Building & Zoning Committee

BUILDING AND ZONING COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES REMOTE PARTICIPATION June 17, 2021 Chairman Denise McCreery – Trustee Members Charles Ostman – Community Development Director Rich Wlodarski – Community Development Assistant Director Tom Kanelos – Chairman Planning and Zoning Hadley Skeffington–Vos – Deputy Village Manager Danielle Grcic – Village Attorney Rich Mangold – Resident I. Call To Order/Roll Call The Niles Building and Zoning Committee meeting was called to order at 8:18 AM. Present: 8 – Chairperson McCreery, Kanelos, Ostman, Wlodarski, Skeffington-Vos, Grcic, Mangold, Bruemmer, Thake and Elizarraga. Absent: 1 – Mayor George Alpogianis, Grcic Guests: Rise II. Approval of Building & Zoning Committee minutes from the meeting on May 20, 2021 Ostman motioned to approve of meeting minutes for May 20, 2021. Wlodarski seconded. AYES: 5 – Chairperson McCreery, Kanelos, Ostman, Wlodarski, Skeffington-Vos NAYS: 0 ABSTAIN: 0 Motion passed. III. Old Business A. Design Guidelines i. Ostman is making progress, putting language together and next meeting Ostman will present progress to the group. ii. McCreery asked to track time and effort to assess cost of staff time as opposed to outside contract with a vendor. B. Text amendment Nuisances, Property Maintenance i. Ostman stated language has been put into Chapter 18 of the Village ordinance, and does not include bird feeders. ii. McCreery stated there is a big culture of repurposing, she stated some items are determined to be garbage she said the Village would like to avoid such nuisances. iii. Ostman requested a vote to approve text amendment placement under property maintenance. iv. Skeffington-Vos made a motion to place the text amendments to Nuisance in Property Maintenance. Wlodarski seconded. AYES: 5 – Chairperson McCreery, Kanelos, Ostman, Wlodarski, Skeffington-Vos NAYS: 0 ABSTAIN: 0 Motion passed. IV. New Business A. New resident brochure i. McCreery stated there have been some amendments to services offered to new residents. She went on to say the new resident brochure was designed to outline information for new businesses. ii. Wlodarski stated Community Development reached out a5 with the help of Katie Schneider, a5 stated to redo it, it would take up to $5,000. He explained Ana Elizarraga would reach out to K. Schneider to get the brochure as close to branding as possible as to not spend $5,000. iii. McCreery asked Elizarraga to share the brochure via Canva.com iv. McCreery is pleased with the direction the brochure is headed. v. Ostman stated this brochure is a way to get important information for new residents regarding state laws. He explained we would print them in quality paper. vi. McCreery stated out-of-house printing would work better for this type of document. In- house printing will limit the design capabilities. B. Text amendment discussion (vehicle repair minor) i. Ostman stated there have been many inquiries for the C-3 District regarding minor vehicle repair for Skokie Auto location. In particular one that does vehicle wraps. He went on to say that the current code does not mention vehicle wraps and is currently being deemed as a unique use. He is recommending amending the text to allow vehicle wraps in C-3 District for minor vehicle repair. ii. McCreery and Kanelos stated they do not have a problem with this. iii. Ostman stated there is no chemical related to this process, it consists of printed vinyl. iv. McCreery asked for a motion. v. Ostman motioned to allow text amendments to the Niles Zoning Code for Vehicle Repair Minor to include: upholstering work, auto glass tinting, sales and installation of accessories, accustom and aftermarket parts and trim, vehicle wraps. Kanelos seconded. AYES: 5 – Chairperson McCreery, Kanelos, Ostman, Wlodarski, Skeffington-Vos NAYS: 0 ABSTAIN: 0 Motion passed.  C. Discussion rat remediation i. Ostman stated the rodent problem exploded this year in the single-residence areas. Anderson Pest Control has been contacted to keep a handle on the rodent problem. Ostman inquired as to recommendations to assist residents as they see rodents around their home. He stated when residents see a rodent and they report it to Community Development, the department notifies Anderson Pest Control immediately and they send out agents to locations to set up bait stations on a weekly basis on Wednesdays. He went on to say that another option is to hand out traps to residents at $8 per trap. ii. Discussion was had on the nature of the traps, whether they were traps or poison. Kanelos stated the poison would go back into the food chain and asked if there’s an alternative. iii. Wlodarski stated there is an alternative, there’s a black box with a trap inside. However, the box is useless after one use and if a landscaper bumps it, it will set off the trap. iv. After much discussion on rats and rat remediation, McCreery asked Ostman to keep track of the status of rodents and explore alternative abatement options as they come up. D. Discussion on smoke shops i. Bruemmer stated the most frequent request he gets is to open up smoke shops in town. He explained currently smoke shops are regulated with the smoking establishment use in the use table, which regulated onsite smoking. This is being brought up to see if the Village would like to continue with restrictions on smoke shops and if the village would like to separate hookah from a different use of smoke shop. He stated currently it is a special use in the C-2 District north of Ballard and in the Touhy Triangle area. ii. McCreery inquired if there were any comparisons made with Morton Grove and Skokie with similar demographics. iii. Bruemmer stated Skokie permits smoke shops but does not have hookah lounges. Morton Grove has smoke uses but does not allows onsite smoking. He stated only Chicago, Glendale Heights, Lawndale and Westmont allow hookah bars based on Google Maps. iv. McCreery asked Bruemmer if there was a recommendation. v. Bruemmer stated no, but there were many inquiries received by the Village. vi. McCreery stated to leave it as is, she explained there were not any complaints she had received regarding the matter. E. Discussion of on premise consumption for (Rise) i. Bruemmer stated some municipalities downstate have been exploring onsite consumption. The Village does not allow onsite consumption. ii. Kanelos inquired if we don’t allow onsite tobacco why would we allow onsite cannabis consumption. iii. Skeffington-Vos inquired if there were other dispensaries that allowed onsite consumption. iv. Bruemmer stated that not in Chicagoland but it seemed that that is the trend. v. McCreery stated she doesn’t see it as different as attending a bar. Her concern rests in that there is not a test determined to test for cannabis for our police officers to use to determine if a person is impaired while driving. vi. Skeffington-Vos stated a lot of their products are not smoked, but are candies and vapes. vii. Mangold suggested we table the discussion until after Rise participates. V. Open Discussion and Public Comments A. Dina Rollman, Bendan Bloom, – Rise i. Rollman stated she oversees government affairs on behalf of the company. She is in the meeting to introduce themselves and participate in the conversation of onsite consumption as an education resource. She stated they have operated without incident for the last year. They operated as an essential business through the Pandemic. Niles has received 3% of revenue which has translated into hundreds of thousands of dollars helpful in a pandemic. Anecdotally, they have been attracting new visitors to Niles. They employ 25 people. ii. McCreery inquired if there’s anything specific to consumption they’d like to share. iii. Rollman would like to discuss the concept of onsite consumption, as it is the next wave in the industry since it is not legal to consume cannabis legally. iv. McCreery inquired if a lounge would not be considered public. v. Rollman stated no, they are not public it is a reservation program. No edibles nor alcohol would be served. They developed best practices to prevent impaired driving. With a capacity of a one hour and a half duration with a fifteen (15) people capacity. VI. Next Meeting July 15, 2021 VII. Adjournment Kanelos motioned to adjourn until July 15, 2021. Mangold seconded. AYES: 6 – Chairperson McCreery, Kanelos, Ostman, Wlodarski, Skeffington-Vos, Mangold NAYS: 0 ABSTAIN: 0 Motion passed.