Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting

PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 6:00 PM Baxter City Hall, 13190 Memorywood Drive, Baxter, MN “A Growing Community” CALL TO ORDER The regular meeting of the Baxter Planning and Zoning Commission was called to order at 6:00 pm by Chair Hiltner. ROLL CALL MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Chuck Hiltner, Commissioners Gwen Carleton, Larry Kellerman, Tim Swanson (6:05) and Council Liaison/Mayor Darrel Olson MEMBERS ABSENT: Commissioner Howie Oswald STAFF PRESENT: CD Director Josh Doty OTHERS: None MINUTES 1. Approve Planning & Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes from January 14, 2025 MOTION by Commissioner Carleton, seconded by Commissioner Kellerman to approve the Planning and Zoning Minutes from January 14, 2025. Motion carried unanimously. Chair Hiltner stated that this Commission is a recommending body, and that final approval/denial is taken with the City Council on February 18, 2025. COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS OLD BUSINESS 2. PUBLIC HEARING. Conditional Use Permit to allow an accessory structure area to exceed the maximum size allowed and a Variance to allow a reduced setback to a side and a rear lot line for property located at 12700 Persimmon Drive (City file 2024-37) Chair Hiltner asked for an update regarding the tabling. CD Director Doty stated that staff just received a survey from the applicant. Staff has not had a chance to thoroughly review the survey to make any recommendations for this meeting. Therefore, staff is recommending that the application is tabled to the March Planning Commission meeting. MOTION by Commissioner Kellerman, seconded by Commissioner Carleton to table the conditional use permit to allow an accessory structure area to exceed the maximum size allowed and a variance to allow a reduced setback to a side and a rear lot line for property located at 12700 Persimmon Drive. Motion carried unanimously. 2/11/2025 Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 2 NEW BUSINESS 3. PUBLIC HEARING. Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment to update the Zoning regulations of the City Code. (City file no. 2025-002) Chair Hiltner asked for the staff report. CD Director Doty explained the reasons behind updates to the ordinances. He stated the applicant, the City of Baxter, is requesting a comprehensive ordinance amendment to address several issues within Title 10 Zoning Regulations of the City Code. These updates resulted in revisions to “General Definitions” in section 10-2-2, “Industry Office Conditional Uses” in section 10-3I-3, “Landscape Requirements” in section 10-4-8, and “Architectural Requirements” in section 10-4-10; of the Zoning Ordinance. The primary purpose of the changes is to provide greater flexibility in some areas of the city code, add substantive requirements in other areas and to provide increased clarity of the intent of existing areas of the zoning code. Amendment Highlights Chapter 3: Section 10-3I-3 – Staff is proposing to add “data centers (including crypto mining)” as a conditional use in the Industrial district and has proposed a few ordinance-required conditions to ensure these types of uses do not negatively impact the surrounding area and are not detrimental to the city’s electrical power supply to the point that it could limit development. Data centers, crypto mining in particular, require large mechanical units to keep the computers cool. This mechanical equipment can be unsightly due to the sheer size of it and can be rather noisy. Additionally, they use up vast amounts of available electricity and could end up straining the power grid. The proposed conditions are necessary to mitigate potential negative impacts to the community. CD Director Doty reviewed the definition, the need for a conditional use permit, noise, power use and locations allowed with the Commission. Commissioner Swanson asked if this language was modeled after another city of the same size. CD Director Doty indicated that staff created this language. Commissioner Carleton asked if there was a data center interested in coming into Baxter, CD Director Doty indicated there was not a request at this time. He informed the Commission that staff has previous experience with crypto mining and the noise level it creates. Commissioner Kellerman asked how the power usage would be determined and could it be disputed. CD Director Doty agreed that this would be tough to determine, however as data centers power usage can be extremely high. He gave the example of if a data center came in and wanted to occupy 70% of the remaining industrial parks available power, is that fair to the city to allow that use and potentially not allow future growth. Chair Hiltner noted that the data center use of power is high. Council Liaison/Mayor Darrel Olson asked if staff would bring in our professional suppliers of power to assist, such as Crow Wing Power. CD Director Doty stated it would be up to the applicant to see if the power company could supply the use. He also stated that the power condition could be removed if the Commission was not comfortable with the verbiage. CD Director Doty stated that what if a massive use came in and the city was caught off guard. Commissioner Carleton stated that an applicant could put up their own solar panels. Council Liaison/Mayor Darrel Olson stated that staff has gone through the situation where the Tee-Hive building put in crypto next to the apartment buildings on Cypress Dr. Council Liaison/Mayor Darrel Olson stated it was a bad situation for a while. CD Director Doty added that the owner did put a wall 2/11/2025 Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 3 up to help with the noise, and eventually that portion of the business did move out of Baxter. CD Director Doty stated the problem with some data centers is they run 24 hours a day and use a significant amount of power. Chair Hiltner stated data center use on demand power most of the time. He then shared about someone (not in Baxter) running a crypto use out of their home, as he is aware of one. CD Director Doty indicated that if it was deemed a data center, it would not be an allowed use in Baxter, as it would now be a named use only allowed in the Industrial District. Chapter 4: Section 10-4-8 – An amendment is being proposed to the landscape ordinance to eliminate the requirement to have an underground irrigation system to use direct seeding as a method of establishing grass ground cover. The requirement for underground irrigation was put in place prior to the site improvement escrow program being in place. At that time, it was deemed necessary to have underground sprinklers for direct seed to ensure the grass was established. Since that time, the city has started the escrow program to ensure all required improvements are properly completed, one of which is grass ground coverage established to a minimum of 70% across all areas of bare soil. Additionally, the State has increased erosion/sedimentation requirements for MS4 cities which requires a minimum of 70% of expected vegetative growth to be established. Furthermore, there have been numerous homes that have established grass ground cover using direct seed without the use of underground sprinklers. In these instances, staff was not aware that direct seeding was used without underground sprinklers until the grass ground cover was inspected and approved at which point it was pointless to require underground sprinklers since the grass was already established. It is very difficult to enforce this ordinance requirement, and the requirement isn’t needed due to the 70 percent rule and the escrow program. For these reasons, staff has determined that the requirement for underground sprinklers is no longer necessary or practical to enforce. CD Director Doty stated that due to Baxter’s sand, there has been a lot of attention placed on both residential and commercial development regarding the establishment of lawn grass. He discussed storm water treatment regulations evolving and becoming stricter with the MS4 program, regulations require 70% thickness of ground coverage/grass, before projects can be closed out. The City also now has an escrow program. In the past, people would spread grass seed on the sand and hope for the best. Without watering, weeds would dominate, and lawns would not establish. Now, if people spread grass seed on sand and don’t water and/or take other steps to establish the lawn to 70 percent thickness, then they do not receive their escrow back. CD Director Doty then reviewed the following section, using the annexed area of Inglewood and 77 as an example. Section 10-4-10 – The proposed amendments add specific exterior building material (siding) requirements for the CI, Annexed Commercial Industrial, the OS, Office Service, and the PB Public Benefit districts. Currently the ordinance lumps the CI, OS, and PB districts in with “All Other Districts” which includes siding materials you would typically see on residential applications. However, as trends change, other materials that have typically been used in more of a commercial application are now commonly in office settings. The proposed changes allow for greater flexibility in siding materials in the OS and PB districts while still maintaining a degree of architectural design and make clear the expectation for siding materials in the CI district. Proposed changes are as follows: Since the CI district is a combination of less intense industrial uses and more intense commercial uses, staff analyzed the materials lists for the industrial and commercial districts and found it appropriate to add the CI district to the Tier 1 Industrial architectural requirements. This is appropriate because the Tier 1 Industrial standards include all the 2/11/2025 Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes Page 4 commercial district architectural standards and adds industrial standards with percentage limitations of certain industrial materials such as nonarchitecture metal. A new category was created for material requirements for uses in the OS and PB districts which combines certain materials from the commercial and “all other districts” standards. Staff recommends approval of the draft zoning ordinance amendments and the finding of fact resolution. Chair Hiltner opened and closed the public hearing as there was no one in the audience. MOTION by Commissioner Carleton, seconded by Commissioner Swanson to approve the Zoning Ordinance Text Amendment to update the Zoning regulations of the City Code as presented by staff in the draft resolution. Motion carried unanimously. UPDATES None ADJOURN MOTION by Commissioner Carleton, seconded by Commissioner Kellerman to adjourn the meeting at 6:34 p.m. Motion unanimously approved. Approved by: Submitted By: ___________________________ ___________________________ Chuck Hiltner Shanna Newman Chair CD Administrative Assistant