhattan, Kansas.

And to answer that question is it's in our rules. We have uh the basic rules for Airbnbs, which in our case we're pretty strict on. In fact, we've been asked to have parties at this location before and we kept having to say no. Even though this got a big backyard and it's got a bunch of parking out in back, we can't do it. So, um yes, we have it in our rules. Uh the very first, in fact, the very first uh I wish I could even show you the text that we send. We have like a welcome text. One one of them it says is currently knocking on wood it can change uh no parties but it also tells about okay quiet hours and everything right first thing when they get uh approved to come see us. So,

any other questions for the applicant?

Oh, yeah. Do you want to make a presentation?

Oh, okay. Uh, well, this is a site plan that I drew. I brought a couple extras in case you needed that. Um basically what uh happens is throughout the year is we have people come to our house uh sometimes it's actually people from Topeka who don't have a smaller house and then they want to have families from you know from elsewhere and they come in and say okay uh we're going to celebrate this person's birthday and then we have to say great you just can't celebrate at our house I mean you can't have the party at our house you can have the party elsewhere, but you're more than welcome to bring, you know, you know, your family in here cuz our house sleeps about 10 people, uh, when you add them all up. And so, uh, this is just been something that's been brewing for a while. Um, my understanding is there's not a lot of places for this kind of thing where people can come and stay and then have a party as well. Uh the backyard is uh fairly big and uh we do have about you can fit about six cars including the people who are staying there. And so uh we think it's a uh a pretty good thing and and if you saw the house before we got it, uh we think we've been a good neighbor. Uh it was a burned out Hulk when we got it and now uh people who have seen it think it looks nice and that's due to my wife Candy who she's a decorator person and she does amazing stuff. So do you have any questions for me? I'd be happy to answer anything.

So there was a cap on four events per month. Does that make sense to you or is that work? Have you guys worked that out already? Uh well, we were talking about it and basically that's uh we're thinking mainly it's going to happen on weekends. So if we had every weekend where and that'd be amazing because we have none so far. Uh so I'm not too worried about that. We're thinking about smaller and this is one of the things we would put in if they're going to have something during the week. We would limit it to like 20 people. Have a very small event because we do have parking. It's not like we have no parking, but for a bigger event, um, then we have the parking across the street

on weekends. Is there a a cap? Maybe this is a question for staff, but are we are we is there a cap on number of people with with this or is it um 150 200 people event or I mean that's kind of an extreme, but what's the cap? There is not a cap. Uh other than this, it's just the 20 per event on during the weekdays, right? That's it.

Yeah. So there's no real cap on the number. Um I mean the space the space is somewhat limited. So that will kind of control that. But if I could add to that, um we're very protective of our house. We spent a lot of money on this thing and we would not if it came out to 50 people I think we would start going uh wait a minute uh that's just too many people. Um not to say it couldn't happen but it would have to be transitional where people came and then left people came and left. Not uh something like that. I don't think you fit pe I don't fit 50 people back there. Not very easily. I mean be crowded. So,

I would agree that we should consider a cap on what would be reasonable for you. Uh, well, we said 50 just now. 50 I think think if Yeah. Okay. Because there's your intentions and then there's whoever owns it down the road. I totally understand that. What happens is we're this is where we're on one end and the person who's renting it is on the other end. And yes, it'd be good if we had something like that. If it got rockets, we can go, okay, wait a minute, you had 50 people now. You got like 200. Uh, no, no, no. We can we can kick you out. Um, yeah, that I could see that.

Did you want to suggest an amendment? I do. I would suggest that we cap the attendees at 50 people. Okay. Does that sound reasonable to everyone? And it was how many on weekdays? 20. Do we want to define a difference or just what a weekend? Yeah. Yeah, probably. I don't I don't mind either way. I just So, would it be uh to 50 on the weekends? I I think that would be a max overall for me for sure. I don't know that I am bothered if we define it weekdays versus weekends, but I'm also happy to hear what everybody else thinks. 50 just 50. It's going to be hard to enforce weekends and Yeah, I agree.

It's just going to make a lot more trouble enforcement, I think.

All right. Any other Oh, are we all done with the applicant? Well, I was just going to ask Yeah, I'm all done. I'm good. Okay. Any other questions for the applicant? Okay. All right. Thank you so much. All right. And then open it up for public comment. Was there any public comment? Come on up. The president historic holiday part. Would you mind introducing yourself?

I'm Wayne Roberts. was the president of historic holiday for several years and now it's my wife because I've hit my term limit. This house has probably been a major improvement to our neighborhood and everybody has been very happy with what they've done, you know, with the Airbnb and the kind of people they brought in and we're we're 100% behind it. It's it's a positive for our neighborhood, not a negative. Just want to make sure everybody knows that. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Um, so now we'll close public comment and um discussion by the commissioners. I know we had an amendment. Would this be at the time now where we Oh, go ahead. Somebody would need to make a motion on uh just as we get through this, somebody will need to Do you want to explain it? Someone will need to make a motion to include the amendment. Right. And then someone will have to second that, of course. Okay. All right. Someone want to present a motion? I had a question.

Um, before we go there, if we can, um, so how does that how does this work? Let's say the property changes hands. Does the conditional use permit stick with the property? That's a great question. Um, so the way it works is they have a short-term rental type 2 permit for two years. I don't know when that permit expires. Do you know the date of that? November 2027.

Okay. So, the approval of the events is accessory to the short-term rental. So, it's not just an event center. So, um, I think what that means is if Mr. Philippe sold the property, the buyer would have rights to, you know, use it through the term of the permit. If they renew the permit, and this perhaps was not thought through that clearly, but if they renew the permit, I think what that means is this approval of events would transfer to the new owner. And that's something we didn't spend a lot of time thinking about, I think, but maybe we did. I don't know. I think also yeah

condition three of the recommended motion in the event of substantial changes in operations the applicant shall submit a revised statement of operations. I think that's somewhat covered if if it changes hands and then a new owner wants to do something different with it. This isn't just a blanket. Yeah. Y

any other discussion by commissioners? Okay. Um uh I was I meant to ask this earlier. Um but I noticed that the it looked like the neighborhood meeting it was just submitted by the applicant. Usually I think the neighborhood meeting information is presented by staff and I don't have any big concerns in this specific instance especially with a member of the neighborhood who is clearly plugged into the NIA saying that they've been good partners but just curious if there was any particular reason why it wasn't prepared by staff this time or if that's a new thing. Commissioner, it's kind of been done both ways, honestly. I think recently has been submitted by staff, so you might be thinking about that, maybe,

but it's kind of both. We actually asked the applicant to do it. Um, Paul and I were both at the meeting. Um, and it just seemed like people were very happy about the building. You know, they they weren't asking a lot of questions about the events. They were just so happy about the way it's designed and just the fact that it's been rehabbed. It's a beautiful It's a beautiful beautiful house inside and out. That was the nature of the meeting.

Yeah, I I don't have concerns about that on this specific one. I just I could see a situation in which in future if a developer comes in and their report says the neighborhood loved it and then a neighbor comes in and said, "No, we didn't." It's hard for us to figure out which parts are credible and which aren't. So there's also the there's a about a paragraph on it inside the report. It's written by staff. Right. Right. Any other discussion?

The overflow parking at Blue Cross Blue Shield is not necessarily part of the conditional items, right? It's more of a note that they kind of have an agreement right now. Well, you know, it could be. It actually could be in the statement of operations. It is in the statement of operations. They mentioned that. Okay. I'm just a concerned because that letter is written to the owner and if the permit the ownership changes, you know, for whatever reason, obviously that's not the intent to happen. Oh,

that do we have a problem there? I have a question just kind of in the vein of that. So if the in 2027 the permit would need to be renewed, the cup needs to be renewed. So that's a great question. Um well and because that because that leads to kind of if it's a situation where the cup needs to be renewed, well then this is something that can continually be re-evaluated. anyway to address I think what you're concerned would be what would be the long-term precedence of it.

So I know what we did with the previous cup which was also Mr. Philippines uh on the drive. Um they were allowed I think one extension. They're allowed to renew it and have an extension and then it was administratively approved and then they it was limited. It was time limited. Uh I think our thinking on this one um was that it was so limited already that it was not as much of a concern. But I think I will be straightforward in saying this and I don't think we really thought through very far about the okay what happens beyond the term of the permit and there's probably a way to craft some language uh for that. Uh I think I don't think you want to defer this. I think you want to make take action on this but but uh there's probably a way to articulate some kind of limit on that. uh you know the letter from as you pointed out the letter from Blue uh Blue Cross Blue Shield is specifically granting permission to Mr. Philippe. Uh, and so whether that's transferable or not, I don't know.

And more of the concern, you know, if you have an event with 50 people and you don't have permission to use that lot, right? What does that do to the rest of the parking load in the neighborhood, which can be congested at times, especially with some of the other businesses across the street, right? Any other discussion?

Um, well, some thoughts that I want to share. You know, I'm very familiar with the short-term rental um community here, and I think it speaks volumes that the owners are actually going through this process. Um, I think it says a lot about their willing to their willingness to steward the property and to steward the neighborhood. Um, I think it's a positive that they have a note from Blue Cross and Blue Shield even saying that they're willing to allow parking. Um there are some people that own Airbnb that aren't that good of neighbors to the community. So I think all of those things to me speak volumes about what their intentions are. Um because they could have chosen not to go through this process and off and operated you know pretty much illegally. Um another thing too I do believe Airbnb and Verbbo also do have strict requirements with stays and with events in themselves if I'm correct. um where I'm not necessarily concerned about this being a blanket thing in the community because in order for you to operate an Airbnb, they have their own rules within how you run this business. So, I don't necessarily have a concern about this becoming a rampant um thing. I actually would say it's probably something that as property use is changing, this might be something that might come up more in the future. Um, and so maybe there should be more conversations about like the CUP process, whether it should be something that um is just part of attached to the permit and needs to be renewed or not. It might be something that needs to be re-evaluated, but I'm pretty optimistic. Um, and I think it does meet a need need in the community and it's a very well-maintained property. Um, so I those are just my thoughts on it. I don't necessarily have too many concerns um outside of that. Um, so with that, any other discussion or do you someone

Well, I I was going to add uh I sit on some uh pol public policy groups in Kansas City and this is not going away. This is something that's you especially with them having the World Cup coming. So, I think we're going to see more and more of this because as you said with the short-term rentals that that's kind of evolving and people are going to be doing more of this. So, I think being in control of the process is the best part for us to be able to do. Mhm. That looks good. Any other comments? All right, I'll take Oh,

so madam chair, I have an idea about how to deal with the blue cross blue shield issue. I think that is kind of a weak point here potentially if it does change hands because the permission is given directly to Don Philippy. Mhm. I think that if there's a condition that says that uh if if this goes beyond the term of the permit or it changes hands,

then staff has the ability to evaluate it and make sure that they've secured enough off-site parking for their events. That leaves it because those those parking lots, there are a lot of parking lots over there that are not fully used. They're certainly not used on weekends. And I think there's a way to get that parking if not there somewhere else. And I I think that will address that issue. Okay. Any thoughts? Nope. I'm good. That that's more of a dot in the eyes, crossing the tees sort of thing. Mhm. So that'll be needed that we will need to include that in the amendment. Correct. Yeah. I think you would in your amendment you would amend it to a maximum of 50 per event. Mhm.

And in addition to that amend it such that there's a condition that if the property changes hands uh off-site parking or off- streetet parking must be secured to support the events. Okay. Some to that effect. Okay. And and you know you don't have to be perfect. I think in how you articulate it, you know, we will write the condition and that will get forwarded on to the governing body. Okay. So, do I make the motion? Whoever. Okay. Is is there a separate motion for each amendment or we can do a whole? All right.

I think you want to make one motion with both. I move to approve um as described in staff presentation with two amendments. First that uh events be limited to 50 um attendees and second that if uh circumstances change then staff will um conclude whether or not parking arrangements are satisfactory. Yes, I think that's fine. I think. All right. Yeah.

And the 50 attendees is for weekday and weekends. Did we need to specify that or is it a blanket 50? I heard that you concluded that you did not need to distinguish between. Okay. But that certainly is up to you. No. No. No. It's perfectly fine. All right. Moving on to Oh, no. We need a vote. Sorry. I'll second that. Oh, yes. Second. Yeah. Mr. Bowling. I Miss Hannon. Hi, Mr. Nagger. Hi, Mr. Brooks. Hi, Miss Harren. I

Mr. Lai, I.

Motion passes. Okay, moving on to action item Z2601. Thank you, chairman. This is case Z2601. The applicant is ATA Development LLC. The applicant is requesting to amend the zoning map from PUD planned unit development for C2 commercial uses to M2 multiple family dwelling district on a property that's located on along the west side of southwest Uish Road about 500t north of the northwest intersection of 21st and Uish road. The existing portion of the property subject to the resoning change contains 1.36 acres. The entire parcel of applicants property contains 5.78 acres. A portion of their property is already zoned M2 multiple family dwelling district. The applicant's proposed, although not tied to the resoning, tied to the zoning amendment, the applicant has made it known that they're proposing 18 duplexes on the entire 5.78 acre site attached. The next slide shows a rendering of the duplexes, what they have submitted to us. On the north side of the property is M2 multiple family dwelling district. That is undeveloped land. The applicant owns this portion of the property as well. To the south is C2 commercial district contains a retail center. To the east is RR1 residential reserve district and contains single family dwellings that

are not yet annexed into the city. And on the west side of the subject parcel, the properties are zoned RR1 residential reserve district and contain large lot rural single family dwellings. The subject site is in conformance to the comprehensive plan. The land use and growth management plan shows this as being planned for medium density residential uses at a mixeduse node. The applicant held a neighborhood meeting that was on January 29th. The neighbors main questions asked at the neighborhood meeting were about annexation of adjacent properties. I think the answer to that question is that the subject resoning does not have any impact on whether adjacent properties are annexed. Staff evaluated this according to section 18245 of the municipal code and the golden factors and that is analyzed in the staff report and we are open for any questions that you may have. Staff is recommending approval. Thank you.

Any questions for staff? Commissioner,

I think you already answered this, but I just want to make sure that I'm on the same page. Uh so whether or not these properties that are out in the county, not within the city limits, um to the east and to the northwest, they may be annexed in the future. They may not be annexed in the future, but that the pros and cons of that, the consideration of that is not determined by any one property like like this being shifted from commercial to residential. It's determined by a whole litany of things and the context of the neighborhood as a whole. Is that right? The planning commission if it's more than 10 acres or 10 acres or more, they have to make a finding that is consistent with a comprehensive plan. That's one thing. Uh the evaluation of an annexation is based basically on a like a return on investment costbenefit analysis and is not based on adjacent land use really. It's based on more on services where the city can adequately so provide services in a efficient way that's that's not of a burden to the community.

Thank you. Any other questions for staff? All right. Will the applicant come up? Good evening, Madam Chair. Kevin Holland, Cook Flatten Trouble Engineers, uh, here for the developer, uh, ATA development. And, uh, I think Miss Driver kind of said it very eloquently, looking to do some duplexes at a a nice area of Topeka that that could use it. and and uh it's the little piece versus the the large piece to the north is already M2, so it it fits in very nicely. But I can answer any questions.

The 18 units, is that for everything or just this little piece we're talking about? That's the the whole development. So, do each of those have an individual drive out to the street? They we will plan on two entry points. just a basically a a horseshoe for the most part. Um and all of the access points to the duplexes will be interior. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions?

What which direction are they facing again as far as this the horseshoe? How is that going to be? will be they will so on the southern piece there'll be three facing the north uh and then there will be six facing each other on the middle and then on the north they'll be facing the south and we'll enter between the three and between the three on the north and south and it's the property is basically peaked so right in the middle is your high point as is the road there as well

and This did go before the neighborhood. Nobody complained about having multifamily parking and all that. And that's why I ask about which way they're facing because sometimes single family residents on the other side of the street are looking at that and going, "Gosh, look at all that."

Yeah. And and the folks, the only ones that showed up, well, one one uh um woman was there to and she did not identify her address and said she was just uh interested in the project. And the other one was in the the area to the north and west that the uh subdivision back there. But it was strictly they wanted to make sure anything we were doing would not increase the uh possibility of annexation into the city from their perspective. Any other questions for the applicant? All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

All right. Any public comment? All right. Seeing none, um we will close public comment and move to discussion by commissioners. And if no discussion, I'll entertain a motion. Uh just to say uh thanks for investing in Topeka. Uh it's it's a good thing. And so, but besides that, I um I don't have any issues. I think it's good. I'll recommend approval uh based on comments in the staff report.

Second, Mr. Lilly. Hi, Miss Herren. Hi, Mr. Brooks. Hi, Mr. Nagger. I Miss Hannon. Hi, Mr. Bullying. I motion passes. Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Moving on to special uh report from special committee housing. Um we will have our first meeting this Wednesday. Um the duplex um did go before the public finance committee,

policy and finance. Policy and finance committee. Um and I'll probably kind of let you talk about that a little bit, Dan, as far as next steps. I know that there was some conversation and um the opportunity to engage more discourse was presented. Um, so, um, I don't know if you have any updates on when that will happen, but we will be having our first committee with our new and previous, um, um, commissioners this Wednesday, and we'll probably have more of a report next month. Um,

so I have a question on that because I wasn't at that committee meeting. Um, in my mind, I could have been wrong, but when we approved the duplex proposal, um, I thought that was going before the council. So, I'm hearing that it's not going before the council. Could you clarify the maybe the process and help me understand that a little better?

You bet. So, you know, we kind of throughout last year took the duplex project to policy and finance. Um, I'm not I can't honestly remember why uh we did that at the time. I think it was um but we updated the committee on process. Um they uh took up public comment. The committee took up public comment at the January meeting. Um, again, you know, it's a text amendment, so it doesn't have to, you know, it follows a little different process, so we're not necessarily beholden to certain things we are with public, you know, zoning cases and whatnot. So, um, you know, the direction from the committee was to have another public meeting and so, you know, four to six weeks, we'll try to schedule another meeting and then see where it goes from there. Thank you.

Well, and then I have a question to that because one of the will the public hearing will it be here or will it be at a location of their choice? No, we'll have it, you know, maybe the library, maybe somewhere. It's just a public meeting, not a public hearing. It's just a gathering of folks to come and talk about the duplex.

And then I have another question, follow-up question to that. How will the information be disseminated? Because one of my concerns is, and I understand the reasoning, um, because people do have concerns and they want to make sure that their concerns are addressed. Um, but I want to make sure that we're fairly sharing this space. And so, if this is going to be um, open to the public, is that something that staff will disseminate that notice out or is this only for Okay. Yeah, I think that would be really important just to make sure that there if there are additional voices that want to speak that that's given equally to multiple people. You bet.

Can you clarify because I I was there for that meeting and they were talking about more than duplexes though. They were talking about quads and tries as well. Well, yep. Yeah. So, Commissioner, uh that's duplexes is uh short for the project. It is duplexes, quads and tries, tries and quads in single family zoning. That's the text amendment. Um I just oftentimes say just duplex project. So any other comment? All right, moving on to general public comment. And seeming like there's none, we can move on to communication to the commission

commissioners. uh three three to four cases next month. So, we'll have a busy meeting um potentially bringing back some other stuff. We'll just have to see how it looks. Um but definitely having another meeting updated on duplex. So, I think that's it. Okay. I'm sorry. I do have one more question I meant to ask during um our special committee um and housing. Um what will be the process after the next public comment? Will it then go back to policy and finance or will it then go to council or will it be coming back to us? I guess I'm not quite sure about that. Okay. All right. Well, we will move to a German