Planning Commission

FAIRMONT PLANNING COMMISSION The regular meeting of the Fairmont Planning Commission was held on June 17, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. at the Public Safety Building located at 500 Quincy Street. President Oliver called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. and asked for a roll call of members. ROLL CALL OF MEMBERS MEMBERS PRESENT: MEMBERS ABSENT: President Oliver Commissioner Greene Commissioner Richardson Commissioner Pitman Commissioner Weber Commissioner Majic Commissioner Miller Commissioner Straight Commissioner Parker CITY STAFF: Interim Planner – Mark Miller Recording Secretary – Maria Cipolla Intern – Michelle Sloane PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM April 15, 2015 President Oliver asked for a motion to approve the minutes. Commissioner Weber motioned to approve minutes. Commissioner Straight seconded. PUBLIC HEARINGS TO SET FOR June 17, 2015 None PUBLIC HEARINGS TO SET FOR July 15, 2015 1. Ronald L. Satterfield is requesting the abandonment of a portion of the Fleming Avenue Right-of-Way along Parcel 43 of Tax Map 01-12. President Oliver asked in there was anyone to speak in favor of this request. There were none. President Oliver asked if there was anyone to speak against this request. There were none. President Oliver asked Interim City Planner, Mark Miller, for his staff report. Interim City Planner, Mark Miller stated Mr. Satterfield was building a carport and came in because he didn’t have permit. When we took a look at where it was, it was in the big Fleming Avenue right-of-way (ROW). That is a 100’ right- of-way. It used to be the old trolley line. He told us his neighbor had a similar portion abandoned a while back and we pull it up. In 1987, the City abandoned a 31 x 150’ portion. He is looking at doing the same thing. It is a little different 1 from what we normally see. Normally the unopened ROW is between parcels and we just give half to each parcel. This is just out in the open. On another note, it could be possible for other neighbors to start coming in saying they want their property done as well. We may want to look at that area. Fleming is 100’. Lawrence Avenue is 60’. Barry is 60’. Bison is 50’. They are all really big right-of-way areas. President Oliver asked Commissioner Miller if he knew the area fairly well and asked if he could provide some information. Commissioner Miller stated the residents could have the area surveyed if they wanted. President Oliver stated if they want to have it surveyed, they would have to do it. Commissioner Miller added the residents already maintain the right-of-way. The City doesn’t maintain anything out there. We just paved the street two years ago. We have paperwork on the right-of-ways but to pin-point it, we would have to have it surveyed. Mark Miller said, at this point it would just be to match what his neighbor has. President Oliver asked about the road (on the map) that comes up between the houses. Is that a road there? Mark Miller stated it is just a graveled alley. It is an open right-of-way. We do not maintain it. President Oliver asked, if we go all the way up, would we just split it between parcels 43 & 42 at that end of the alley? Mark Miller stated we would probably leave it open and just come off the end of his property 31 feet and 150 feet across like we did for his neighbor in 1987. They alley would be untouched. President Oliver asked about the building on parcel 46. Stating that their setbacks are way off from the parcel line. Mark Miller added the over-lay is not exact but it certainly looks like it is sitting in the right-of-way. I don’t know how long that building has been there. It is a little green garage that has been there for a long time. For the item tonight, we just need to look at all this and see if we want to set this for July’s meeting. Commissioner Weber asked if the Planning department had talked to any of the other property owners. Mark Miller stated that normally we would contact property owners but in this case, since it is a right-of-way abandonment, the only person we have to notify is the property owner effected. Ordinarily, we have to get people on both sided of the property but we are just dealing Mr. Satterfield on this one. Down the road, we may want to take a look at the whole area because others may want to follow this one. A lot of people mow ROWs they think is their property. President Oliver said he understood and asked if there were any other questions for Mark. President Oliver asked if there was a motion to set. Commissioner Parker motioned to set. Commissioner Majic seconded the motion. 2. On behalf of Mountaineer Holdings, L.C., Merit Development Inc. is requesting a rezoning of the properties located between Morgantown Ave. and Speedway Ave. also known as Owens Illinois, Tax Map 03-02 Parcel 35 and 2 04-08 Parcel 30, and the following adjoining properties Tax Map 03-02 Parcels 35.1, 37, 37.1, 38, 39, and 99, Tax Map 04-08 Parcels 13.1, 49, 49.1, 49.2, 145, 145.2, 146, and 147 from Highway Commercial to Industrial. President Oliver asked if there was anyone to speak for or against. There were none. President Oliver asked Mark Miller for the staff report. Mark Miller stated he had been speaking with a gentleman with a company in Morgantown. He has been looking at the old Owens property for redevelopment. It sounds like he is looking to do some sort of Business Park with some outdoor storage. Highway Commercial is not ideal for that. In his research and in talking to Kathy Wyrosdick and me, in avoiding spot zoning, we are looking to rezone the whole area to Industrial to match up with the existing Industrial area starting at Freedom Street. He put together a pretty extensive packet. You can read it now or by the next meeting. Owens was closed in 1982. It has been sitting vacant. They are talking about doing a voluntary remediation of the site to get it ready to build on. In order to consider rezoning, we are required to have 50% of the effected property owners in support. Between the Owens property and the property owned by Robert Thompson’s company, that is 85% of it. There are a couple of smaller parcels we will have to take a look at it and group in. We have one phone call from a guy who is not crazy about it but I think it is an education thing. He may not have all the information needed on this transacting. We don’t see any reason not to do it. If you look at the Comprehensive Plan done in 2005, this area is zoned for residential and business. Highway Commercial does not permit Residential. With the changes now, Industrial zoning does. This fits better into the Comprehensive Plan. President Oliver stated, this is one of the other areas we meant to put back into that when we did the Comprehensive Plan. We honestly did leave it out of the plan. That was 10-15 years ago when we first did it. This was an oversite on our part. I talked to Mark and looked at the map and remembered the conversation I had with Nick and Mr. Wood. We just left this off and we shouldn’t have. Ninety percent of this property belongs to Robert Thompson. Mark Miller added that the City is required to do a 30 day Class II legal ad. We only have 29 days between tonight’s meeting and the July 15th meeting. I would request we move the next meeting to July 22nd in order to meet the requirements. President Oliver asked if we have to stay on the third Wednesday of every month. Mark Miller said we have moved the meetings before for a holiday. We could do a special meeting. President Oliver said he thought we should keep our regular meeting and then add a special meeting on July 22nd. Commissioner Weber said, what about Hickman Run that runs underneath the property out to the Mays Brother property. We have major water problems out there. What happens with that? Mark Miller stated they plan on taking care of that as well. There is a box culvert that has failed. That could be contributing to some of the flooding down where the old lumber store use to be. They are planning to take care of the chemicals left behind through remediation and the water issues as well. Planning Department Secretary, Maria Cipolla handed President Oliver the written policy on holding a regular scheduled meeting and special meetings. President Oliver read the policy to Mark Miller and the rest of the Planning Commissioners. It stated, the Planning Commission shall meet at least quarterly and once in months of January, April, July, and October and may meet more frequently at the request of the President or by the request of two or more members. Regular meetings shall be held on the third Wednesday of the month. When the meeting falls on a nation or legal holiday, the regular meeting shall be held at the same hour on the next secular day not a holiday. 3 President Oliver asked Commissioner Parker how he interprets this. He said he takes it that we have to have a meeting in the month of July. Commissioner Parker said the exception is if there is a holiday, than we have to move it the Thursday after the holiday. It doesn’t mean we can’t have a meeting before then Commission Straight asked Mark Miller if there was a problem with the way the item originally posted. Mark Miller said, we have not look at this one before. This is something totally different. I was not aware of the bylaws. I apologize for that. We need to do the July meeting for the right-of-way abandonment. We can have a special meeting for this request or see if he would wait until the August meeting. Commissioner Straight said, I think what you do is just have a special meeting. Commissioner Weber asked if we could have a 6:30 meeting and then our regular meeting. President Oliver states that according to the policy, the meetings have to be in January, April, July and October. You have to have them in those four months no matter what. They have to be on the third Wednesday of the month. If it would have been June that we were setting, than we could have done it on the fourth Wednesday, the second one, or whenever we actually reach a vote on which day to have it. The way this is sounding, that because that is July, we have to do it on the third Wednesday on the 15th. We have to keep our regular meeting. If you do a special session. We can do the day after, 3 days, whenever. It doesn’t have to be on a Wednesday. We just have to come up with a day as to when we will have that special meeting. Mark Miller stated, we do have to meet the 30 day minimum and we have to give the newspaper a couple of days to put it in the paper as well. We should at least push it to the Monday after the 15th meeting. President Oliver asked the other Commissioners to think about what day they want to have the special meeting on. We have to meet on the 15th. Should we just keep it as a Wednesday so that way we know it will just be Wednesday and Wednesday of next month? Commissioner Parker asked if we would be setting a precedence with this case. Commissioner Straight stated that each case to him was a case by case situation. President Oliver agreed. Mark Miller said he could ask the applicant if he would mind waiting until the August meeting. There is a fee to hold a special meeting. I can explain to him there is a 30 day waiting period and we cannot meet that by the 15 th. If he wants a special meeting, he can pay extra. If you would prefer, I can go that route. If he doesn’t want to pay the money to have the special meeting, we can put him on the agenda for the August meeting. President Oliver and Commissioner Parker both agreed that would be fair. Mark Miller added, if we do the special meeting, it will be on July 22nd. President Oliver asked if all the other Commissioners were in agreement with this decision. Commissioners all agreed. President Oliver asked if he had a motion to set this for a public hearing. 4 Commissioner Weber motioned to set this for a public hearing. Commissioner Straight seconded the motion. Motion carried 7-0 NEW BUSINESS None CITIZENS PETITION None. OTHER BUSINESS 1. Zoning Map Conversion Project Mark Miller started by introducing Michelle Sloane. She is interning with Maria and I in the Planning Department for the summer. Some of you were here when we first looked at the Zoning map. The district lines are not clear with good cutoffs Kathy and Jay were cleaning out their offices. I have the files. If in the near future we pull this back up, it would be the same process we went through with the zoning code. We would have to set a public hearing and get council to adopt it. We went through the whole process and have everything in a good place. Industrial is a really good example. This is what our map looks like now. There are no parcel lines. So if somebody calls about a property in between, you don’t really have any way to tell them what the intent was. (Showing an updated version of the old map) Mark says, this is the same area (Mark is holding up a new, updated version of the map). If you look at this, there is no question where the lines are. We took a look at everything. We put little arrows to point out this is supposed to be Industrial. We have done 95% of the work already. I would really like us to go ahead a make it official. This is the map we have for our new zoning code. If we could put this online, it would be wonderful. 2. Commissioner Comments President Oliver said, I was coming down Fairmont Avenue and was very pleased to see the miller getting ready to start work at Watson Bridge. I guess they are getting ready to mill and repave. He asked Ron Miller if he knew how far they were going with it. Commissioner Miller said, I guess they are going from Watson Bridge to Southside Bridge. President Oliver added, that was great to hear. Also, the sidewalks are getting replaced to be ADA compliant. I guess a few of our wishes are coming true with the sidewalks and a few repaves here and there. That is great. I would like to congratulate Mark Miller. I hope it is not too early to do it. You are doing a great job. I know it is not easy to pick up where Kathy left off. I know he probably needs a lot of help and hopefully he’ll get a little bit. I think he is doing a great job so far. He has called me several time and I am glad because you are getting us more involved. With Kathy, I guess it was secondary. She would just do it and not ask any questions. We would show up at a meeting and all of a sudden we would have this agenda and we wouldn’t know what was going on. It’s nice at least having Mark saying “Can I do this” before he goes ahead and does it. Commissioner Weber said Public Works is doing a wonderful job with the sidewalk in front of the public library. Commissioner Richardson said, I thought the drainage problem going out Fairmont Avenue was fixed. I guess with the on-slot of so much rain, they didn’t do a good enough fix. 5 President Oliver said, that has always, always been a tough spot and a problem. You are always going to have low swells there. I don’t know how they can ever stop it. Commissioner Richardson added, at least it is brought to their attention before it is done. But anyway, with the handicap sidewalks, fixing the streets, the steps to the library, and the Teamster building coming down, things are looking better. Hurray for all those who have push that ball down the road somewhere! Commissioner Majic said, I am in agreement with all of you. Congratulations to Mark. I think so far, so good. Commissioner Straight said congratulations to Mark. Keep the good work up. You hear so much negative, the City isn’t doing this or that, I think there is a lot going on right now. There is a lot more to be done. Hopefully, we just keep trucking along. Job well done. Thanks. Commissioner Miller said, congratulations Mark. I work closely with him. It is going to be good working with him. Commissioner Parker said, I want to congratulate Mark. I have enjoyed working with you. I look forward to working with you in the future. I think before we close this hearing, I think we would be remise not to recognize the work that Kathy Wyrosdick did. I think it would be appropriate for the Commission to go on record remembering Kathy’s commitment to the City. President Oliver said, I agree with that 110%. I think not only just with Kathy but also Jay Rogers. Jay stepped in from a planner. Back in those days it was tough and they both took Fairmont in a direction we need to go in. I know it was tough for both of them. I am sure there was a lot of people when they were walking through Walmart that gave them a piece of their mind. I think they did an excellent job. They went out and did their best. They did the things they needed to do. Hopefully, the new City Manager will continue to help us grow and take us in the direction we need to go. Staff Updates: Interim Planner, Mark Miller said they brought equipment in today for the Teamsters demo. It is going to start coming down. A couple of new businesses are going in. We have a new restaurant going in the old Mi Pueblo building soon. Adam Rohaly’s building across the street is coming together. It will have a restaurant in it and will be opening in the next couple of months. We are moving in the right direction. Like Eddie said, without Kathy and Jay, I don’t think we would be heading in that direction. We would be remiss if we didn’t try to keep it going for them. Commissioner Weber made a motion to excuse Commissioners Greene and Pitman from tonight’s meeting. Commissioner Straight seconded the motion. ADJOURNMENT President Oliver asked for a motion to adjourn. Commissioner Straight made a motion to adjourn. Commissioner Majic seconded it. 6