Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

[Music] good evening and welcome to the save Topeka Planning Commission meeting we are a commission appointed by the mayor and city council to plan for the orderly growth and development of the community to hold public hearings and to make recommendations to the governing body on planning items please note that the governing body rules state public hearing for planning cases shall be conducted solely by the Planning Commission no additional public hearings will take place conducted by the governing body for agenda items that do not involve public hearings public comment is allowed provided the person has signed up on to TOA speaks or has notified staff prior to 5:00 p.m. today comments are limited to 4 minutes at the end of regular business the commission will entertain General comment regarding matters relating to commission business provide the person has signed up on toeka speaks or has notified staff prior to 5:00 p.m. today comments are limited to four minutes Amanda please take the role Mr L I see that Miss Nelson is absent looks like Miss Heron is accent nope Miss I see Miss Heron walking in I'm going to call you Mr Brooks is absent Mr C here Mr nagger here miss Pearson here Mr mock here miss Hanan here we have enough for a quum there being enough for a we move on to the approval of the minutes um I had one minor comment on the first page it said that we voted on chair and vice Chair by print V cards uh I think we actually did it by roll

that's I don't think a meaningful difference but [Applause] just any other comments on the minutes I would move approval of minutes with the correction the chair mentioned and otherwise as submitted by staff second with a motion in a second uh any further discussion then please take the rooll Mr L hi I command Mr C hi Mr nagger hi Miss Pearson hi Mr mock hi Miss Hannon hi minutes pass all right um the next item we're actually going to the one action item that we had tonight was with drawn and so we're not going to be doing that with that we're also not going to be uh needing to go into any Declaration of conflict of interest since we're not having an item so we move on to discussion items the first of which is the land use and growth management plan for 2040 thank you Mr chairman so I'm going to go over this update I want to just talk about a few things real quick um so process for this is going to be a little bit at a time so you in your packet you have the background that's been updated with new data um you have the executive summary that's been uh tweaked a little bit and

then uh the first part of the ug policies we didn't get into the whole ug chapter we wanted to kind of focus on the things that were top of mind for that chapter so uh we'll go over most of that in the presentation not really the background so much but the other things um so either next month uh depending on how many cases you have it's going to be a lot or in May we'll come back with some more for the land use and growth management plan so we're being a little deliberate about this and not trying to give you everything at once um so uh one other point here to make about the the plan you know as we got into it a little bit and we're kind of refamiliarizing ourselves with the the plan it really stands out to me anyway that this is just as important of a document as it was 10 years ago um the things that it's talking about as far as um you know fiscally responsible growth investing where we are where we've made you know investments in infrastructure and water and sewer and you know police and all that is still just as relevant today as ever um as we look outside the city and the changes we made uh with this document and the the subdivision RS and utility rigs um those were meaningful changes and you know as we as we in the last couple years have had to go to the legislature and uh talk to them about why you know eliminating the three mile boundary is a bad idea for instance um it just reinforces how much this plan is important uh for topeka's growth land use and growth management so with that let me uh get into this a little bit uh So within the executive summary there is uh a section devoted to do measurables so there's a series of questions there that um basically say

you know how how are these going to be answered the next time the document is updated so let's talk about that a little bit so the first question there is is to Pica growing and capturing a greater percentage of population relative to shaune County uh the answer to that one is no um so some things to kind of talk about there so when we worked on this plan uh 10 years ago we went into it Eyes Wide Open um there are a number of um approved subdivisions outside the city major subdivisions with multiple uh lots that were approved decades ago and are still building out you know 10 years ago they were we knew that was going to happen so it's going to be challenging to catch up so to speak when we've approved all of that development outside the city um so that's one point another point to make here is um in the last 10 years topeka's population went down a little bit um you also are starting to see the County's population flattening out a little bit it's not growing quite as fast as it was so um you know we'll keep figuring out ways to work on this but I just want to point out that we're a little bit behind the eightball based on previous decisions uh by other planning commissions and governing bodies so the next question here is TOA developing in a more comp and higher density land use pattern so again the answer is no a couple things to point out uh that you all you know it may not you've approved some you and the governing body have approved some annexations of very large non-residential properties just within the last few years you know that wasburn rural middle school property is not going to have a single dwelling unit on it but it's a massive property out there on the edge um we've approved large

industrial sites for annexation and that's probably been a pattern you know since the 50s truthfully when the city started um really adding more kind of employment related development to the to the city and so that's impacting that density and then also um we did you did approve a few years ago a subdivision no you didn't approve a subdivision the annexation an island annexation for over on Croco um for a single family and duplex development that still hasn't developed so that's another example where we just aren't getting the the residential in there so um I want to say though that you know things that we're doing that the committee is working on that the government that you've approved for adus and you're talking about duplexes that are going to start to develop maybe a little more density and as we get some larger you know multif family products hopefully some larger Apartments uh that will start to add more density to the city some of this could move um if you look at the bar chart um you know since 2020 even you know Manhattan and la and uh Lawrence have um gone down um in in overall density so it's not just a peo problem necessarily um okay so the next question then is so is top investing more more within older areas of the city um is Neighborhood Health improving so let's talk about Neighborhood Health First so you know there's different ways to measure um if Neighborhood Health is improving or not one way to do it is to make note of so the the NRP has been updated three times since 2010 and every um every cycle now so three times the boundary uh was reduced one square mile

so uh we only pull block groups out of the NRP if their health got better so that's that's Health getting better when the NRP gets smaller um couple other more maybe more anecdotal examples the East TOA neighborhood um for the longest time was uh there's two block groups there that was uh intensive care raing for the longest time um and those have G come out of intensive care and gone to at risk that was a big deal and then there's a block group within High Crest this last time that went from intensive care to at risk also again the first time that that's happened so there's some examples of neighbor Health getting better uh we'll see what the next you know 3 years six years uh goes but you know I think neighborhood Health's gotten a little better um so a couple things about investment then so TOA dreams program is the old sort program so uh dreams one is a neighborhood investment program and that is uh so every two years this um a neighborhood is selected to to get this money and and the first thing we do is do a neighborhood plan so historic Oldtown is the newest uh dreams one neighborhood and you will see an updated neighborhood plan later this year as we get that started uh soon so that's been going on for quite a while and then dreams 2 uh is the same money but it's uh not for a specific neighborhood it's it's uh neighborhoods can apply for that money so instead of being in one neighborhood that can go out to uh multiple neighborhoods so that Investments at least stayed the same um I'll give you another example when we were going uh to do C or um yeah Central Parks neighborhood plan um the city had already come through and um fixed the

streets so there's a city-wide half cent sales tax program that fixes neighborhood streets basically repaves streets so when we got to Central Park that that was done and so we focus that dreams money on other projects so just a couple of examples of investment in neighborhoods uh so the next one is to offering more walkable transportation choices absolutely this is une unequivocal that this is happening uh since since 2010 or 2014 uh so this example is uh from downtown so downtown master plan identified a series of districts within downtown and each of those District plans has a circulation complete streets um section and so this example from the capitol district is 8th Avenue that was designated as a mixed use Boulevard so you can see what was built out there in front of the capital um is exactly that pedestrian bikee bus called car that's that's offering more transportation choices within our street system um another example is the city applied for and received a $25 million raise Grant and that money is being used to um build I think 52 miles of sidewalks in a in a neighborhood that doesn't have sidewalks so that is fairly big deal and then also on the countywide half set sales tax there's a Citywide half sales tax there a county halfway sales tax uh within the countywide um there's a bikeways master plan allocation so there's money from the county halfway sales tax to implement the bikeways master plan so you know those bike biking facilities that are on the street uh there's money to to do

that um so have the platin utility rules been changed to limit Ro residential sprawl yes we did we did both of those things we uh amended the subdivision regulations in the three mile and also amended the utility regulations okay so I guess is there any questions about that stuff before I go on to the executive summary I do Dan yeah regarding your tier three where you do not looking okay regarding your tier three where there's no approval in these subdivisions um is that just a general broad brush regardless of the size or what it's planning on being being developed so so the policy and Michael get into it a little bit um for the three mile basically is not Urban subdivisions so it would be uh we you know we permit a certain sort of cluster development uh but then we expect the rest of it to kind of remain for a future Urban uh development when it's ready for that um so that's most especially applicable outside of the urban growth area so on the map that's on the screen the green is the urban growth area um you know that's more about about you know what's it take to Annex that sort that land and and develop that so um the policy does not support urbanization outside of the city is what I would say um so even if it's just one person that purchased a lot for

let's say to build their retirement home later or to divide off for an investment purpose you know they're only adding one more lot to it and just saying that because there's been some instances where that's been denied for these people that have this sure I mean we work really hard to try to get to a no or a yes on uh on the questions outside the city the the property division questions um and so yeah Mike I think Mike will get into that a little bit more when he starts talking about about that so I just had um uh in terms of the data you're using you're the using the denal denal census um from 2020 can you not get more updated uh demographic information like from the American um sensus survey Community survey it's the issue with I'm trying to remember what Bryson and I talked about um we can use it but I don't know that it's been released or it's particularly uh reliable the American Community survey so I think because we because we need census data and American Community survey for other projects that we do mhm I think I'm to get back to you on that and give you a better answer about why we didn't use the American Community survey okay thank you Dan I I'm not sure I heard her you you have more of your presentation or are you taking questions on everything

that was submitted on the agenda uh I have more of my presentation okay I've got some more things to talk about okay and so does Mike I'll have some questions for you then okay thank you okay all right let's uh move on to this um So within a couple we made a couple changes within the executive summary uh one was a suggestion from uh commissioner CP on the you know one of those phisically responsible bullets the other is we sort of separated out housing choices from Transportation under the pillars and just to make it stand out a little more and we added a little bit of sort of you know 40,000 ft uh policy to that uh one thing I want to point out about the growth management plan is that you know it's land use and growth management um we've got a housing study that has a lot of things to do to improve the housing market into PE up um with the and we also have uh you know we mentioned the bikeways master plan already we've got you know a transportation plan we've got a pedestrian master plan that just got updated uh we've got Transportation plans and that doesn't have to be in the land use and growth management plan so my point is this plan should have you know sort of high level um policies and let these other documents do the do those things for those particular items but so a little more um policy a little more clarification or was added to the housing choices

okay so major recommendations um essentially all four of those bullets are complete um we establish the GA we implemented a 20 acre minimum within the urban growth area um you know we continue to require annexation that's more kind of administrative stuff um and then also bring forth unilateral annexations that Fit U policies uh we did that recently with the Washburn rule on 53rd and um Waker that was a unilateral annexation so um you probably don't need you probably don't want to know all this but unilateral annexation is basically the UN is the key part there meaning just one party is interested in it um so a unilateral annexation means it's a city trying to Annex without property owner consent consented annexations are both parties that are coming together so uh there's a bill I'm testifying in the legislature tomorrow morning on a bill that would um would limit the abil the city a city's ability to unilaterally Annex property so we're going to go talk to them about that tomorrow okay so Mike is next okay thank you thank you so um one thing if you want just a real quick effective primmer on the land use and growth management plan there is a video on the city website it's about 7 minutes long 8 minutes long and it's excellent I mean you can read the plan and try to figure it out and summarize it get the key points out of it but that video does

a really good job of explaining why uh it was adopted when it was adopted and the nature of the plan and what what it's really set out to do um okay so I'm going to talk about growth management so um there's a policy in the growth management plan that limit subdivisions to an 80 20% 80% 20% split split what that means is is you can see on those uh diagrams on the right those exhibits um if someone wants to subdivide their property and this really pertains when someone's subdividing in a way that requires a Subdivision plat by the way it's not so much if it's exempt from platting then what we we generally require is that the largest of the Lots being created needs to occupy 80% of the parent tra and what that does is it preserves land for future development as you can see on the right so if you think about I think one thing we have to remind stakeholders sometimes and customers is that this is about planning long range plan so it's not about thinking about what's going to happen in the next 5 years it's really thinking about what's going to happen 25 years years 50 years out you think about um patterns of development in the city um the development pattern and the plats and public streets that were created in the late 1800s early 1900s have really set the pattern uh for how the city's grown and that's been that's how it is uh so this is really important so as you can see on the right maybe uh if there is a lot of population growth and there's a demand for more Housing Development outside in areas outside the city and as infrastructure becomes

available and as the city brings those areas in and amends us ug for example then it could accommodate that kind of development but if if you have land that gets subdivided in a way that you have a bunch of um oh I don't know 5 acre lots that front on a street and that are really deep but we call it we like to call those piano keys it prevents that kind of growth in the future so it really it pushes growth further out it contributes to a sprawl pattern that um is is not uh fiscally responsible in terms of how how the city should grow City should grow at an urban density uh where it's easier to serve that density and and and uh those the population with streets sewers and water so um the proposed tax changes reflect the 2015 changes to subdivision utility regulations I say soos what we found in just applying these policies and keep in mind that and back up a little bit so we have something called platum exemption rules if someone wants to subdivide land outside the city limits or even inside the city limits um if if the um the way they want to subdivide the property meet certain rules it means that they don't have to do a Subdivision plat they don't have to it's just it's allowed it meets those rules it's allowed we don't have to require a plat makes it a lot simpler for the owner and uh buyer and developer um so this applies again if someone is required to PL and so we the the Baseline really is this 20 20% 80% % split what we found is

uh if and this is consistent with policy um in the plan if the balance after you take that 20% out is more than 20 is more than 20 acres maybe it's 40 some acres and they can get two lots then what we've done is is allowed that 20% to creep up a little higher than that like 25% 30% we don't have a lot of examples of that but we have a two examples of that so uh there's a proposed change in here that would reflect that and support that and this is the proposed revision I'm talking about so uh 20% is permitted to be developed well let me just jump to the red part of it so the first four bullets talk about the um what the policy is currently and then where you see the red underline text that is the proposed change so it just allows a little more flexibility for those larger tracks is that it but there should be something else in here okay all right so let me answer um commissioner Mark's question so uh the pl exemption rules are different in the urban growth area than they are outside the urban growth area in the urban growth area uh to be plating exempt not only do you not are not connecting to City Water city sewer but uh you have to each lot that's being created each track that's being created has to be 20 acres and so uh it is difficult sometimes to accommodate subdivisions unless we apply that 20 80% rule 20% 80%

Ru um unless someone has a lot of land like if they want to subdivide their ground and be exempt from platting they're going to have to have 40 acres because each each resulting tract has to have 20 acres the other rule is uh each track has to have 300 ft of Frontage and there's also a depth to width ratio uh so that addresses that PL that piano key problem that depth the width W width to depth ratio so the width to depth ratio is the depth is can be no more than twice the average width of the track in order to be such rules so what happens when you get outside the U the way the rules are is it's the same except the minimum track size is 3 acres so it's much more flexible when you get outside the ug um the idea being that if you're in the ug uh it's primed or pretty close to getting being able to be developed at an urban density because the infrastructure is going to be extended to that area sooner and so uh it's really preserving that area for growth at an urban density when it's ready for that Urban density and so we're still working on a few other changes to the growth management section of the of the plan um I don't expect there going to be a lot of changes to that a lot of other changes um there's another section of the plan uh which is the landing section and that's something we reference when uh we bring uh rezoning cases to you and conditional use permit applications to you um one of the findings that's made is is it does it conform to the comprehensive plan the land use and growth management plan really is comprehensive plan in this in this context um and so uh we don't anticipate

a lot of changes to that uh we do anticipate possibly some changes to the Future land use map and with that I'll take any questions you have or suggestions I have a question Mike okay um so regarding your 8020 so a new lot to be exempt has to have be 20 acres at the minimum in the urban growth area yes correct in the urban and 300t of Frontage 300t of Frontage and then no deeper than 600 feet no more no deeper than twice the average width of the width of the tra right so if it's at 300 then it'd be 600 except that's only about four that's four L 4 and half AC yeah so that so would there wouldn't be a need to have a minimum Frontage would there I mean if you're ruling so I think number is 20 acres it's going to get a lot bigger where that 300 comes into play is is a block width so if you consider that a block typical block is going to have a street that has 60 ft of right away and a lot running on each side of that street let's say you have a lot that's we have 60 about what is it 120 120 that's 240 yeah sure yeah so that's what that that's what that frage is based on I believe currently uh the pl exemption rules outside of the 3 Mile extra territorial jurisdiction are 200 ft of Frontage and minimum 3 acres right and that's what they that's what applied inside the extra territorial jurisdiction before the the amendment in 2015 sure I I guess that

was my comment is if you're going to hold 300 foot you'll never get that 20 acres oh if it's only two to one yeah yeah that's true so I mean would would would the ruling Factor then be 20 acres and then just a contigous road Frontage so it's not true well it's true to a point so what we accept as that width is the average width so you could have an L-shaped track for example it only has 300 ft of Frontage but has a depth the width ratio of of uh no more than 2: one and 20 acres it just depends on the shape of the track okay and it's a minimum 300 so if you have a th well for sure yeah right okay you have any questions Mr well first of all would say that you know the text that's there including the existing text is all good stuff and the edits I think are good um I've mentioned a time or two that I've been around for a long time and uh I've noticed since the 1990s as we've done comp plans and plan updates um talking about the extr territorial area the Urban Fringe um there's been a reluctance to talk about the um what in my opinion is has led to the necessity to do things like what's on the screen uh being created with the subdivision Rigs and that's the absence of any uh City Zoning in the extr territorial area and I know that might be a third rail um a nonstarter and all that but but the fact that it's not even

a mentioned and nothing against our good friends with the county but um you know there are places around the state where you have City County cooperation inter local agreements and maybe a small sliver of land that is has potential for development um becomes either jointly regulated by the city and the county or there's Defence given to the city's regulations you know you don't people when you talk about act territorial zoning people kind of jump to this well you're going three miles out so now you may go 19 in out you know um three 3 mil is the outer limit and for example north of town it makes probably zero sense to even talk about any any zoning that's that's a done deal uh growth of the city going north is pretty much shut down because of what's been happening in the last X number of decades so I guess my point my question is is there any um any uh desire at all to even mention as a major recommendation or I mean me just to to wave the flag if you will just to just to mention that the absence of City Zoning has resulted in in the EXT territorial area has resulted in um the proliferation of of the subdivisions that we've seen to the north and and some other directions from the city um and cutting off the urban the ability to to have urbanized level of uh of development um so I I mean there's a cause and effect that's out there well I can tell you one thing um that has prevented some of that development pattern that you see outside the city limits uh a lot of those subdivisions that they're in urban density they have sewers water um is the

subdivision regulations really discourage uh major plats that involve a lot of lots uh streets um I can't think of one subdivision that has a lot of public streets in it that's been approved uh since the adoption of the plan I could be wrong Dan might know about some but I uh as far as zoning currently way it works is we we have the opportunity to comment on zoning uh we haven't really seen much of an issue with that but I maybe Dan can probably answer the part about zoning a lot than I can so I guess I would would argue the platting rules are probably more important um and I would also mention that utilities are a big deal and again those decisions were made a long time ago but what this plan says and what our what this plan says is we're not going to support any more extensions of utilities so sewer and water outside the city so that is attempting to um you know control that a little better along with the the plating Authority cuz you know that infrastructure is a big deal for density out there so um I don't I guess I don't know what zoning how how zoning really you know if people can't you know connect a sewer or divide their property in a way you know I don't know that zoning to me zoning is probably third on the list of things that we can do to help you know plan better growth but um so I don't know I don't know if we' would support mentioning that or not in the document well it is a question I'm

not making a statement it's a question because I know it's it's a a very touchy subject but uh I I have to think that the U uh the landscape would look different if the city had um worked a deal out with the county 30 40 years ago for the uh regulation of land on The Fringe that um provided for board subdiv rags and soning so another thought um so the city and the county were together for for a long time as a metropolitan uh planning organ well that's a transportation thing um so we this this Planning Commission was reviewing zoning cases in Three Mile and plats is that right yeah I'm pretty sure that's right um but we're no longer together that decision was made to separate and we kept the platting and the county has the zoning and permits so that's but it was together for a long time and you still saw that land at 43rd 40 Highway 75 and 47th 46th 46th sorry uh you've got you know that commercial development on that in that area and that that all happened while the city and the county were together um and that was driven and that was driven by a big sewer Interceptor that was extended to the yeah to the Northwest right so we're trying the situation we have here though I don't know of another city in Kansas that has this kind of a separation of function between the city and the county uh maybe there are I'm just not aware of any and you got to think I think that some developers um scratch their head a little bit when they uh when they come

to town and and are told the way the the way the jurisdictions U play out but I'm not trying to make trouble Dan I will just answer that question you know it is it it has been and I've said seriously since the '90s back when it was a comprehensive uh Planning Commission and and staff um you know there was always disc discussion about it uh and some recognition of it but um it never made its way into the into comp plans or the updates to the plans yeah okay and still won't I I can just add one thing to that I think where it does make a difference is if there is a lot of retail commercial development that's occurring outside the county or excuse me outside the city limits because that isn't necessar you know that but that isn't going to happen unless there are is infrastructure to a certain extent there are some exceptions but uh in fact recently there was an exception but um a large residential project up on Rochester Road that you're familiar with but a lot of that has been driven by the infrastructure I would say and and just approval of streets public streets um and a lot of those subdivisions uh they're ploted but they haven't actually been built out the streets haven't been built because they just probably not economically feasible I do think you guys if uh through the regulations the proposed regulations you're U protecting the city's interest about as best you can without without having zoning but so I appreciate that I would like to add to commissioner call it's um it can be very difficult working in between two um commissions at the same time when

one's controlling one thing the other people controlling something else um it does make a little difficult for people to hop back and forth in between the two um and I guess as far as some of the other stuff in here I as to your housing um I'd really pay attention to what your responses were from the community um bro brushing uh low density into the entire city is not good and you can see that in the response and that will I guarantee get up your uh population leakage MH commissioner Pearson I'm going to try to I'm still trying to figure out how to ask this question so if I bumble around with my my words forgive me um considering the data that you've just given us especially in regards to population it seems that we are at a plateau perhaps even a downfall in our growth pattern um and considering the the length of this plan imp implementation is 10 years right is it 10 years yes okay um well it's a 2040 plan 2040 plan with intervals of 10 years that we should be looking at it correct okay so with kind of that in mind I'm looking at this and it should we be focusing on the growth part of the plan or the management of current resources and assets to increase

density and there are some of your recommendations and your measurables that are split they kind of support it feels like it leans more toward toward managing growth as opposed to investing in what we already have and managing that to increase density did that question make that statement question I don't know which one it was makes sense I think so I think what we haven't shared with you in this presentation is the fact that the first tier of our Urban growth area is the city limits uh so that's we've got a whole group of policies that we didn't share and that we will next time about investing in place and taking advantage of existing infrastructure and and those sorts of things so I think based on what we're showing you tonight it does feel very growth management heavy but we do this plan does have quite a bit in it about um investing in place and infill and um you know creating more density and and those sorts of things so that's what I would offer on that front Okay so I'll stay tuned thank you yeah go ahead oh uh so the next presentation um is more particular than what the agenda says that Mike is going to go over the results of the duplex survey duplex Triplex quadplex survey there it is with you oh okay there we go okay all right so [Music] um we released the survey that we

drafted uh on J January 27th close it on January 28th it's a short survey easy to take uh which helps to get a pretty good response rate um it uh asked questions about duplexes and ask similar questions about triplexes and quad plexes but separately so you're not you know necessarily conflating the two 405 total responses one thing I'll point out is uh we didn't require that all respondents answer to every question so some of the questions don't have 45 responses just that great some confusion so uh what this points out is where most of these came from most of the responses came from and uh overwhelmingly from central Topeka I would say 6604 66 606 are Central Pika uh the age of the survey takers majority 65 and older okay so what this slide's showing is that this is asking under what conditions should duplexes be allowed in single family zoning districts so 61% of the responses were they should be either Allowed by right allowed subject to standards by right or require conditional use permits 39% said they should not be allowed under any circumstances okay so what this is showing is that uh it ask what concerns would someone have and um the choices are no concerns parking change in property values increase in neighborhood population change to the character of the neighborhood and character of the neighborhood and parking are the most

uh substantial concerns character the neighborhood I think you know if you talk to people uh even people that work for the city character can mean different things different people sometimes it's more of a character or excuse more of a physical trait other times it's more of an operational kind of trait okay so this is asking the same questions but about uh triplexes and quad plexes so in this case 53% say they should not be allowed under any circumstances and 47% they say they should be allowed in single family dists either by r or by Cup by conditional use permit so I think what's what's key here is there is quite a bit of a different feeling if you're talking about duplexes and rather than uh triplexes and quad plexes okay again this is asking the similar question what are the the chief concerns about these this is about triplexes and quap plexes and primarily it's character changing the character and and uh parking parking concerns okay so this is interesting um keep in mind that most of these responses came from centrala neighborhoods but what is Salient here is that uh there's a concern about conversions of single family homes to duplexes or triplexes and quad plexes uh in some neighborhoods there's vacant land where you could build duplexes uh in a lot of the central neighborhoods such as College Hill such as potland you're not going to find a lot of vacant Lots so they're going to happen by conversion and that is a concern there are also some historic

districts and even areas that aren't necessarily uh historic districts have a lot of historic homes older homes and so there's a concern about how the how the those homes can be converted and the you know changes their character and undermines their historic Integrity okay so this is asking about duplexes triplexes and quad plexes should design be one of the considerations design is very important the slide shows that um 75% of the respones said yes so I think I think this was kind of put in there just to show that there are people that a lot of response respondents don't necessarily know that we have only two single time residential districts essentially r one and r two we don't have a lot of different ones for example uh North toeka doesn't have a different zoning class than say uh Central or Central West toeka it's mostly R1 there's some R2 um so it's difficult to create a standard that applies differently around the city if you had a lot of different zoning classications that might be the case or if you're going to use overlay zoning but that's that's difficult so one thing that's in your packet are the written responses we receive and um I think what you'll find is most of those are negative um and uh one one question I had when I'm looking at these was there a way for someone to go in and load up to the Jeep so to speak I'm

going to enter so many negative written comments it's going to overwhelm the ones that are positive um I asked ryson about that ryson really worked on the survey and he actually checked that check the sources of those comments and these comments are pretty widely distributed so that didn't really take place there weren't just a few people skewing the results there are a lot of negative comments but there are also some positive comments there are some comments that that uh say yeah this should be done um but you know there are some concerns here I think the other thing this might point out is potentially that 39% that uh are concerned about these being allowed at all um they might have more stronger feelings about the position and they might be the ones that entered written comments um I think there's one comment that I read that said the survey should be didn't use this word but should be transparent clear about what the reason is behind this not sure what that's implying but I think in the survey survey uh the preamble to the survey explains what the reason was for it and we've been very clear in all of our conversations all of our discussions about this that this is really mostly driven by a study that was adopted by the governing body that you're all well well aware of the housing study and strategy that says that there is really a need for um more affordable housing and more Workforce housing and duplexes and triplexes and quad plexes if they're built will help to address that issue um and I'd say especially Workforce housing because a lot of these that missing middle those those smaller developments duplexes triplexes and quadplex are not going to be the big projects they're going to be financed by housing tax

credits um so they're not going to necessarily hit the below 60% they're going to tend to hit the moderate income um yeah that's that's really uh my summary of of this um you know this was this was not intended to to explain where we're at as far as developing standards uh I think that's on the agenda about the housing committee um it's really about the survey results and so with that if you have any questions I'll be happy to try to answer those um first I believe that we have some people interested in public comment I don't know when in the process that would be most appropriate whenever you want to do it commission Pearson I did have one question um kind of like along the same lines of the person who asked for transparency you did not include the prelim statement and I just want or the pr or the statement that people saw before the survey and I just wondered how well it established context for survey because a lot of these people have this overwhelming bias opinion they believe that it's just landlord and renters doing these projects and um and it that might be true in many cases um but I guess and I I know it wasn't I just I'm curious how well was context set in terms without seeing the statement I think it was set pretty well we can share the statement with you uh the next time we talk about this project okay

that would be awesome and how I don't remember talking about this prior to it being sent out and I could have just been in my own world um when did we talk about this at a meeting or was it in some other meeting housing committee we mentioned to the housing committee you know they were talking about some ideas of about how to get the word out a little more because we've been talking to certain neighborhoods and and had done that and so we followed a similar path that we did with the accessory dwelling unit and did a survey uh we did one with that project as well so that was staff's idea to get some more feedback on this project and so what was the what are we planning to do with this information I think it's the commission can think about what they want to do with the information staff will at some point put together you know a recommendation for uh duplexes I think staff has taken the the uh design question and the 75% very seriously so we're going to start looking working on design considerations for uh duplexes and triplexes thank you uh commissioner C commissioner Heron then um I just had some feedback um one of the things on the Adu survey that I thought was very helpful for context was that we provided like photos of existing um like adus and I think um where some of the feedback was given there were already quad you know four plexes three plexes and two plexes in some of these neighborhoods and so I think it would have been helpful to provide more imagery on their survey I think to help assist with maybe some design concerns and just give more context to it's already existing in a lot of these areas um so I just wanted to provide that feedback that I think it would have been helpful to have it on

there yeah I guess that was kind of driving some of my questions is because I live in I live in ' 04 and there's all forms of multis there so where they really resistant to the fact of building a new multi or are they mad at the ones that are there so one thing I'll just uh relay what we heard when we uh presented this to a neighborhood College fille neighborhood um you know we had we have a slide presentation that we've been presenting to those neighborhoods and uh we included images of existing units and uh even some that I thought didn't change the charact the outward character of the building um and still there was a lot of resistance to conversions at least in that neighborhood especially uh just and I think that's because of what the experienced over a long period of time partly because of market conditions they're close to the university um so even them seeing images of relatively innocuous duplexes you know single story or or or moderate conversions of two-story buildings there is some concern about that and honestly a lot of it's not so much the appearance is they a lot of feedback we got was that they're concerned about more renters and less owner occupancy yeah I would share that imagery was was shared in the survey but you're right it wasn't specific to existing Ina and I think the reason for that was trying to find um Bryson did a good job of pulling images from if we were to implement design standards what we would like to see uh in the hopes of it being more you know this this would

be the goal that we would work towards a duplex that wasn't maybe heavily front-loaded with garages or looked different than the rest of the neighborhood so a little bit of that was intentional but yeah during presentations trying to meet people where they're at to understand if your neighborhood has this already what does it look like because that's probably where your perspective is coming from Mr wooden historic districts have a almost different set of guidelines they have they are following to maintain their status yeah they have there there are other Protections in place they have to get a uh they go through a certified Local Government Review they have get a certificate of appropriateness essentially that ensures that but some of these neighborhoods haven't always had historic districts in place so this so I can Envision the standards for uh this project will we'll spell out some things but reference a different process if there's a different process so like a historic process or or a neighborhood plan that has some design we'll try to work with whatever else is out there and not say it has to be this if it's going to if it's historic then that's the process okay commissioner C thank you Mr chairman um if could we move on to the report of the of the housing committee because this is our recommendation you know it deals with this subject and our charge was to make recommendations to the Planning Commission on on this subject I do have one question yeah all right just the way planning handles duplexes triplexes quad plexes wouldn't limit how ownership's handled meaning a duplex can be owned by one person on this side one person on this side same thing with the others so what's very common is to uh someone to build a duplex they get a permit for a duplex that's in a zoning District that is zoned for duplexes which is M1 and uh

then they can later on uh split that duplex into to two and then each unit can be owner occupied and it's not that hard to do that there's some there's some laws that really facilitate that and they just do it with a simple lot split typically doesn't even require a full Subdivision plat so just thinking about the Highlight on renters and comments on renters that it's not the only way that those that is correct correct you can have attached single family homes okay yep and then I have a brief survey specific question um so one of the things I wondered was with the page that shows what ZIP codes responded it also shows that about half the respondents were above 55 about less than 5% of the respondents were less than 24 how does that compare to toeka we can look into that all right um and also Mr chairman we have a couple people for public comment all right so I think we'll do public comment since the public comment is specific to the survey item and then we can move on to the committee does that sound right yeah yeah all right then um my understanding also is that some if not a few of these uh folks miss the deadline for um so I believe that we would have to wave the rule that they would have to notify staff by five I think that makes sense given the entire point of this discussion item is getting public feedback but we would need to actually make a motion to formally do that all right second all right uh quick Vote or yeah you can just do all you can all right yeah all those in favor of the

motion this this motion so some of the folks that want to give public did not make the deadline by 5:00 p.m. um so this is just waving the rule that they had to get okay yeah that's all even yeah uh so all those in favor of the motion hi all those post all right with that then we'll move on to public comment for the survey anyone who wishes to give some public comment come forward um you'll be given four minutes all right uh make sure it's on yes okay so my name is Jackson um I'm not sure I've been to a Planning Commission meeting before but at the recommendation of uh my neighbor Mark here who I think also might speak um I want to come because I do agree personally with giving options to people in toeka for the housing that they want to live in um I appreciate that you talked about that you did a survey or not survey um you you you determined there was demand for this um so I think if you want people to support this um once it is implemented um sharing that data with them to show here here people want this so if you can promote that and the second most important thing is uh when you're talking to them also share the benefits to exist in residents of single family housing um areas cuz right now those people maybe even when it got changed to single family housing they were told this is good because of this and this and this reason so they might be wondering why it's changing now

to allow for duplexes and triplexes and complexes because they were told oh we we want to take that away for whatever reason um so did single family housing not accomplish the goals and priorities at the time or did the goals and priorities change is kind of my question um doesn't need to be answered now but just in general um my biggest thing I totally understand the design thing My Philosophy is if it's to code then I feel like people should be able to build what they want generally speaking um you know it's not a Refinery or some other power plant or something you know it's a house um but I totally get the concerns that people have about density but a lot of people hear density and they think about the parking thing for example um addressing concerns I think will be a big part of making sure that this gets implemented successfully um so I I definitely afford Provide support providing choice to uh more choices to Residents um and also I'm wondering if this is on that demand Ser uh report is it existing teans or new teans that would be brought in um to these housing uh choices because if it's existing to peans I feel like we should make sure that it's affordable because if it's too expensive then existing chant might feel like they're being priced out of their neighborhoods um and I know we have an ongoing homeless or or unhoused person um not

crisis maybe necessarily but it's housing shortage thank you sorry um so making sure that that's affordable so that these options are available to people who really need them I think would help um and if we have certain goals and priorities with these duplexes triplexes complexes make sure that there's strings attached to make sure that we actually accomplish the goals and priorities that are associated with uh this so thank you for your time um and have a great day hi um thanks for the opportunity to speak I know I didn't sign up so I really appreciate that mine's Mark galberth out of the 1230 Southwest College in what's known as the Elmhurst neighborhood um and uh in the late 1990s I think it was the city came to us and um I was included in the US initially because I was serving as a neighborhood association president at the time and the city said you know we upzoned your neighborhood and other neighborhoods nearby after World War II to allow for sort of I think Ed the word but sort of against your housing so we think know there were some mistakes made there so we want to talk to you about down zoning your neighborhood so that the single family homes in your neighborhood that were built as single family homes and are still single family homes couldn't be divided so that maybe there might be an apartment upstairs or downstairs or even two apartments in at

what used to be a single family home we want to we want to stop that those are already you know have been converted uh they're going to be grandfathered in but if they go back to being single family by certain definitions then they would have to remain single family we thought that sounded good they said you know we think it will help uh just help um kind of restore your neighborhood um and so we said yes it went through and we've been down zone for a while now and we think it has improved our neighborhood improv is kind of a funny word how you define that but we you know we think um on the city's you know Health Neighborhood Health index I think we've come up in that in that that study uh over the the years and we think that's good we think you know the neighbors have felt just a bit more confidence in putting in some of their own dollars into doing more work on their homes um I just give them I mean I think in a sense it gives them confidence that the value of their property is probably going to go be stable or maybe go up a bit not fall and you know most of my neighbors are you they they're middle class they're we're not a wealthy neighborhood um and I would imag imagine for almost all of the residents there um the value of their home is the biggest financial asset they have so that means something to them that that's pretty stable anality comes to us and says uhoh we must we made a mistake I guess because now we want to upzone your neighborhood again uh that you know I think that worries my neighbors I happen to attend that meeting when this uh concept was presented at College Hill and I don't speak for College Hill I didn't ask him if I could speak for him tonight and I don't um but I saw lots and lots of

concern expressed there very serious concern because if you know if a property is divided and then so uh there's a good chance that divided property might be more appealing to a landlord because maybe a new property owner can't afford to buy the house and also turn what was turned into an apartment back into the house for a same single family owner so it appeals to a landlord type they buy it and they they um um you know they then R it out as two apartments um and that puts more wear and tail on the structure our experien as landlords do not do a good job maintaining their property we've worked with co- compliance for decades nothing changes and we could talk about why but the fact is nothing changes and that's what they said at College Hill as well um and you know that's it's that's the kind kind of dest destabilizing fact we're talking about in my neighborhood we have lots of rentals but almost all of them are single family um that seems to work okay I'm sorry I'm sa my time thank you very much yeah anyone else from the public all right seeing none I'll turn it over to commissioner CP uh and we can continue this discussion report of the housing committee yes uh the housing committee did meet um last week uh dell uh was there and um and Willie uh Katie was not she had conflict was not able to attend and then Mike was there with staff um just a quick comment we did talk about uh I did go over the survey results um and I don't mean to sound dismissive of of it and and the comments I'm going to say are not because I wish they had been more favorable to uh to what the committee uh is recommended to the Planning Commission I'll which I'll get to in a second but it's it's U I've

never been a fan of anonymous um internet surveys where uh people can can just vent um you know anonymously in a in a very coarse society that we have these days um and a society that's distrustful of of government at all levels but that's it's another topic um but it's one thing for somebody to U make a a quick three or four or or 10l a 10-word comment that disparages all renters or all landlords and saying they're all trash you know uh it's easy to do it's much harder to do uh for somebody to stand up here at a public hearing and make those kind of comments and which we probably will hear if this goes forward to public hearing um and again I'm not being dismissive of survey some of the some of the survey results or comments in there are thoughtful uh it's comments like what Mark um said just a moment ago I mean he has a point he has he has a a legitimate view on what would happen um in or what he fears could happen in in in some neighborhoods in Topeka but uh you know I appreciate uh I appreciate Mike pointing out that the the well it might be a plurality of respondents stated they had some concerns about duplexes triplexes for plexes actually the the majority of folks uh that responded um indicated that they they could live with it they either liked it or they could live with it so anyway uh the planning uh the housing committee did look over and we talked about those survey results um we talked about the different options of going forward because there was a consensus that we we definitely wanted to go forward with the idea of duplexes uh triplexes

and fourplexes um in in in the R1 and R2 districts it was just a question of whether or not the duplexes should be allowed as a permitted use or as conditional use and there was a pretty immediate consensus with respect to triplexes and forp plexes that we go forward with that as as conditional uses subject to standards that uh that staff would put together for both new construction and um Renovations conversions um and we also arrived at a consensus pretty quickly of recommending that duplexes be allowed as a permitted use in R1 and R2 again subject to standards that staff would prepare one set of standards for new construction another set of standards for conversions so that's that's where we are we've made that request uh of the staff uh to to draft text amendments to that effect and Mr chairman I I don't know whether or not that's good enough or whether you want the full Planning Commission to um ratify that or acques in it or or otherwise but um our thought at the uh again given the charge of the housing committee we thought we could start the ball rolling um and and the ball has already started rolling uh staff advisers that they've been discussing concepts of how to how how to how to convert this into text if uh if so directed and we from the committee standpoint we felt like last week that we made that direction so and I have one other topic to cover but you are you Mr chairman are you okay with is the Planning Commission okay with

the direction we've given is there any any concerns about about asking staff to prepare the text amendments um which would then be reviewed by the Planning Commission and if the past muster with the Planning Commission to go forward to public hearing we go forward with public hearing I agree with um how the housing committee is proceeding at this point in time I think it just got missed in a report that this was actually happening and so we could be aware of it happening so just in the reports making sure that the rest of the commission understands what's going on um I think is the main issue I feel like the housing committee should have authority to make decisions in that moment um when they're present it with information and data to move forward to make sound decisions any other thoughts yes um I guess as far as me I on the opposite side I disagree with it I agree with the gentleman over in Elmhurst uh doing this throughout the city is not not good in the far as of broad brush stroke of putting duplexes triplexes anything else inside established communities um in HST College Hill is just a few of them there's westbo and Sherwood there's a lot of areas that this would also apply to um trying to do that throughout all of them I I I don't think is work work I'm just talking about the creation of using the data to create a text amendment that will come before for us to make decisions we're not making a decision tonight oh okay I thought it was whether

or not it's the whether it would get brought in front of here or just go ahead and be passed on so no this is about like step two and about a 10-step process for sure uh so a little more on process um so anything that we do after tonight let's say the direction is to start working on a text Amendment uh we would come back to you for a discussion we'd work with the committee um when it comes to action you would have seen it a few times by then and um so you know it's going to take some time to get to that point and there will be more meetings to talk about it we can present some other stuff uh we didn't talk much about how the other neighborhood plans went or neighborhood meetings went um so we can you know kind of fill in some Blanks on that as well Dan if I can jump into I think as we start working our way through this process a step that we're going to want to make sure that we time appropriately is making sure that we get some of even just this General survey feedback information and Direction on where we've been going to probably a council committee maybe policy and finance um just because as you know as nias or neighborhoods that we've been talking to um start to receive this information it is uh very clear to me that they'll reach out to their council person who uh if they are not met with any of this information beforehand will be very caught off guard so just making sure if nothing else even just the informational of the study we've shared that you know through several emails with that group but these people get millions of emails a day so um I think it would be good to present to that group just where we're at and outline the process but yes just so that's a step that's not missed Mr chairman I did want to mention that also in the committee report that the committee did meet uh along with staff at the highest niia meeting uh on February 26 and we had a favorable I

think Dan or Mike may have mentioned this already had a favorable um comments U from the people in attendant at highest again to talk about duplex Triplex fourplex the other topic that came up at the uh uh at at the uh committee meeting last week uh was actually a continuation of something we reported to this the Planning Commission previously and that is uh we want to do some inquiry um of folks who develop multif family housing larger projects not fourplexes but larger larger projects uh affordable and market rate market rate and have done work in other cities in Kansas but have chosen for whatever reason not to practice in Kansas in TOA not to build in TOA and so we want to invite some folks in to our next meeting uh just to get educated or get their perspective on uh what is it is it the uh the the climate in Ina in terms of the the market for renters um what what is it that U that makes Lawrence or Manhattan or Salina or Hutchinson more attractive than than TOA so we'll have that meeting um hopefully have that meeting before the next meeting of Planning Commission will report back to you all so that'd be with the committee not not with the full commission yeah all right yeah and with that we adjourned all right any further comments on committee's work at this point thank you all right then next is Communications to the

commission Commissioners uh next month you have five cases to consider cups zoning and whatnot so a little busier of an agenda we will likely also be asking you to um initiate some text amendments for a different project that we're working on with the world heritage site and Brown versus Board uh we met uh with the property owners last week had a good meeting and so we're kind of restarting that process we had started it last year but the timeline moved so we didn't want to get ahead of things so we're back at it and that will require a rezoning and a uh text Amendment so we'll ask you to initiate that next week or next month and we'll you know we'll give you a little background more than I'm doing now um I don't know anything else I think that's it right then uh next is any public comment and this would be any public comment just general to the commission and rather than specific to any agenda item see none believe that's everything and so we adjourn [Music]