Planning Commission

MINUTES PLANNING COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING MARCH 19, 2012 – 5:00 P.M. CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS PRESENT: Chairman Sookram, Members, Barton, Fooken, Emanuel, Ridder, Sawyer, Wiese and Winter, City Engineer Clark Boschult, Planning Director Rian Harkins, Chief Building Inspector Marv Hansen and Secretary Deb Pruss ABSENT: Member Synovec Chairman Sookram called the meeting to order. Roll Call Vote was taken – 8 present, 1 absent (Synovec). Chairman Sookram read a statement that a copy of the Open Meeting Law is posted continually for public inspection located near the agendas in the City Council Chambers and a Public Notice of this meeting was given in advance by publicized notice in the Fremont Tribune, a copy of which is attached to these minutes and made a part thereto, and on radio KHUB. Also, the agenda was displayed in the lobby of the Municipal Building, Police Station and the Dodge County Courthouse on March 14, 2012 and is open to the public. Moved by Fooken, seconded by Sawyer, to approve the Chairman's Statement that this meeting is now determined to be a legal meeting. Roll Call Vote showed all members present voting aye – 8 ayes. Motion Carried. It was moved by Emanuel, seconded by Sawyer, to dispense with the reading of the Minutes of the February 20, 2012 Regular Meeting and approve as received. Roll Call Vote showed all members present voting aye – 9 ayes. Motion Carried. Chairman Sookram stated the general public is invited to address the Planning Commission regarding any item on this agenda at this time or wait until discussion of their request is taking place. No public comments were received.  Consider request of Dustin B. and Danielle J. Wells to erect detached garage over the height of main structure at 2831 Nicklaus Way. Article 704 d. R1 – Single Family Residential District. Applicant Dustin Wells of 2831 Nicklaus Way was present. Chairman Sookram stated the background information on the staff report stated this was located in the R-1 Single Family Residential Zoning District. This property is located on the northern curve of Nicklaus Way. The existing structure was developed to meet all applicable setback and other requirements at the time of construction, however, the applicant has stated in their application the desire to add a detached garage that can be utilized for storage and other purposes. The proposed garage as shown on supporting documents for application is able to meet all the requirements of the Zoning Ordinance. The curved nature of the lot shape along with the position of the house on the lot does create a hardship that denies the applicant the property right generally enjoyed by others in the vicinity. Granting this approval would not cause substantial detriment to the public good or character of the neighborhood due to the large number of structures of a height similar to the proposed garage. Sookram stated the Commission was talking about the pitch of the roof in the Study Session. Member Ridder asked the Planning Director to clarify in terms of the hardship how the shape of the lot and the position of the house create a hardship when height is the main consideration. 1 Planning Director Harkins stated mainly in terms of more of the setbacks and the size of the structure that is proposed here. The applicant wants to go to the proposed height that he has listed in the application. There are some other homes with structures similar to that height in this neighborhood and so granting this variance doesn’t necessarily produce a detriment to the neighborhood as a whole in the area because of similar sizes of heights whether they be detached garages or the heights of the primary structure in general. Ridder asked how the shape of the lot and the position of the house relate to a hardship for height. Mr. Harkins stated with relation to the height, it is more of a setback issue. Ridder asked if there was a setback issue. Harkins stated because of the curved nature of the lot trying to get the structure set in an area that is far enough away from all the property lines and meet all the setback requirements with relation to the house. In other words, the position of the garage that he has shown on the drawings in relation to the house kind of gets to be an issue by the time you have access in and out. It is mainly just an issue that staff feels this really isn’t a detriment to the neighborhood overall and they don’t see a hardship to the neighborhood by granting this variance to allow for a structure of this height. Harkins stated he was aware that there have been a couple of conversations that have been had before he came on staff about this but when the property and the application was looked at, he didn’t see too many major issues with granting the variance in this situation. Member Sawyer asked what the true hardship was as the applicant was still building at the max square footage. He is building the largest garage that he possibly can. Harkins stated when you look at some of the supporting documents you see the number of 1 ½ and 2 story structures sitting around this property and so because of the way that street curves and where the lot sits almost like a slice of pie, when you start to lay out the house in relation to the lot that’s really where staff could see some of the issues that were relating to our recommending of the variance. Harkins stated it really came down to the fact that he did not see a detriment to the neighborhood as a whole because he didn’t see a proposed structure that was going to stick out in relation to other buildings in the area. Member Emanuel asked if there were any objections by neighbors. Harlan Mack of 2827 Nicklaus Way was present. His concern was how big the structure was going to be and how tall that pitch is going to be. If it is going to be 864 square feet he was concerned as his house is 1,300 square feet. It is a concern to him how big the structure is going to be in the back of the house. Chief Building Inspector Hansen stated the size of the structure, the square footage, is legal and he is not asking for a variance for that but only for the height. Applicant Wells stated the only thing of difference is that his house only spans 21 feet as he has a 4-12 pitch roof so it is very short. He would like to change to an 8-12 roof for the garage and the only difference is that it will be taller. The only thing he is asking for is the height variance. Chairman Sookram stated the height difference was 5 foot correct. Applicant stated approximately yes. Member Sawyer asked if the applicant could put an attached covered patio with a roof of an 8-12 and then he wouldn’t have to apply for a variance. Is that an option if he wanted to make an addition? Chief Building Inspector Hansen stated it wouldn’t meet setbacks as if he attaches to the house he has to be 20 feet from the rear lot line and he would have to be 7 feet from the side lot line so he can’t get it in there. The applicant stated the reason he is asking for the steeper pitched roof is that he is trying to have attic storage trusses up there basically so he can put Christmas trees and kids toys in for the winter and storage up there to not have it sitting around. Chairman Sookram stated getting back to the concern of how big the structure is. According to staff, it is not going to be anything out of the usual in that neighborhood. Mr. Mack stated that was his only concern and he was not trying to squash his project by any means as he was just concerned how big it was and how tall that was going to be so if you were coming down the street that’s the first thing you see is a large structure in the back yard. Applicant Wells stated the house right beside him where the garage will be sharing a lot line is a two story structure even taller than my structure. Sookram stated if that was to the east of the applicant. Planning Director Harkins stated that was correct as this gentleman’s property was to the west so he would have most of the lot for a buffer separation between the common lot line. Moved by Ridder, seconded by Winter to recommend denial of the request based on lack of a hardship. For purposes of consistency of recent decisions that the Commission has made, it is 2 difficult to find a hardship. She appreciates the lack of a detriment to the adjacent property and the character of the neighborhood but they are also asked to find a hardship and she was not convinced that they found a hardship. Roll Call Vote showed 5 ayes, 3 nays (Sookram, Fooken and Sawyer). Motion Carried.  Consider request of Irene C. Johnson to combine Lots 7 and 8 and the west 60’ of Lots 1 and 2, Block 24, Chase’s Addition, Fremont, Dodge County, Nebraska into one lot. UC/SC - Urban Corridor/Special Corridor District Chairman Sookram read the staff report that the request is to combine both lots. Sookram stated it was discussed that the approach be removed. Planning Director Harkins stated the Engineering Report indicates the structure on the one lot has been cleared and the applicant simply desires to combine the lots so at some point in the next few months they can put in a fence around the entire property. Moved by Winter, seconded by Wiese to recommend approval of the request subject to the driveway being removed. Roll Call Vote showed all members present voting aye – 8 ayes. Motion Carried.  Consider request of Nicholas and Tammy Sassaman to subdivide Lots 12 and 13, Riverview Subdivision, Saunders County, Nebraska into two (2) lots. RR – Rural Residential District. Chairman Sookram read the staff report that this property is located in a Rural Residential Zoning District as the property is located on the east side of Susan Street in the Riverview area of the City’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. The owner is requesting the lot split in order to sell the south section of the existing property for future development. Both of the new lots would be similar in size and nature to adjacent and/or nearby properties. The original two lots were combined into one lot in 2008 by previous owner. Moved by Fooken, seconded by Sawyer to recommend approval of the subdivide request. Roll Call Vote showed all members present voting aye – 8 ayes. Motion Carried.  Consider the Fremont Comprehensive Plan and Long Range Transportation Plan entitled “Blue Print for Tomorrow, Fremont, Nebraska”. Planning Director Rian Harkins gave a presentation regarding the Fremont Comprehensive Plan and Long Range Transportation Plan. Harkins stated this was a process that started about 18 months ago in the fall of 2010 and was led by a 16 member Steering Committee with some of the Planning Commission at one point spent time in those meetings or on that Committee. It was mainly made up of people throughout the community representing different staple groups. There was a contract with the consulting firm of Schemmer Associates and Mark Lutjeharms was present as Project Manager from Schemmer. Schemmer Associates led the team that produced the planning process and there were three deliverables, the Comprehensive Plan itself, the Long Range Transportation Plan and the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. The Transportation Plan also had a Traffic Model that went alongside of it and that basically dealt with some of the existing additions and modeling traffic volumes and some other factors. Harkins stated the purpose of the Comprehensive Plan was to guide growth and development over a 20 year period for the community. It is overall designed to give us a snapshot of where we are now, give us an idea of where we want to go and how we get there essentially. It also is a matter of State Law. If you want to do zoning in the State of Nebraska, you must have a Comprehensive Plan adopted on the books. Public involvement aside from the Steering Committee was done a number of ways. The public symposium was done community wide and that had over 200 participants and there was a number of different stations that were involved in the process covering different topics. The bulk of the plan deals with a number of different topics so Transportation would be one, Park and Rec, Housing, etc. With the grant that we 3 used from the Nebraska Department of Roads and the way the contract was structured, we were able to create two separate variables and deliverables for the Transportation and Park elements that drilled down further but the Comprehensive Plan aside from those elements deals with land use, housing, population, etc. One of the main features and components of the plan is a future land use map. It talks about a number of different land uses that are all based on character and encompass different aspects of the community in previous planning projects that have been done. To implement this plan, there are a number of topics that come up. The plan specifically calls out an implementation team that is set to work with City staff of six to eight people. This would be a group of people helping develop recommendations for how some of these topics are tackled. Some of the key topics that were talked about in the implementation element of the plan with regard to looking at how we develop a more detailed economic development strategy and how we bring all the partners in the community together. For example, continuing our efforts at downtown redevelopment and continuing to push efforts to expand what we have done. We are beginning to look at housing redevelopment in the community in the older neighborhoods and really working with those stakeholders to develop neighborhood plans that drill down farther than what we do now. One of the key components is developing a new unified development ordinance and that essentially is taking the Zoning Ordinance and the Subdivision Regulations and putting them into one document instead of two like we have now. Staff is already looking at the process of putting a request for proposals together but this will be one of the projects that Implemental Team will be involved in. Another area of implementation deals with annexation as that is a required element of State Statutes, That is another topic that City Staff is beginning to work at and developing a list of potential properties in the future to look at. Some of that will be brought to the Planning Commission in Study Session format and will also be shared with City Council over the next few months. Mark Lutjeharms, Project Manager from Schemmer Associates was present. He stated they were assisted by two sub consultants (1) Kendig Keast Collaborative with Bret Keast being the primary author of the Comp Plan and also (2) Iteris who helped with the traffic model. Throughout the process as chapters were developed to a draft state, those were submitted for review. Planning Director Harkin then spoke of the Parks and Rec Master Plan, Public Input – Transportation Issues and Transportation Plans, How Will Plan Be Implemented, How Is Plan to be Administered and How Do We Keep the Plan Current. After additional discussion, many of the Planning Commission Members stated they would like a hard copy of the information and have time to review this before further discussing and moving forward. Moved by Fooken, seconded by Wiese to recommend continuing this item to the next regular meeting. Roll Call Vote showed 6 ayes – 2 nays (Ridder and Emanuel). Motion Carried. Meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m. 4