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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMay 17, 2007 P&Z Minutes Meridian Planning & Zoning May 17, 2007 Page 29 of 38 Rohm: It's been moved and seconded to forward onto City Council recommending approval of AZ 07-008 to include the staff report as modified in the motion. All those in favor say aye. Opposed same sign? Motion carried. Thank you folks for coming in. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Item 14: Public Hearing: CUP 07..011 Request for Conditional Use Permit for 12 multi-family residential units on one acre in an R-15 zone for Strate Apartments by Gene Strate - 911 East Pine: Rohm: Okay. At this time I'd like to open the Public Hearing of CUP 07-011 related to Strate Apartments for the sole purpose of continuing these items -- this item to the regularly scheduled meeting of June 7th, 2007. Rohm: So moved. Siddoway: Second. Rohm: It's been moved and seconded to continue Item CUP 07-011, to the regularly scheduled meeting of June 7th, 2007. All those in favor say aye. Opposed same sign? Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Rohm: Okay. At this time I'd like to take a short break. (Recess.) Item 15: Public Hearing: ZOA 07-001 Request for a Zoning Ordinance / Unified Development Code (UDC) Text Amendment to modify, clean up and add specific sections to the UDC (see application for details of all sections proposed for amendments) for Unified Development Code Text Amendment # 2 by the City of Meridian Planning Department: Rohm: All right. I'd like to open Public Hearing ZOA 07-001 and begin with the staff report. Hood: Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members of the Commission. ZOA 07-001 is the second amendment to the Unified Development Code that we are taking for some additions, subtractions, modifications. As you may recall, September of 2005 that this was adopted, so about a year and a half now -- a little over a year and a half we have had the UDC in effect and for the most part I think it's working pretty well, but we have before you some clean-up items. I'm going to just touch on a couple of them that I think are noteworthy. Some of them are just -- we missed a comma or a letter or forgot to add a -- for instance, in some of the subsections -- I'm not going to touch on those. Again, just some of the major -- I wouldn't even say major. Most of these are pretty Meridian Planning & Zoning May 17, 2007 Page 30 of 38 minor changes at best. If you look at section line roads, we are adding some of the section line roads down south and to the northwest that weren't listed as section line roads as we have continued south to take in the four square miles or just making sure that we are getting our landscape buffers and things like that on those roads as we approach them. There is a bunch of sign code stuff that we are cleaning up, some of that stuff. Detached accessory buildings, clarifying that they are not allowed in any required street yard, so they will always be behind a structure and screened. Talk measuring sidewalk -- or setbacks from the back of sidewalk or property line where there isn't a sidewalk. Currently it just says from the sidewalk and we are having problems with if there is no sidewalk where do you measure it from. Let's see. We are deleting the standards for fireworks stands. Some of you may be aware we -- the city adopted a new fireworks ordinance this -- probably a month and a half ago, something like that, so there is -- it's in city code somewhere else, so we are striking everything that talks about what our standards for fireworks stands are. Probably the biggest change to mention is in 11-3-G3.A-1. We are upping the minimum amount of common open space required for subdivisions of five acres or more in size. The current requirement is five percent. We are proposing to bump that up to ten percent. So, at a minimum all subdivisions greater than five acres will now require ten percent open space. So, that's probably the biggest change mentioned. Hopefully you all had a chance read through this, but, again, there is truly not a lot to it. Some noticing requirements that we are kind of cleaning up there. Maybe one of the other things that we were cleaning up -- or adding that's never been codified is a development agreement and how you modified a development agreement, so we are putting some language in there about modifications to DAs and actually giving them a home and a process, so that's also in there. Common lots -- or, excuse me, common driveways. There was nothing in the UDC about how much separation had to be between lots not sharing a common driveway, so we put a standard in there that there has to be at least a five foot landscape strip separating one driveway from the next. It could be just a one foot wide common drive -- or landscape strip. O'Brien: Mr. Hood? Hood: Yeah. O'Brien: Is it appropriate for me to -- Hood: Sure. O'Brien: -- ask a question? Because I will forget when you go through all the rest of them. So, this five foot separation between driveways, is that for a single dwelling, duplexes, what? Because like in this Meadowlake thing, they are 50 close together, five foot would put the driveway in the front door, I'm afraid. Hood: Yeah. Mr. Chairman, Commissioner O'Brien, this particular standard applies to a shared driveway. So, if you have two, three or four units sharing a driveway that goes back and they flag off -- you have those like side loaded garages, typically, those types Meridian Planning & Zoning May 17, 2007 PAge 31 of 38 of things, it just says you can't have a fifth unit that's right next to that and not taking access. Having its own driveway, but not using the common driveway that they abut. It at least provides some separation between the two. O'Brien: I'm glad you clarified that. Thank you. Hood: Uh-huh. And, then, the final two things I just want to touch on real quick -- we are adding a requirement that -- I think the postmaster contacted me this past year and wanted to have a requirement that prior to final plat that they get a letter from the postmaster that they are approving the mailbox locations for commercial projects. We are running into some problems with commercial projects. We require it now with residential and they wanted to get that in with commercial as well. And, then, finally, in the planned development ordinance we have added a standard talking about how we are supportive of side entry garages or alley loaded design with planned developments, something we are trying to support. It doesn't say you have to do that. but trying to express our want for innovative design. So, that is, in a nutshell, some of the changes. Now, there are many different sections, but, again, a lot of them are just clean-up things, problems we have noticed over the past year or so and we are taking them to you to see if you have any questions. Just to go back to -. we did send out an e-mail to the City Council sometime ago and I believe most all of you were probably copied on that, too. Let me give you a brief presentation on this. I think at our last joint meeting this is that same application, so we finally got them all compiled, yeah, and so having that, since then, it's essentially that same document from that time. O'Brien: Mr. Chairman, I have a question for staff. Rohm: Absolutely. O'Brien: Okay. So, when I was reading through here, you mentioned several times on the notification process of people living within a hundred, 300 to a thousand feet, depending upon what the notification was about, whether it be housing or light industrial or heavy industrial, what determines that? How was that determined to -- in footage for notification of people within that circle? Hood: Mr. Chair, Commissioner O'Brien, our noticing is done from all points of exterior boundary of a property. So, you, essentially, take whatever the subject site is and you would go -- in most instances it's 300 feet. O'Brien: But what determined that? I mean how did you come up with that number? Hood: Boy, that's been something that's been around for a long time. I'm not sure if there is something in state code that actually says 300 feet -- O'Brien: I don't know that. I'm just -- Rohm: I think it is state code. Meridian Planning & Zoning May 17, 2007 Page 32 of 38 O'Brien: There may be. The concerns I have with that are this: Recently -- and this is in the county out where I live -- is that someone bought the property on Lake Hazel that overlooks the valley where those 644 homes were turned down by Hubble -- from Hubble. The person who originally bought that property up there basically wanted it for the gravel. They turned it into a gravel pit -- not a pit, but they scarffed off the top of that plane on the fourth bench and it was in direct site from my property, but the noise was tremendous. And they are further than 1 ,000 feet away. And the other case in point -- there is another sand and gravel property that they did the same thing for that was also more than 1,000 feet away. So, there is some concerns there that it very much affects people outside of that circle and so I was just curious as to how that process really worked, because it didn't work out there. Hood: Yeah. And Mr. Chair, Commissioner O'Brien, that is one form of notice that we do with projects is to try to hit the people that are in the immediate vicinity that we think are going to be most likely affected by any development there. If you drive by the project, though, they are also required to put up the four-by-four sign. Now, most people are going 50 miles an hour and they don't read that sign, but that's what that sign is for and if you're driving home and you see one of those signs, you should get in the habit of getting out and reading the sign, because that is what -- that's to get the word out that, hey, someone's proposing to do something here, there is a Public Hearing, find out what's going on in your neighborhood. The third form of notice is the newspaper. Now, again, most people don't read the Valley Times, but it is there and it is made available to the public. So, we do the best we can. We can't send out notice to everyone. I mean our fees would go through the roof trying to send letters to everyone for every project. That's why the 300 foot has been adopted by the Council and, yeah, we can get people outside of that that are affected. I mean look at traffic, you're going to have -- you know, traffic's going to be generated and affect people that are downstream. We just can't notify everyone that well. But the other -- the fourth unwritten form of notification is neighborhoods and homeowners associations. They get the word out and most of them now are pretty good about, hey, I got a notice, talking to their neighbors, did you get a notice, do you have any concerns, and knocking on doors and kind of rallying people that way. Now. on the county it's a little bit different. Your neighbors may be five acres away, but through those methods we do the best we can to get the word out if there is a project proposed, 50 -- and it's just the way things have been done. And I'm not saying that's correct, but that's just the way that we have done them in the past. And just for clarification, we are proposing to change that radius notice in here. One of the sections, I believe, that was changed is the AUPs, which is, essentially, day cares. We are expanding that notice a little bit wider, because we were just noticing them to people directly adjacent to and I think we are going a hundred feet from there. So, at least we have some new standards there. But our general standards for noticing are not changing. Are not proposed to change anyway. O'Brien: Okay. Siddoway: Mr. Chairman? Meridian Planning & Zoning May 17, 2007 Page 33 of 38 Rohm: Commissioner Siddoway. Siddoway: I think it's also worth noting, in answer to your question, that I think -- as I read sub item C, that the director has the ability to require notice beyond the 300 or thousand foot, if they see that, you know, the way the radius is working out really isn't hitting some key property owners that are affected. So, there is the ability to -- to do that, but 300 to a thousand is the typical hard line. Hood: And just an example to follow up on that, we actually did use that this last week. There was -- someone appealed Anna's determination and the implications of that appeal could have far reaching implications citywide, so we asked the clerk to do a public service announcement and do all the alternative notice as well, because we felt there would be more than 200 people that would be affected by that decision. So, it's not very common, but it's not wholly disregarded. It is code and we do use it sometimes, so -- O'Brien: Okay. Just a case in point, is the south Comprehensive Plan is a good thing to look at, because there is a lot of people going to be affected by whatever happens out there that are a lot more than a quarter mile away or more. Hood: And -- Mr. Chair, Mr. O'Brien, in that case there are more than 200 affected property owners, so we don't send out one mailed notice, the state code allows you, if the mailing just gets too many, that you do these alternative forms. Public service announcements, you post it in the paper in bigger font, I think is what it reads, but, essentially, you get the word out via other means. O'Brien: Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate you clarifying that. Siddoway: Mr. Chairman, I have one question, which -- and it's related to the open space. I support the increase from five to ten percent. Caleb, is staff happy with the way the open space is currently defined in terms of usability or, you know, those types of standards? Hood: It is -- Mr. Chair, Commissioner Siddoway, it is pretty clearly defined in code, you know, it needs to be an area substantially open to the sky, it can't be a parking lot, it can't be some of these other common areas. So, I think the definition is fine. Where I find -- personally where I find some gray area in reviewing those is multi-family developments where there are common lots and where you draw a line of what's common and what's someone's backyard, but maybe there is not a property line there. And so kind of those areas where -- where there is not a subdivision is where it gets a little gray to me and usually most of those have -- far exceed the requirements, because they include a lot of the setbacks and things like that in their open space calculations. So, for the most part I think, yes, we may revisit it here a little bit and just since we are talking about open space, I am going to send this out to the BCA. I have not received comments and just -- we would like to get the word out, particularly probably on that one Meridian Planning & Zoning May 17, 2007 Page 34 of 38 -- that one change. The other ones I don't think they will be probably too much -- too many comments back, but we will get the development community involved at least before City Council, so -- Rohm: Thank you. At this time could I get a motion to -- we have to close the Public Hearing? I guess we would. Siddoway: We should note for the record that there is no one in the audience to testify. Newton-Huckabay: And nobody's signed up. Rohm: Yeah. There is not anyone in the audience to testify and there was nObody signed up, too, so at this time could I get a motion to close the Public Hearing? Siddoway: Mr. Chairman, I move we close the Public Hearing for ZOA 07-001. Moe: Second. Rohm: It's been moved and seconded to close the Public Hearing on ZOA 07-001. All those in favor say aye. Opposed same sign? Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Siddoway: Mr. Chairman? Rohm: Commissioner Siddoway. Siddoway: I move to recommend approval to the City Council of file number ZOA 07- 001, as presented in the staff report for the hearing date of May 17, 2007, with no modifications. Moe: Second. Rohm: It's been moved and seconded to forward onto City Council recommending approval of ZOA 07-001. All those in favor say aye. Opposed same sign? Motion carried. MOTION CARRIED: ALL AYES. Rohm: Before we adjourn I believe Caleb had something he wanted to present to us and get some feedback. So, Caleb, at this time I'll turn it over to you. Hood: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the Commission, I just had a couple of things. It's been brought to my attention by more than one of you that you would like some additional training -- I mentioned I think to most everyone -- maybe I didn't catch