Manhattan Urban Area Planning Board

MINUTES MANHATTAN URBAN AREA PLANNING BOARD City Commission Room, City Hall 1101 Poyntz Avenue Thursday, April 24, 2025 MEMBERS PRESENT MEMBERS ABSENT Ann Christian Jim Fenton Brad Buser Ken Ebert Kelly Karl Hannah Fehr, vice-chair Debbie Nuss, chair STAFF PRESENT Barry Beagle, Senior Planner; John Adam, Assistant Director of Community Development; Rachel Sherck, Deputy City Attorney; and Ben Chmiel, Senior Planner 1. CALL TO ORDER 1.1 The chair called the meeting to order at 6:00 p.m. Staff called roll and stated there was a quorum. 1.2 Open Public Comments: There were none. 2. CONSENT AGENDA 2.1 Approve the minutes of the April 10, 2025, Manhattan Urban Area Planning Board meeting 2.2 Approve the FINAL PLAT of Autumn Ridge, an 11.9-acre residential subdivision south of the Grand Champions subdivision on the east side of Grand Mere Parkway. (applicant: Ben Burton, SMH Consultants; file no. SUB-25-021) Christian moved to approve the consent agenda; Ebert seconded. Motion passed 6–0. 3. PUBLIC HEARINGS 3.1 A PUBLIC HEARING to consider AMENDMENT of the Manhattan Development Code (MDC) to address zoning hierarchy, terminology regularization, signs, and procedures (applicant: City of Manhattan; file no. DCA-25-026) Adam gave the presentation. MUAPB Minutes Page 2 04/24/2025 Wilson said he felt the bicycle parking ratios were too low and suggested they be doubled as the parking racks would not be a large financial burden to a developer. He added that support of multi-modal transportation networks was a goal in the comprehensive plan. Adam asked for clarification on the “doubling” suggestion. Wilson said he had meant increasing the number of bedrooms per bicycle parking space. Wilson asked why shared parking would not be allowed between residential and commercial districts. Adam said the proposed change was to allow shared parking between different residential districts. Wilson said while the exclusion of residential/non-residential shared parking would not dissuade him from approving the section, he did suggest that it be allowed in the future. Wilson asked about the changes to the Board of Zoning Appeals regulations. Adam said they would eventually be moved to chapter two, but that for now they would continue to be included in the MDC. Wilson asked about the removal of Planning Board recommendation from the City Commission definition. Adam said that Article 26-9 already included the Planning Board recommendation to the City Commission as part of individual process descriptions, so the definition was altered to avoid redundancies. Wilson asked why Type III decisions only sometimes included recommendations from a board. Adam said some processes do not require recommendations from the boards. Wilson asked why the timing requirements for the neighborhood meeting were being removed. Adam said the new timing would allow application to be made concurrently with the neighborhood meeting notice of fourteen days which would make the completeness review faster. Wilson asked what would happen if significant changes were to be made to the application after the neighborhood meeting. Adam said it was an unlikely situation as the applicants would have already attended a pre-application meeting with City staff and would be aware of all requirements and if staff was likely to find in favor or disfavor of the request. Wilson asked about the changes to the completeness review timeline. Adam said staff would still attempt to follow the previous timeline but that there was greater flexibility without it. Wilson said he had previously had projects held up by other cities he had worked in with similar processes. Adam reiterated his previous comment. Wilson said he supported all the amendments besides the bicycle parking changes as he felt that not providing spaces because there was little bicycle infrastructure in certain areas would continue to see a lack of bicycle infrastructure investment in these areas. Fehr asked if bicycle parking spaces only counted rack parking or if lockers also counted. Adam said lockers would also count as parking and that the RC district did require indoor parking. Chmiel clarified the language used was “weather MUAPB Minutes Page 3 04/24/2025 protected” which meant it needed to be covered, which could be accomplished through indoor parking. Chmiel asked if the bicycle parking ratios would be assessed for the whole building or per threshold. Adam said he had not considered applying the standards per unit threshold but that it was a good suggestion. Wilson said the requirement to have bicycle parking near the main entrance of the building should be changed to allow for more dispersed parking on the site. Adam said the Zoning Administrator had the ability to grant an administrative exception for the location of bicycle parking. Ebert said he had done calculations for each of the bicycle parking ratios and that there were significant ratio changes at each unit threshold. Adam asked if the problem could be solved if the thresholds were to be combined into half as many thresholds. Ebert said there would still be significant differences between certain unit counts regarding the ratios. Ebert suggested comparing the proposed bicycle parking standards to the vehicular parking standards to see if there was a solution there. Wilson said he did not mind the gradient version of the bicycle parking requirements, even though it was complex. Chmiel asked the board if the thresholds were marginal if that would be a stronger solution. Nuss asked for clarification. Chmiel said it would require the 5-to-24-unit bicycle parking ratio for the first 24 units, then the 25-to-49-unit bicycle parking ratio for the next 25 to 49 units, and so forth. Chmiel equated his suggestion to how tax brackets functioned. Ebert asked for clarification on Chmiel’s suggestion; Wilson explained the concept. Wilson said he had not seen a bracket-style approach to bicycle parking before and that it was normally a flat rate like vehicular parking. Wilson said in his experience that exterior bicycle parking requirements were usually lower and secure indoor parking was usually required at a higher rate. Adam suggested that the first two thresholds be combined at the one space per four bedrooms rate, and to add the cumulative approach to the calculation. Ebert said that the bicycle parking ratios should not decrease from the previous threshold. Ebert asked if the shared parking standards would prohibit private shared parking arrangements between residential and non-residential uses. Adam said it would not prohibit private arrangements. Wilson said he had been advocating for its allowance for public arrangements to meet required parking. Ebert asked why the greater-than-1000-foot allowance was being removed for parking for uses within the UC district. Adam said that per the annexation agreement with Kansas State University that the City did not have a say in university developments. Ebert asked why the section for amendments to a shared parking plan was being removed. Adam said he had changed it to allow the Zoning Administrator to approve amendments to share parking plans, so the section was now unnecessary. MUAPB Minutes Page 4 04/24/2025 Ebert asked why the description for the Board of Zoning Appeals was much longer than the description for the Planning Board. Adam said the specific language for the Planning Board was in Chapter Two of the Code of Ordinances, and that the BZA would eventually be moved there but for the time being would be in the MDC. Ebert asked if it was the same for the Historic Resources Board. Adam confirmed. Sherck added that repetitive language from State law often caused problems with conflicting interpretations or changes. Ebert asked why the notice section required “general location” instead of “specific location”. Adam said undeveloped land would not have an address so a general location description would be more applicable. Ebert asked if there was any place in the zoning code or State law that specifically prohibited consideration of an applicant’s intent for a rezoning case. Adam said there was nothing that required or prohibited its consideration in a rezoning case, but that the criteria are focused on the appropriateness of the proposed zoning. Ebert said he agreed except for review criterion seven, which was for consideration of all other matters. Sherck said that the City can’t condition a rezoning on specific future development. She said given there could be changes to future development plans that presentation of plans at the time of rezoning could give the public a false impression of what specifically would be planned for a given site. Sherck said by not considering the future intended use of the site that it required a higher degree of analysis on the public’s behalf as all permitted uses would have to be considered as a potential future use during the rezoning case. Sherck said that future intended use should be weighed fairly with the other review criteria. Ebert asked how staff handled applicants sharing future intended uses during the rezoning process. Adam said staff does not consider future intended use in their analysis and tells applicants such. He added that he could not prevent the planning board from considering future intended use during a rezoning hearing but reminded them that it was not best practice. Ebert asked if the City Commission was advised on the matter of future intended use in a similar manner to the Planning Board. Adam confirmed that both bodies were encouraged not to consider intended use. Ebert and Nuss discussed the nuances with considering future intended use as part of criterion seven, and the complexities of considering public comment that referenced plans that had been shared with the public for future developments associated with the rezonings. Wilson asked how annexed land that had been given the default Land Reserve District zoning would exit that district. Adam said it would require rezoning to a different district. Wilson said he disagreed with the suggestion that the Planning Board and City Commission should only be able to recommend and adopt less intensive zoning districts and asked why they could not also recommend and adopt more intensive zoning according to the hierarchy table. Adam noted that the addition MUAPB Minutes Page 5 04/24/2025 of the hierarchies did not preclude consideration of the Future Land Use Map. Adam said the ability to recommend or adopt more intensive zoning according to the hierarchy tables was a limitation provided by State statute. Wilson said he understood that the boards could not recommend or adopt more intensive zoning districts because of State statute, but that allowing the boards to change to less intensive zoning directly conflicted with the Comprehensive Plan calling for an efficient use of land. Wilson said he thought it was unfair to the public to be notified for a rezoning to one district and then have a less intense district be recommended and adopted without any additional notice. Karl said he appreciated the changes to the sign allowances in the commercial districts to allow for more flexibility. Nuss suggested that the board move for a recommendation with alterations to the bicycle parking requirements as previously discussed. Adam said the changes were to combine the first two categories to create a new category of 5 to 49 dwelling units requiring 1 bicycle parking space per 4 bedrooms; and to make the bicycle parking requirements additive. Adam said he could do a rewrite of the section based on their direction. Wilson suggested that the categories be combined into two ranging from 5 to 49 dwelling units requiring 1 bicycle parking space per 4 bedrooms, and 50+ dwelling units requiring 1 bicycle parking space per 8 bedrooms. Wilson also asked if the board would be open to leaving the requirement at 1 space per 4 bedrooms for all ranges of units. Ebert said he would not suggest changes to the ratios but would likely be supportive of any changes suggested by the board. Wilson moved to amend the bicycle parking requirements so that the categories range from 5 to 49 dwelling units requiring 1 bicycle parking space per 4 bedrooms, and 50+ dwelling units requiring 1 bicycle parking space per 8 bedrooms, with the requirements being additive; Fehr seconded. Nuss asked staff how staff felt about the change. Adam said he would prefer to include more graduation than what was being suggested, but that he was unsure what the ideal categories and corresponding ratios would be. Wilson said that what he had suggested was half the current requirement for units 5 through 49 and a quarter of the current requirement for any additional units over 50. Wilson said that developers could still add more bicycle parking if they wanted, and that larger projects had larger budgets and could afford to account for large amounts of bicycle parking. Christian asked about the email showing the revised language. Adam said it would not be voted on but rather be double-checked by the members of the board to make sure it accurately reflected the changes as part of any motions from the meeting. MUAPB Minutes Page 6 04/24/2025 Nuss said she would vote against the motion and asked that staff find a solution that addressed both Ebert and Wilson’s concerns and then email the board the changes that would be proposed to the City Commission. Ebert agreed with the course of action. Sherck said she was unsure if the process that Nuss had suggested was proper. Nuss clarified that it would not create a vote by email but rather alert the City Commission to the changes to the bicycle parking section based on the discussion by the Planning Board members. Sherck said it could be done if the board approved the proposed amendments as they were and then the City Commission would effectively override the recommendation of the Planning Board as the new version would include the recommended bicycle parking changes. Sherck said if the board did support the alternative language that had been proposed by Wilson that they vote on his motion as their recommendation to the City Commission, with Adam’s comments still being included in the minutes provided. Motion failed 1–5; Ebert, Nuss, Fehr, Christian, and Karl disapproving. Nuss asked if the board would be comfortable allowing staff to make changes to the section for the City Commission based on comments from the Planning Board. Adam clarified what the consensus of the board was concerning the bicycle parking changes. Nuss asked that staff email the Planning Board the changes after they had been made, strictly for the purpose of informing the board. Wilson asked if there was the possibility of the discussion and proposed changes being ignored and the original proposed changes being presented to the City Commission. He asked how the Planning Board was to keep track of the changes and make sure that staff had properly implemented the changes. Adam said he would make the changes in accordance with what had been discussed. Nuss and Ebert said to keep track of the City Commission agendas to view the amendments being presented to them, including the revisions to the bicycle parking that staff would be making. Nuss added that Wilson could appear before the City Commission as a member of the public during the comment period. Ebert moved to recommend approval of the amendment to the Manhattan Development Code; Christian seconded. Motion passed 6–0. 4. REPORTS AND COMMENTS 4.1 Planning updates from staff. Adam said staff were planning revisions to the Urban Commercial (CU) district to remove the complex design standards and review processes and make the district effective for mixed-use projects and Planned Unit Development (PUD) conversions. Adam said the original intent of the district was to create transit- oriented developments (TODs), but that Manhattan did not have a big enough population to support that kind of development. He said he would have a draft ready by the next meeting. MUAPB Minutes Page 7 04/24/2025 Chmiel said there would be a community survey for the Historic Preservation Plan coming soon. 4.2 Comments from Board members. Fehr asked when the City Commission was hearing the rezoning for 2323 Anderson. Ebert said it was being read on May 6. Nuss asked about temporary signage for 151 Coffee and if it was permitted. Chmiel said that temporary signage was addressed in the Manhattan Development Code and that staff would investigate it. Christian said she had been approached about signage on Poyntz Avenue in the bump-out areas. Ebert said that it was his last Planning Board meeting after nine years and said that it was a privilege and enjoyable experience working with the current and past City staff in his tenure. Ebert said staff were dedicated and professional even during differences in findings and appreciated their efforts on projects such as the downtown plan. Ebert said he felt recent rezoning hearings by the board had exposed conflicts within developing the future of Manhattan, such as the Future Land Use Map and the Housing Market Analysis. Nuss thanked Ebert for his service on the Planning Board. 4.3 Next meeting: Chair announced the next meeting is May 8, 2025. 5. ADJOURNMENT Meeting was adjourned at 8:25 p.m. Submitted by Lance Wackerla, Planner I