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HomeMy WebLinkAboutApril 1, 2004 P&Z MinutesMeridian Planning & Zoning April 1, 2004 Page 50 of 89 Borup: Okay. Did you conclude your -- Zaremba: To be honest, the illegality doesn't really enter into my decisions -- my decision. I'm not thinking of the denial as punitive or -- what happens is we have experience with this project and the experience isn't good, so -- Newton-Huckabay: Well, I think it's important to point out that it was an illegal business operating out of -- I mean a business operating illegally out of the home and I think that, you know, that is important. Borup: I think it is. I don't know that that's all that unusual. There is probably businesses all over town and they just -- maybe alittle -- a little more under the radar and nothing's been said. Powell: Chairman Borup, for the benefit of the record, since I had interrupted Commissioner Zaremba before, can you restate your motion and then -- thank you. Zaremba: I will restate the motion. Mr. Chairman, I move we forward to the City Council recommending denial of CUP 04-005, request for a Conditional Use Permit for an accounting and dispatch office in a proposed Old Town zone for NIDAYS Addition by Sealco, 230 West Pine Avenue. Borup: And, then, did you want to include -- Zaremba: That's the end of the motion. Borup: Well, previously you had added reasons for -- I mean the conditions that -- Zaremba: For the benefit of the applicant I did discuss reasons. I did not intend to include those in the motion. Borup: Okay. You included all staff comments in there, didn't you? From the staff report? That's assumed. Okay. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Newton-Huckabay: I second. Borup: And a second. All in favor? Any opposed? Three ayes. One nay. MOTION CARRIED: THREE AYES. ONE NAY. Item 11: Public Hearing: RZ 04-003 Request for a Rezone for .17 acre from I-L to O-T zones for Brandon Wright by Brandon Wright - 631 West 15f Street: Borup: Thank you. That concludes this item. The next item is Public Hearing RZ 04- 003, request for a rezone of 1.7 acres from I-L to OT zones for Brandon Wright by Meridian Planning & Zoning April t, 2004 Page 51 of 89 Brandon Wright. This is at 631 West 1st Street. I'd like to open this hearing at this time and start with the staff report. Kirkpatrick: Chairman, Members of the Commission, this application is for a rezone of 0.17 acres. The property is currently zoned I-L, which is light industrial, and they are proposing a rezone Old Town. The property has an existing residence. The address of the residence is 631 West 1st Street. The property is -- property is surrounded by single-family residences. It's -- I believe it was, probably, originally zone I-L, which is light industrial zoning to its proximity to the railroad tracks. There is a small kind of pocket neighborhood where -- while there is light industrial zoning, it's remained a residential use. The area is zoned as Old Town in the Comprehensive Plan overlain map. The applicant's proposing the rezone not -- they don't want to change the property, but it's to make the property easier to sell. One of the complications of having this light industrial zoning on a residential use is essentially is makes it a nonconforming use, where if they had to rebuild the property because of a fire or natural disaster, they'd have to go through the CUP process, which would add probably four to six months onto the -- by the time they'd have to wait to get the building permits to rebuild. So, it will make the property easier for them to sell if they do have it rezoned to Old Town, where residential is a principally permitted use. Staff is recommending approval of this rezone. Are there any questions of staff? Borup: Questions? Okay. Is there anything the applicant would like to add? The staff has recommended approval. Wright: I'm Brandon Wright and I'll make this short and sweet. I'm trying to sell the house and I can't sell it unless it's zone to Old Town. Being light industrial you have to have a nonconforming loan, which means that you're going to have higher interest rates and that the mortgage company does not want to insure it, because if it does burn down, you cannot build it back. I am self-employed, so when I bought the house I had high interests and I did not know about the zoning and so now that I'm trying to sell the house, I cannot get anyone to buy it for that reason. I have tried to sell it as of a -- also as a commercial property and there just isn't any interest in that. So, this is my only option is to have it that way. And there is houses all the way around it and -- you know, and that's what -- I do have a renter there now, but it was vacant for somewhere between 12 and 14 months, so I have been trying to sell this for awhile. But that's all I got. Borup: Okay. Thank you. Any questions from any of the Commissioners? Do we have anyone else here to testify on this application? Okay. Seeing none, Commission? Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, I move the hearing on RZ 04-003 be closed Moe: Second. Borup: Motion and second to close the hearing. All in favor? Any opposed? Meridian Planning 8 Zoning April 1, 2004 Page 52 of 89 MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Zaremba: I'm prepared to make a motion, but I -- after the motion was over I would like to reserve the right to ask a procedural question before we begin Item 12. Borup: Okay. Zaremba: Mr. Chairman, I move that we forward to the City Council recommending approval of RZ 04-003, request for a rezone of .17 acres from I-L to OT zone for Brandon Wright by Brandon Wright, 631 West 1st Street, to include all staff comments of their staff comments of their memo dated April 1st, 2004, received by the city clerk March 29th, 2004. Moe: Second. Borup: Motion and second. All in favor? Any opposed? MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Zaremba: My questions for discussion -- the Comprehensive Plan went through hearings and much discussion and was a long process of public involvement and approval and identified the area, which, over the period of time, would convert to Old Town zone. My question is do we need to wait for individual applicants -- I don't know whether this is a question for the director or for legal counsel -- for individual applicants and consider everyone of the rezones for each of these -- what must be hundreds of parcels or is there a way we could pass an ordinance that just says everything within a certain area as defined by the Comprehensive Plan is now changed to Old Town, it would go through a hearing process also -- is that a possibility, so that we are not hearing hundreds of these one at a time? Powell: Chairman Borup, Members of the Commission, it certainly is and we, actually, started that process -- actually, Steve and Brad did shortly before I came on board. There was a huge turnout, a huge turnout, and what they ended up telling people, though, is at the time that their question was, well, what can I do with the Old Town zoning and the answer well -- Zaremba: Same as you're doing now. Powell: Well, you have to get a Conditional Use Permit for everything. So, a decision was kind of made after that to wait until we had a little better idea of what the downtown was going to be like as far as design guidelines, a little better idea on how the zoning ordinance would be changed to reflect some principal permitted uses, as well as conditional uses in the area, and, then, to revisit that and to come back to all those folks, but they mailed out invitations I believe to every affected property owner that would have been involved and Steve is obviously eager to put in some words on that Meddian Planning & Zoning Apol 1, 2004 Page 53 of 89 matter, too, but we did work toward that and it is still something we intend to do, we just have not -- we are getting all the pieces together before we start that program again. Zaremba: Thank you. Siddoway: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Commission, just a quick follow up. We did hold a public meeting on that issue. We invited everyone within the boundaries of the proposed Old Town area as shown on the Comprehensive Plan. There were certainly two sides to the debate of whether it was good or bad. Most of the residences in this area were all for it. They saw themselves as residential, they currently had I-L zoning, a change to Old Town made residential uses principally permitted and allowed them to more easily transfer ownership of their properties as residential. So, there is an area right here along Broadway that would probably be in favor of it. Elsewhere, the controversy was over existing properties that were zoned commercial, have principally permitted commercial uses that would now be conditional uses if they ever wanted to expand. And, then, some of the areas that already are zoned either Old Town or residential -- not Old Town, but the residential ones saw the change to the Old Town zoning would allow more potential businesses within their really residential areas and had some concerns over that. So, the decision was made that we would move forward with the design standards process first, try and get some of those issues lined out ahead, of trying to rezone the entire property, but there is probably a nucleus of residential properties currently zoned I-L along Broadway that would like it to happen sooner, rather than later. Powell: And one additional quick follow up. Last summer and fall I received, I don't know, four or five of these requests for what could you do with a nonconforming use and we had a lot of requests for rebuilt letters, is what they are called, and I did make that offer at that time and it still stands open, is that if someone wanted to organize six or seven contiguous properties and bring them in for a rezone, that I would work with City Council to make sure that the fees were waived for that. Now, I don't think -- I don't know if this was one of those particular properties or not or if they just weren't able to gain support from the neighbors, but I have consistently said that in this area, you know, if you can get a group of people together, bring them in, we will process them as a group and I will talk to City Council about waiving the fees, so -- Borup: Okay. Thank you. Zaremba: Thank you. Borup: You need to come back up front again Wright: That was stated -- Borup: State your name again, just -- Wright: I'm Brandon Wright.