Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I will interrupt the social hour by calling the meeting to order. So at 7 o'clock, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order, and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, welcome everybody to the June meeting of the Township Planning Commission. Roll call please.

Bradshaw. Here. Thompson. Here. Quattrido.

Here.

Lapp.

Here. Oliver.

Good evening. Hayes. Here. Vickings.

Here.

Okay, thank you. We have a quorum so we will proceed. Next item is approval of tonight's agenda. You have the agenda in front of you. There's only two new business items on it. Anybody have anything else that needs to be on tonight's agenda or any issues with tonight's agenda?

I move to approve the agenda. Second.

Okay, motion by Bicking, second by Bradshaw to approve the agenda as prepared. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, so agenda is approved. Next item is approval of the minutes. We last met on May 19th, so you have the regular May 19th minutes. Everyone was present, so... Hopefully everybody had a chance to look over the minutes, see if they were accurate and looked OK to me. But does anybody have any corrections or additions or anything to do with the May 19th minutes?

Move to approve the May Planning Board Commission meeting minutes. Second.

Motion was by Hayes, second by Lapp to approve the May 19th minutes as submitted. Any discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Next item is correspondence, board reports, presentations in the usual order, which means we go first to Commissioner Olver, updates from Board of Trustees.

Good evening, everyone. The trustees met twice since the last Planning Commission meeting, the 27th of May and the 10th of June. At the earlier meeting, there was approval and adoption of the Charter Township of Union Investment Policy, going through and reviewing that, and the Board also considered and approved a resolution allowing participation in the Michigan Class Short-Term Investment Program, which is fairly common with townships. Also some policy governance review for compensation and benefits and the overall cost of governance for our policy governance system. The 10th, Clifford Martin Fig was reappointed to the EDA. There is still one opening on the EDA, so if you have any recommendations, please forward them on to the board. The big item for discussion on last week was a request to waive a fee for a replaced meter, water meter. And that went quite a while, and ultimately the board approved the request to waive that fee due to extenuating circumstances of some renovations and miscommunications and things. As sometimes happens, what probably should have taken four minutes took about two hours. But it was resolved, and that's a good thing. So we also provided support for the Michigan Liquor Control Commission's on-premises tasting room and banquet facility for Heirloom Grove, and recognized MMI as a nonprofit so that they could pursue a charitable gaming license for their qualifying. So those were the developments of the last two board meetings.

Any questions from commissioners for Commissioner Oliver on Board of Trustees related matters?

What was the fee?

What was the amount of the fee? $600. I tell you, Nathan, after about an hour of discussion, I was about to open my own checkbook. But it did lead to some good discussion from a policy standpoint in that the board would like to see some opportunities for the township manager to have a little bit more authority to resolve some of those issues. And Manager Stuhldreher did not feel it within his purview to do so under the current guidelines. So that's hopefully the kind of thing that could get resolved much quicker in the future.

Other questions? You mentioned that you all adopted an investment policy. Is it true that that calls for all township finances to be invested in Bitcoin?

No Bitcoin that I'm aware of.

OK. Let's see. Any other questions?

right thank you for that report next item is Commissioner Thompson updates from ZBA did the ZBA meet yes we were busy we did meet last Thursday so we had one appeal for swimming pool installation at a house that had two front yards front yard, side yard, but two front yards because it was on a corner lot. And their backyard is a significant ditch here in the township. So we did approve it. So they met all the requirements and agreed to the one setback addition that we wanted to make sure they met. And then we elected officers. So Franklin McKenzie is our chair. Brian Clark is our vice chair and I am the secretary. And that's it. I don't know when our next meeting will be. Stay tuned. Congratulations on your election.

Questions for Commissioner Thompson on ZBA items?

I do have a question about the swimming pool since it's on my street. Were there any comments submitted for that?

No, not to my knowledge. There were some community members present, but no one did public comment.

Yeah, I was there to speak up for them if they didn't get it right, and the person that came up just blew them out of the water. There's no reason to speak anymore.

I thought the variance was for the fence. Was it for both the fence and the pool?

No, the fence meant all the pool. It did, okay.

Thank you for that, because I feel out of the loop on pool-related activities all of a sudden.

I think I'll swim now.

Okay, thank you for that. Community and Economic Development Monthly Report. You have the report in your packet. Always give commissioners an opportunity to ask any questions that they might have have on anything you might have seen in the report. So that is open for questions right now.

Ronny, can you give us anything about the Housing Forward? Did you attend that? I found the community development. I was just talking about this focus group session that was toward housing plans. Yes, I did. What was it, can you give me a brief of like, what that was, and what they're kind of looking to encourage with?

Housing Forward is an organization in Midland County, that's obviously focused on housing in the county. They have taken on the additional task of managing our region, eight county region, region five. Our regions portion of the statewide housing plan. The state has a big focus on housing, need for additional housing, and they developed a statewide housing plan. They're now working on version two of that plan. It's essentially a strategic plan to try to identify bottlenecks and resolve problems to expand new housing development across the state. And Housing Forward has become the lead agency for our eight county region's version of that document. And this was a focus group that was basically asking for input from various entities. Local governments, developers, folks in the low-income housing side, and others. And they had, I think, about a half dozen different focus group meetings. And so I attended, I actually attended one for the development committee, because I couldn't be there for what I booked earlier in the day. And very useful, very interesting comments. But that's what it's for. It's ultimately, those comments will be developed into an updated version of that housing plan for our region that we'll then come back to for additional public comment. Was there a lot of comment on the need for low-income housing? Yeah, there were several folks there. There was actually only really one person there that called himself kind of a market rate developer. All the developers were on the low-income housing side. So, yes, there was a lot of discussion on that topic. Thank you, Rod. I appreciate it. And a lot of support for it.

Other questions on the monthly report?

I have a question about page 4. Toward the bottom, the ordinance and code enforcement activities. Who mows the grass if people don't? When it keeps saying lawn will be mowed.

If the property owner doesn't take care of it under our ordinance, we can have our contractor. We have a contractor that is physically contracted for that service, and we can have the contractor go to the property and do the mowing.

Did they just do that, or did they do our municipal stuff too? Like it's the same contract that is for any municipal? No, our public service department handles the parks.

And this is a separate contract for that. Yeah, but we don't use township employees for that. As I said, we have a contractor. They do the work. They bill us. The cost of that bill goes on the taxes if it's not paid by the property owner.

So it does go back to the property owner to pay? It does. They don't pay it. It will end up on their tax bill.

Does the contractor give you a better rate than your contractor might give, say, me?

Well, I don't know that, actually.

I'm looking for a loophole. I've got a lot of acres over there.

Well, I will say this. One thing to remind us of is that the wheat ordinance does not apply where you are. It doesn't apply to certain properties over certain

Some of the exceptions is if you're Ag Zone property, it's within 60 feet of the dwelling, but all the way to the right of way. So you do have to go from your house all the way to the road, but outside of that, it's 60 feet within the dwelling. Another exception is if it's three acres or more and vacant.

He also had kids. True. You got to teach them how to do it.

Other questions?

We've got a zero turn. Why do these kids have to do it? We can write a zero turn.

This is awesome. The Indian Hills Shopping Center, this has been on here for months. How can we enforce that more to get them in compliance? Is there something that can be done?

Well, our goal is always to bring property back into compliance. It's not to... find them, collect a bunch of fines, or anything like that. We prefer not to take folks to court, we will, and we have. But, we prefer to work with folks. Indian Hills has been out there a long time, and they are literally down to one item on a much longer list than they used to have. And, that one item is some lane striping. And, some parking lot restriping. And, for whatever reason, they were supposed to do it last year, they didn't get it done before it was too late. They have indicated they're going to do it this year, but we also are going to be meeting with them about some other projects. So they have other things that they want to do. And we're always happy to support that. For example, if it is something that ends up coming before you, as a site plan, I mean, they do have some land available, where they can do more than they have, in terms of additional development. So if something's coming before you, you guarantee that we're going to be having this remaining item be on the list and that still needs to be taken care of and get it resolved that way at the new site. There are some times when we are much pushier. And that generally involves things that are blight related or health and safety related. This is neither of those things. And as I said, they have come 95% of the way from where they were. And this item really was caught by the weather, you might say. Right, they could have gotten it done. They didn't. But they only have certain seasons where you can put the payments right. So we just continue working. There have been other items that have been on this list for a long time as well. For various reasons, it just wait wait as we can do work with folks trying to resolve.

Okay. Any other questions? Okay, well, thank you. Um, let's see. Any other reports or correspondence that any commissioners are aware of that need to come before us? Okay, if not, then we'll move on. So we have our first public comment for every planning commission meeting. We have a public comment towards the front end of the meeting, which is for items that are not on the agenda. So if anyone has a comment they'd like to offer on any topic that is not on tonight's agenda, they're invited to do so at this time. We ask you to, if you're in the room, come to the, give us your name and address for the minutes. If you're online, make your presence known and we will recognize you to speak. So extended our public comment on non-agenda items is open at 716.

Hi, my name is Mike Walters. I'm on 5272 Jonathan Lane. in Country Square Estates. I'm really making a comment about that I was denied a building permit for a small deck porch I wanted to put on the front of the house. because they've changed the zoning for that area since it was developed, and I don't have enough frontage for that to put on what I would like to do. The original zoning was 25 foot from the right-of-way, now it's been changed to 30, and that extra five feet, my house goes right up to the setback line, so I could encroach that by 10 feet with the old zoning, but now that only allows me five feet, And it's really not enough room for what I want to do because my sidewalk is eight feet away from the front of the house. And so what I wanted to do was walk up the sidewalk onto the porch into the house. And then eventually someday if I needed a handicap ramp, I could just extend it off that sidewalk. Well, under what the zoning is for my house right now, I cannot do that. So talking to the officials at Union Township, I guess you might have been looking at the zoning issue on some of this. I just would like it if you could consider maybe possibly looking at changing that zoning for that area possibly because we do have a lot of small lots in that subdivision and so there could be other people that have the same issue that I could have, they just haven't run into it yet. So that's really why I'm here today, to maybe get the ball rolling at looking at something, or if not, I might have to go for a variance, and so that's my other option. So that's why I'm coming here first, to just voice my opinion on that. Because actually my house right now, the way the zoning is, 15 feet or more than 50% of my house is out of compliance. just the way the zoning is now for that area. So just to let you know, that is kind of a hindrance on the front and the back of my house that I really can't do anything. So, you know, anyway, that's really what I wanted to bring up. So I guess that's it. If you have any questions or whatever, I guess.

Appreciate it. Just tell me again, your subdivision is?

Country Choir Estates. That's off from Isabella, close to Broadway.

Okay, I know.

From the credit union, kind of across from the credit union.

Okay, well thank you so much. Yep. Any other public comments during public comment? Is our little electronic room empty tonight? Yes. Okay, all right. Okay, well, we thank the public for their comments. We'll go ahead and look into that matter and we'll go ahead and close the initial public comment at 7.20. There'll be an extended public comment towards the end of the meeting. So we have, as I mentioned, we have two new business items tonight. The first one is a minor site plan application, P minor SPR 26-03. Applicant is Thrive Community Church, 1797 South Isabella Road. and we will follow our usual protocol. We'll hear from township staff, we'll hear from the applicant, and then we will deliberate and act.

Thank you. Everybody should have a copy of our report dated June the 8th. As was said, this is coming to you as a minor site plan. It will be referred by the zoning administrator to note in our report He said the scope of what was proposed, he believed it was best handled through Planning Commission action in our ordinance. He has that option to refer things to you later. So that's how it comes to you. This is Thrive Community Church. It's a proposed alteration of their building, essentially it's a reduction of their building footprint. It will go under 9,000 square feet. I'll let them talk more about why they're proposing that. But that change, essentially what they're looking at is wanting to have a reduced footprint now with the option to build later the rest of the building. They are proposing to build, with the exception of some of the parking, build all the other site improvements out as shown on the original final site plan. was to essentially bank a portion of the parking. The original plan had 176 spaces. They're proposing now to build 133 of them, and leave the remainder of that area that would be future parking, keep it available for parking for right now, just leave it as open space. The changes do require a site plan action. We ask them to go ahead and submit it as a minor site plan and ultimately bring it to you. As you see in the packet, you'll see Essentially the top four sheets in the site plan set are the new sheets. Underneath that is the approved final site plan, all the remainder of the sheets. And that was done deliberately because we do want that original final site plan to remain valid so that they have the opportunity in the future to, when they're ready to simply come into the building permit, to build out the rest of the building as proposed and to build out the rest of the parking as proposed in that original approved final site plan. So we have, as I said, the new sheets, four new sheets, we asked them to label them differently, so you see them there as PH, the sheet PH1, the sheet PH4. Overall, we found the amendments to be in good order. The number of parking spaces, even reduced to 133, still exceeds the minimum that's required for the size of the building. And that's still in compliance. The one item we note in our report and that we put as a recommended condition of approval is that the area that was going to be parking lot on the east side of the building, that's now simply going to be open space, They note on the plan that we remain as is. Well, as is right now is essentially property that's been grubbed and cleared, but it's in pretty rough shape. All that land area that was originally supposed to be developed was cleared of vegetation and made ready for the development. Well, we're simply asking that they finish that off as lawn area with some kind of an appropriate ground cover. It doesn't have to be lawn. It needs to be some appropriate ground cover that meets our ordinance requirement so that... property looks as a good visual appearance until someday that parking lot is expanded. I expect they were already intending to do, but it wasn't actually noted that way in the plan, so we just ask that that be included as a condition of approval. It should be something very easy to meet. The other item is related to our public services department. There was some outstanding reviews going back and forth, related to final details with that. We've asked to simply carry over the condition that you put on the original final site plan that public safety approval be addressed prior to issues with building permit. What I'm saying is I actually expect that's probably now been done today, the last day or so. We have received some additional updates. Just to be sure, I'm certain that that's resolved, I'd like to leave that condition in there. Peter Gallinay will verify the condition's been met and then we move on from there. So essentially at this point we're recommending this plan to you, pleased to recommend this plan to you for approval. We would ask that those two conditions be included. I will note, we did, as you've asked us to do, we did include a set of possible motions. I'm embarrassed to say that we have a typo in the motion to approve with conditions. So you have those two conditions there, but in the paragraph right above it, actually the second from the bottom line that starts requirements for, and that says preliminary, that word preliminary should say final. So if you would, So with that in mind, I'm happy to answer questions as we go along.

Any immediate questions for Rodney while he's up there?

Rodney, I have one. The safety plan you want to include, is that based on the north-facing road entrance that kind of lines up with the curve of the street?

I'm sorry, say the beginning.

You mentioned it was an original safety plan for road plan. Was that based on...

around this guy here that turn that we had coming up straight where it kind of came into right right there was there was original discussion about where that driveway should be uh ultimately that driveway the decision about where their driveway uh is going to be located was a road condition decision so that where it's located matches what the road commission

The safety plan you're saying that you want to still be submitted, was that based around signage for there? What was that that you mentioned there, the second provision that you wanted included?

In the original review, there were some recommendations for signage to make it clear that it was a private driveway, not an extension of Blood Street.

Any other immediate questions? Okay, thank you. So now we'd like to hear from the applicant.

Good evening. My name is Tim Beebe. I'm with Central Michigan Surveying and Development here on behalf of the applicant. My address is 2257 East Broomfield Road. Rodney alluded to discuss why the change. Budgets came in and I worked on our church's building expansion program and what we wanted to do versus what we could afford to do ended up being slightly different. The original budgets that were put together were on the low side and they came in much higher than what was expected and we had to work with the applicant to try and work that out. We have an individual here from Three Rivers who is the construction management company that actually worked through those budgets, bid the project out and then was responsible to come back and try and downsize this. And that's what we had to do in order to get the project to go forward. Now as far as what is being installed for water mains, sanitary sewer, storm detention, that is all being put in based on the original plan. So reducing the parking lot, what that does is actually provides more detention than the detention pot. So we're not downsizing any of that utility service wise. We are not voiding out the idea of having that additional parking. The church actually hopes that they'll need that. But we're gonna bank that for now. If in fact they need it in the future, or even if the township sees a parking issue, I believe you have the right to say you must install. So with that, if you have any questions, it's basically the economics of the project.

Do you have a feel for what you'll do with that open area that you're concerned?

It's just going to be a grassed area. Okay. When it says it's going to stay natural, we're meaning it's going to be ground cover. That area, we had left an area outside that original parking lot that was going to be a grassed area for the kids to go play in. All that's going to happen is that area is going to be larger.

Mr. Beebe, do you have any concerns about the conditions the township is recommending?

There were two conditions. One was that that area be grass. The other was the DPW. And the last letter that came from the DPW director, we had addressed all the items. She said she didn't have the letter from the fire department, which came in months ago. I don't know how long ago. I reached out to the fire department. The fire department then emailed that letter to the DPW, to Peter, to Rodney, and to myself to verify that everyone had it. We have since reached out to the DPW department asking for a clean letter. We haven't received that yet, and maybe you did.

that Peter can simply verify that it's been resolved.

Yeah, because we need that letter in order to fold the building permits. Yep. So, once we have that, I believe everything's been satisfied. Thank you. Did you have anything else, guys, that was outstanding at all? Okay. All right, happy to answer any questions that you do have.

Other questions from commissioners?

So you think, based on your findings, that rather than going to hardtop in the back with the parking lot, the parking that's going to be reduced, we'll see better drainage out from the back end coming in. I know we had expressed, we had a neighbor that was part of the group next door that expressed concern about drainage coming in, and I was wondering how that, I mean, from the size of the retention pot, it's not a concern to me, but I was just wondering how that change might come affected by

To be quite honest, the concerns of additional water going into the neighbor to the north in the pond, actually by doing a development and with the storm water restrictions that you have, it reduces the impact from natural drainage. Natural runoff is approximately 0.25 CFS per acre. The ordinance requires us to take it back to .1 and .15. I get it confused between the city. I think it's .1 here and .15 in the city. But it's a reduction. And it's a reduction of almost half of what natural is. The other thing is that when you put those storm sewer systems in and you put a detention pond, it soaks up that groundwater. So Excess water going, I have no concern with. Not as much water. And, you know, the groundwater table, the whole idea with the underground detention systems and the open air detention systems and restricting the water back is to help recharge our groundwater system. If you just put it in a pipe and ship it off to the river, it's gone. and no longer do you have that recharge. So having the large detention pond, there's going to be less water going in there, but what you'll see is the bottom of that detention pond still takes the majority of that water. Infiltration will be basically the same, even though the top portion is not being filled. So it's got an added, factor of safety until they put the additional parking in. That pond was not designed for 25 year storm, that pond was designed for 100 year storm. So, speaking of which. That was good timing. Thank you, Larry. But that pond was over designed because we But two, we had the concerns from the neighbor to the north. The easiest way to squash those was to over-design.

Yes, ma'am. Didn't you also have to meet with an EGLE representative for the wetland area anyway? Did that help with the design of that?

We had to have a wetland delineation completed and have it accepted by EGLE. And that is that ragged boundary that you see along there that we actually have a wetland boundary, then we have a disturbance limit. which self-defense has to be installed along so that they can't get to that boundary.

Okay. Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So this thing is in front of us and so we need to review deliberate and take action so any discussion from commissioners no concerns on my end i think the conditions make sense

So who wants to read?

I'll have to raise Tom this time again. I move to approve the PMIN ORS PR 26-03 minor site plan application to amend the final site plan approved on June 17, 2025 to allow for initial construction of the new Thrive Community Church building and all site improvements on the northeast corner of South Isabella Road and Budd Street in the southwest quarter of section 22, PID 14-012-30-009-00, and in the B7 retail and service highway business zoning district, with a reduced building floor area of 17,646 square feet and a corresponding reduction in new off-street parking from 176 to 133 spaces. finding that the amended plan can comply with the applicable zoning ordinance requirements for the final site plan approval, including sections 14.2.P required site plan information and 14.2.S standards for site plan approval, subject to the following conditions. One, zoning administrator acceptance of updated site plan sheets with the additional details as requested by the public services department prior to issuance of building permits. Two, all disturbed open areas on the site must be properly graded and planted with suitable ground cover plantings consistent with the applicable requirements of sections 10.2.A general site requirements and section 10.4 standards for landscape materials. Subject to verification by the zoning administrator prior to issuance of a final copy, a final certificate of occupancy. Support.

Okay, so the motion was made by Lapp and seconded by Bradshaw. Any further discussion? Okay, I'll ask for a roll call, please.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Okay, thank you. That is approved. So our second item tonight is an introduction and discussion of possible changes to the dimension standards for agricultural and residential zoning districts. Seems like it ties in nicely with our public comment earlier. So I'll let Rodney introduce this and then we will discuss.

Thank you. I do appreciate Mr. Walters for his introduction. He is a most recent person and we mentioned this before, Peter and I kind of keep a running notes on this ordinance. As we run into things, as some of the things come up, we just make notes of maybe we want to look at this or bring something to you or look at making changes to the ordinance. Since the ordinance was adopted in 2020, we've had several what we call punch list amendments that were exactly along those lines. administering the ordinance, there was recognition that some adjustments were warranted. So this is along those lines. As we know in the report, you've already experienced this with the business districts, where a while back we, a while back is now a few years ago, we came to you and recommended reducing the setback requirements for the business districts, front, side, and rear. to allow for buildings to be built closer to the road and also to allow for these lots to be used more effectively and create a little bit more pedestrian friendly environment as well. So those changes were adopted for the business districts and so we're essentially looking out the residential districts. Mr. Walters did a good job of identifying some of the reasons for that. One of the challenges we have, if you go to the report, and this is directly in line with his comment about the countries where it states, under the old 1991 ordinance, we had what was called the R5 district. and it was kind of a special single family residential district that was aimed at modular housing. This is modular housing, if you think of the double wide, where they have two halves of the house, they bring them together, they're factory built, they bring them together on a site, they put them together on a foundation. or if it's in a local harm park, they put them together on a pad. But they're not stick-built houses, they're houses that are built offsite and brought to a property. This district, this R5 district, was intended to support that kind of development. I expect that it was originally created for a specific project, it might even have been country square estates. But we have a couple of different neighborhoods that sort of fit this character. the countries where our state's been a good example of it. Anyway, the R5 district and that idea of kind of aiming at modular housing is actually no longer consistent with established case law for residential development. We really can't, we can't have a bias towards one type of construction over another. And although it wasn't intended to be a bias, it was actually intended to support, it still is essentially a bias our current zoning ordinance, recommended that that R5 district be removed. And it was, it was removed, it's not part of our current ordinance. And the properties that were zoned R5 were rezoned to basically the nearest single family district that matched it as close as possible, and that was the R2B district. But as noted in our report, the setback differences, the setbacks were a little different. Mr. Walters did a great job with that. The old R5 had a 25-foot front yard setback. The R2B has a deeper front yard setback, 30 feet. Again, a little while back, one of those punch list amendments, what you might think of as a Band-Aid. What we did was do exactly what Mr. Walters mentioned. We added to the ordinance an exception that said that an open deck or porch could intrude up to 10 feet into that front yard. So in his case, the front yard setback is 30 feet, so that an open deck or porch could extend as close as 20 feet to the road right of way. Well, as he noted, because his house is already at that 25 foot setback, the old R5 setback, he really only has five feet to work with there. In five feet, that's a porch, it's a stoop, but it's not a place where you can put a chair, you can't have an area to sit in. It's really just truly a stoop. You step up, you open the door and walk in. And so to have something that's more of a front porch that's usable, it has to be deeper than five feet. So with that in mind, as a partner, helped along by our conversation with Mr. Walters, proposed to put together a whole line of some changes to the setbacks. In addition to Mr. Walter's situation, one of the other reasons to look at this is that the current setbacks basically prevents people from building additions onto property, onto existing homes. That also restricts the ability to modernize existing homes. We have a large majority of our existing single-family housing stock that's more than 50 years old. And as a result of that, it was designed for different household, different needs that we have today. And so, additionally, frankly, we have an aging population. Sometimes we simply need to have some additional space or to help an aging population be able to remain in their home. Additions like new foyer or other things that create the ability to work with changing the ability of older citizens can be part of that too. But simply the ability to modernize these older homes sometimes will need additional space to do that. It might be another bathroom. It could be a variety of things. But having some additional room on the lot where they can build within the setbacks or outside the setbacks is helpful. So that's the other reason to look at this. So you see on the second page of our memo, page 55 of the packet, You'll see down at the bottom a table. This table is right out of the ordinance. It's section 4 of the ordinance. It's called Schedule of Regulations. I think of the dimensional standards table. It shows all the setbacks, front, side, and rear, minimum lot area, minimum lot width, in one case minimum lot depth, and some other standards as well that we'll talk about later. And where we're recommending changes, you'll see those there with the existing standard lined out in red, the new standard underlined in blue. In general, for the setbacks, which are kind of the middle columns of the table, we're proposing to reduce those setbacks. And not every district, not every circumstance, but in most of them, bring that down a little bit. We're also proposing over the left hand side some adjustments to the lot area, minimum lot area requirements. And also minimum lot width requirements. And these are essentially consistent with pattern development. For example, the R2A district has a 100-foot lot width. But for single-family homes, 100 feet is actually, especially if we reduce the setbacks, 100 feet is more than is needed to have a functional single-family home in this district. And so we recommend bringing that down to 70. That 70 would still allow, for example, for a side-entry garage. It's a suburban lot is really what we're looking at here. Reducing in the same way the lot area, which is currently shown as 14,000 square feet. We're recommending taking it down to 8,400, which is, again, pretty much a standard suburban lot on a property that could have a little bit larger home with the potential of the side entry garage, which needs a little more space for the driveway. So that kind of a change, we're just looking at the practicality of something. So we don't need to require as large of an acreage as we are. You'll see a new column there that's maximum number of dwellings per acre. Right now that minimum lot area essentially sets the density, the number of units per acre is based on that minimum lot area. What we're proposing to do is bring that minimum lot area down, but actually not alter the density standard significantly. This is one that we're still working on a little bit. We've given you some numbers there. We're still working on that. from where they are. The reason we're adding this is because of our sewer system. All of our residential areas that are in the sewer districts, the sewer system was designed for our existing zoning. So the existing density, the existing development pattern that our zoning orders would allow for. And so we don't want to get in a circumstance where we're where by reducing the lot area, we are greatly increasing the number of homes beyond what the sewer system was designed for. We have a little wiggle room in there. We can move a little, but we do need to be careful. So adding the standard of dwellings per acre, maximum dwellings per acre, we hope to keep that number in line with what the sewer system was designed for for that area. While allowing individual lots to be a little smaller. to make it a little more efficient use of the lot itself. What that also does is creates new opportunities for open space in a development. A couple other things, over on the right hand side, you'll see that we've deleted the minimum building width, and that's only because that's actually in conflict with another section of the ordinance. Since this ordinance was adopted, Arizona University has been He made an interpretation of the ordinance because this conflicts with section 6.16, which has a different standard in it. And he has applied that standard because it applies to all types of single family homes. And so we're simply deleting the column here. It's not needed because it's covered elsewhere in the ordinance. I believe that kind of hits on the main items. As I said, this is intended just to introduce this topic. If you're comfortable with the direction we're heading and supportive of the direction we're heading, we're happy to come back to you with a formal amendment to consider. We're also pleased to hear your thoughts on where

Okay, it's open for discussion. This, of course, being a zoning amendment would go through a public hearing. So is your thinking in general that the next step would be bring us a draft of actual language and then we set a date for a public hearing? Yes, that is correct.

Because there would be some other changes that would go around this. This is kind of core of it, but there would be some other tweaks that would fall, that would come up as part of this, making this change. So we would definitely want to give you the whole provision, the whole proposal, to take a look at before we take that for a year.

Comments, thoughts from people?

Mr. Walters can build a five-foot porch right now. I will say that. We've shared this with Mr. Walters. There's an interesting quirk for handicapped ramps, handicapped barrier-free access. That can be anywhere. As long as it's on this property, don't put the road right in front of it. Don't put it on your neighbor's property, but it can be anywhere on the lot that it needs to be. Because it really has to be. It depends on the topography. They might need to cover the whole front yard with ramps to get down to the ground at the very low slopes they have to work with. So what we suggested to Mr. Walters was that he propose a five foot open deck, which the ordinance would allow for, and then propose essentially the rest as the handicap access ramp. And that handicap access ramp would, of course, need a landing. So part of that, how much is up to him, that's his design, how much of that landing, why that landing needs to be, would be up to him. It might be the same width as his porch. And then it would have the ramp that would come off and we would call that the handicap access ramp and move on. So he is considering all of his options. He could just build the five foot porch and put some steps on it because he doesn't need the ramp right now apparently. But it's a future item. Or he could wait for this change. We have let him know that this

matter what this is several months to to pursue so it'd be something that if you wait it's going to be next season before you can build it sure thank you it's ideas like that where everybody says you're so easy to work with yeah yeah i had a question when seeing this and it's always a kid for me is we need more housing we need more development so in every report we get consents coming in now seeing reduce lot sizes without increase to density what are we going to see coming out of this more we're going to see longer term people want to stay in their house because they're able to do more repairs or update it are we going to be able to see more units being built because of the reduction of this well i mean like is it there are a lot of like obviously it's based around septic and how much density we can handle but are there like lots out there currently that aren't getting developed because of these type of restrictions, or that we'd see getting developed because of these changes?

Well, number one, with the setbacks, we're going to see there's more opportunity to modernize houses. We need to add a bedroom, whatever it might be. People want to stay. We already have a number of other pieces of the puzzle that are in the ordinance, for example, the short-term rental. type housing, the Airbnb type thing, or the mother-in-law suite type thing. That's in the ordinance. Right now it requires a special use permit from the Planning Commission. But you can have a second dwelling on the property as long as you meet the requirements. So that adds something there. The main thing for this step right now is we do need to respect our sewer system and what it was designed to deal with. As we're working on the master plan, that's where we're going to be looking a little more broadly because, of course, the sewer system can be expanded over time, but that's more at the scale of a master plan time, not the zoning ordinance where as soon as we adopt this, it becomes effective. So we will be exploiting this more in the master plan that out of the master plan process, whatever is adopted in the end, that may inspire other changes to the ordinance. But for right now, we do want to get in a situation where we were greatly increasing the number of units per acre, simply by making it easier to develop by reducing the lot size. We'll try to keep some balance there. My suspicion is these numbers are going to be a little higher than they are. For example, we show the R2A, which is one family or two family district, so it does allow duplexes. The 14,000 square feet is a number that basically results in three units an acre. It's a hair over three units an acre. But for two-family housing, how do you do a one-and-a-half duplex unit? So we're probably going to increase the number just because we need to make it clear that, yes, you can build two duplexes, four units. We have a divide-by detail. In the final version, we'll have those tweaks done. But the intent is not to greatly increase the density. right now it's the master plan timescale would absolutely be looking at that and then we can plan for in our sewer system those kinds of expansions.

Can you tell me the difference between R2A and R2B roughly?

Which essentially I think it's predominantly the lot size and setbacks right? I think the land uses are virtually the same between the two. So it's just one is a larger lot size, larger setbacks than the other.

So why wouldn't you combine them in a way and have just the minimums be the same across both of them?

Right now, we have developments that were designed for these districts. So it's something we just have to look at carefully, as we just talked about. We had the R5.

but we still have some things to tweak i thought so i thought get some clarification off of what he's he's asking i thought that the difference between the two was one was for multi-family dwellings like say an apartment versus a home well they are three yet as a district that gets into the multi-family so okay the r2 is in the art the r2

A and the R2B do allow duplexes. They both allow single family and duplexes. And so you see a lot of areas of our community where there's a mix of the two in the same neighborhood. And that's great. That's really actually very helpful. But essentially, one to keep in mind, as I said, was the community was planned in a certain way. It was planned, often residential areas are planned more urban, closer to town you might say less urban as you go out and get to rural so sort of a gradation and that's what these zoning districts were designed to do was to have that sort of gradation thanks and the only other question so moved here from Houston and my house was literally 8,400

Or the lot size was. And it felt like there was no room for a yard or anything at all. And I could reach out and touch my neighbor. Is that why you have the maximum lot coverage to be where it's at? So you have that room to have a yard for kids and such?

Yeah, I've seen the same thing in Canada where a similar-sized lot, but the house was allowed to be built five feet from the property line or three feet from the property line. Yeah. It feels like you're standing in your neighbor's living room.

Yeah, especially once they started building, like, the giant monstrosities where they were, like, literally right up on your sitting on the property line. Yeah.

Now that does, you'll see that a little bit in here. The side yard setback, some of them we're proposing to reduce. We have right now the R2B district, the side yard setback is six feet. So it's the same on both sides. The houses could be as close as 12 feet apart. That's more than the minimum. The building code, fire code, would say 10 feet apart minimum. based on certain requirements for fire safety. But anyway, so still six feet from the property and I was pretty close. And we're proposing to expand that. You'll see where we're proposing to take the R2A down to that same six foot side yard. That's again to allow for space to be able to do things. It might be an addition, it might be a variety of things to get a little more room for that kind of thing. it would get closer to what you experienced in Texas. But not quite. As I said, some of those are really close.

So First of all, I think this is a good idea, and so I would say yes, proceed. Please. And yeah, bring us the updated, you know, the next step in the process. I'm just looking at the top end, the R1, and thinking about that. If someone wanted to develop a more, a high-end or upscale development, Could they do it as a PUD and set their own parameters if they wanted larger separations and not to be bound by this?

Well, remember, these are minimum standards. They can always do more. They can always have a bigger lot. These are minimum standards, the minimum setbacks. But the setbacks. But let's say R1, this is proposed to be a 35-foot front yard. somebody can build their house 100 feet back from a lot of 200 feet back. They just can't get closer to that.

But once you're in your home, What this would say is you can add to it all the way out to as long as you leave 35 feet rather than 50 feet, and you can go 30 feet, 15 feet. I said it's only a foot and a half that they've changed, but 15 feet closer. No, actually you haven't changed that far. Yeah, but so anyway, I guess all I'm just wondering off the top of my head is if you wanted a development where there was like, a lot of breathing room, more breathing room than this. Are there ways of doing that where it would be, people in there would be bound to that as opposed to this?

So taking like an HOA almost?

Well, you think about developments like condominium developments having their own rules, their own covenants and all this sort of thing. And I know the PUD would be a separate zone, and it could have its own, I'm assuming.

Yes, the answer is yes. There's a number of ways you could get at that. They could get at it through the PUD if that was needed, but it really isn't needed because you can also get at it through deed restrictions. For example, the Union Commons shopping center, where Walmart and Menards and all that is located, There is what amounts to a private zoning ordinance. It's a set of deed restrictions and easements and covenants that are on all those lots over there. And it caused some trouble when they built the valve building site because we kept pushing them to move that building closer to the road. And there's a huge easement that runs through that front of their property that prohibits them from doing that because seeing that Union Common sign at Encore Boulevard that looms over there. And so it forced the building back further than it needed to be. Anyway, but that's, and there's a whole bunch of restrictions in that, but they have to follow that go well beyond what our zoning ordinance says. So the same thing could happen with the private subdivision. No matter what, you can't be closer than X number of feet to a property line.

Okay. to follow up on something that Robert was talking about in this business of you know going from say 14,000 to 8,400 or whatever it might be there was I can't remember when it happened but there was something where we were looking at the master plan might have been the previous revision of if you have an amount of property that you want to develop, do you space out the buildings very equally across that, or do you put them all as close as possible and then have this open space that would be a mutual thing for everybody to enjoy, that type of thing? And I can see advantages to that, but I also know that, I don't know, for me, being in your house and sitting and looking out your window It's nice to be able to see a little space as opposed to seeing just the next building.

Yes, that's actually a provision in the State Zoning Act, open space preservation options, language like that. It's in our ordinance because it's in the State Act. We need to deal with it. that allows essentially a developer to cut the lot area in half, more or less, with the idea of preserving that 50% of land area that they're now not using anymore as open space. The numbers don't always work out exactly 50-50, but that's the idea, is squeeze down on smaller lots, preserve the open space. It can work. be challenging in certain areas with well and septic on smaller lots. But if you have sewer, it's fairly easy. It's interesting. It's about the market. There are some folks like you that want room. They want space around. There are other folks that want neighbors around. And it wouldn't be close. And that's okay. Both are completely valid ways to live. And we want to have, frankly, options for all of them in the community. And so If somebody wanted to do that today, we'd be happy to work with them on it and do that. This is really just intended to try to make more efficient use of the land, because especially if we reduce the setbacks, we don't need the land area as these were originally written.

Lowering all of these minimums makes it a lot easier to have much smaller housing like like that starter home that people talk about it Kind of disappeared

I like it too. I like to see Rodney come back with more recommendations for us too. Agreed.

All right. Well, that's what we'll do. So you can expect to see something that may have something for your next meeting, but certainly come back to you pretty quickly. We'll welcome that.

Sounds good. Thank you. Okay, so as the rain continues to fall outside, we'll move on. We have now extended public comment. So this is the portion of the meeting where individuals are invited to address the planning commission on any item, whether it was on tonight's agenda or not. If you're in the room, come to the podium, identify yourself, limit your comments to five minutes on any issue. If you are listening online, make your presence known and we will recognize you to speak. Extended public comment is open at 8.08.

I stayed to listen to what Rodney had to say and coming from the development side, I appreciate what he's doing. Benefits are clustered housing, less cost on the development side, open space areas, you just have to be careful with those because I've done a lot of replats where there were park areas that ringed around and nobody took care of the park. So be cautious about that. But I like the idea that you're pushing towards clustered housing and innovative developments. That I think is a great thing. So all for the direction that you're headed. The main reason I stayed was going to look at some of this stuff, there are a couple things that I'd like you to look at also. Under the R1 and the Ag District, if you look at accessory structures, how much land do you have? 25 acres. 25 acres? I have 5 acres. You know how big of a whole building I can build? 3,600 square feet? Do you know how much you can? 3,600 square feet. Exactly. If you own, and there's a bracket in there. I forgot if it's three acres, five acres, up to ten acres. But there's a bracket in there that if you fall into, no matter how big your lot is, as big of a pole building or an accessory structure or a combination of accessory structures, you can only go up to 3,600 square feet. So if I own 100 acres in Ag District, but I'm not a farmer. Because if you're a farmer, good luck trying to stop me. But if I'm not a farmer, and it's in Ag District, I have kind of a ridiculous limit. So I'd appreciate you looking at that. Most communities have it based on a percentage of the total land area. Neighboring township, Chippewa Township, you can build up to 3% of your total square foot area, however much you want to build. But the other thing that kicks in is when you decide to build that 3,600 square foot building, I hope you didn't want to build a 60 by 60 because you're going to have to build a flat roof. What? Yes. That's insane. Okay. Look at your ordinance. How your height is defined is the sidewall to the peak is the average. The problem when you start getting wider buildings is that peak has to continue to go up and up and up and up and up. Okay, well, I can balance that out if I lower the sidewalls. Oh, wait a minute. I need to get my fifth wheel in there and I need a 12 foot door. Or maybe I need a 14 foot door because I've got a monster. And to say you've got 35 acres or 25 acres and you can't build a structure that allows you to put your fifth wheel in. So take a moment, take a look at those accessory structures. If you're going to make a modification, this is a wonderful time to maybe consider it. And if you need some examples, I'm happy to give them to you.

So the table is talking about section 7.5, this accessory structure.

Subsection C and three, it's on page seven dash three of the zoning ordinance. I don't disagree with his comments. The accessory structure section and the signed ordinance section are usually the most amended sections of any zoning ordinance. because it's constantly a moving target to try to get all the possible variations dealt with. This table was actually developed to try to resolve problems in the older ones. So we tried to create a table that got there, and what essentially Tim is hitting on is the top end of the scale on the table, saying that we need more steps, essentially, or we need more flexibility at the higher end of it. If there's interest, we can certainly look at that and bring something back to you. I will say, I've not seen a 60 by 60 building built as a non-agricultural building. I've seen them built as a farm building, but not as a non-agricultural building because they're not that practical. Actually, I was going to say, 40 foot is about the maximum in terms of width. The length can be whatever that will get you the 16-foot maximum average height. If you go over that, I think you're gonna be too tall. Anyway, we certainly look at it. We can certainly look at the menu at the table if there's interest in this pursuit.

Yeah, I mean, I would like you to at least think about whether it makes sense to try to tackle something like this at this juncture while we're doing this other thing.

Change that top end to a percentage that sounds reasonable.

Yeah, there are a number of ways to work with it. I appreciate this comment about percentage, and it can be helpful sometimes. That also can go awry when you get at the extreme ends of the scale. So it's something that's just a good guess.

Public comment's still open, so.

For the variance issues or the setback issues with houses, you've had people coming in and asking these questions. Have you had people coming in and asking on some of these, in these other areas about height.

The current Section 7.5 reflects that. It's been amended twice, I think, since this was adopted.

So there are questions about that as well.

As I said, this is probably the most amended section of any city ordinance. There's always issues. I'm not surprised that

that it's a regular thing yeah no I've had just similar to the discussion on residential setbacks accessory structures even going back to the previous 1991 ordinance it has been an ongoing thing and so I don't think it's a discussion that even when we think we have it that the discussion is actually done thank you my only

Part of the comment is if you need a 12 foot door, you gotta have a 14 foot sidewall. If you need a 10 foot door, you gotta have your 12 foot sidewall. So one of the ones that I've run into was trying to build 40 foot wide, the length that he wanted. He could get under the square footage. It was dealing with the sidewall height and then the peak. change the design of the structure in order to do that, but when you do that, the cost of the structure goes through the roof. That's the only reason I brought it up. I've had people coming in and asking me how to get buildings through, and when I explain the rules to them, they are in shock. What do you mean? I own 30 acres. What do you mean I can't build? So it was just an opportunity for me to put the plug in. If you're going to open up those districts to look at, might be a good time to do it. And I really like the direction that Ronnie is taking this. I think it's going to push developers to do more clustered, more innovative projects.

Okay, thank you. Any other public comments? Okay, we thank the public for their comments. Go ahead and close extended public comment at 8.17. Next item is final board comment. Any comments from board members?

We just note that we do have a vacancy on the Planning Commission, and the Board of Trustees is looking for a candidate or several candidates to consider for the Planning Commission. And then just an observation, I was noting the date, and it's 6-16-26. How about that? 6-16-26. I haven't had this much fun since May 15th of last year.

So you're having a lot of fun on 7-17-27. We'll celebrate.

Could you imagine what it would be like, you have kids, if people that are going to be around, well, it won't be a thing then, but if you imagine that today, if there was a year that had like 67, I think it'd be a long year.

It was very long 10 days ago.

Oh, June 7th? Yeah. Okay. So those were some apropos final board comments. Any others? Okay. Then we've completed our agenda for June. We stand in adjournment until our July meeting.