Planning Commission

Russellville Planning Commission Minutes November 27, 2017 @ 5:30 p.m. The Russellville Planning Commission held its regular meeting on Monday, November 27, 2017 at 5:30 p.m. in the Russellville City Hall Council Chambers. Members Present Chairman Dennis Boyd Nathan Barber Vice-Chair Peggy Stratton John Whiteside Secretary Wendell Miller Steve Hubbard Frank Russenberger Council Liaison Eric Westcott Members Absent Shirley Hatley Karen Yarbrough Also present: Mayor Randy Horton, City Attorney Trey Smith, Fire Marshall Setian, Jim Lynch/City Corp, Zayne Bryson/City Corp, City Engineer Kurt Jones, Planner James Walden, Lequitta Jones Planning Assistant, and Dave Garza/Barrett & Associates Inc. Welcome The First Order of Business was a request to review and approve the October 23, 2017 minutes. Commissioner Stratton made the motion to approve the minutes as written. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Hubbard and passed unanimously. The Second Order of Business was a request to approve a large-scale development of the proposed new expansion for Hindsman Tire located at 1309 East Main Street. Submitted by Dave Garza of Barrett & Associates on behalf of Tommy Hindsman d/b/a as Hindsman Tire. (DV.17.02.131) City Planner Walden said this request is for a large-scale development expansion. The current use is a tire and auto shop that is zoned C-2. The Comprehensive Plan designates this property as commercial use. The request is to expand the back of the shop away from East Main Street. The addition is intended to be used for additional service bays for car maintenance. The addition will be approximately 3,150 square feet. The warehouse behind the building is for supplies. It measures approximately 10,000 square feet. The existing concrete apron on the back of the building will be utilized for roughly half of the requested expansion. The foundation will be expanded to meet the full requirement. Additionally, the applicant is updating the front and side facades to meet the requirements of the commercial design standards. According to the code, a Special Use Permit is not required for this application. Also, the applicant has updated the parking plan. This is a straightforward site-plan for a business that has been there for a long time. We believe marking the parking will be taken care of. The recommendation for action on this item is approval. This item meets all the requirements for a large-scale development approval. The use is conforming and meets the provision of the Comprehensive Plan. Dave Garza, on behalf of Tommy Hindsman, said this expansion will greatly improve the look of the building. It is currently a metal building but will conform to the commercial design standards when the brick is added to the front and sides. Commissioner Russenberger asked if the area of the expansion’s footprint was already concrete or asphalt and how it would affect the drainage. Mr. Garza said the area of the footprint is all asphalt and concrete so the drainage does not change at all. The drainage will go in the same place it currently goes. Commissioner Stratton made the motion to approve the request. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Miller and passed unanimously. The Third Order of Business was a request to vacate the north 5 feet of the 15-foot wide alley that runs south of lots 10 and 11, block 7, College Hill Addition to the City of Russellville, also located at 1015 North Arkansas Avenue. Submitted by Dennis Jones. (ST.17.10.85) Planner Walden said this is a request to partially vacate the 15-foot wide alley to a 10-foot alley. The exact location is the north 5 feet of the 15-foot wide alley that runs south of lots 10 and 11, Block 7, College Hill Addition. There are no utilities in the right-of-way and he does not foresee any potential problems with this request. The staff recommends approval. Commissioner Stratton said the property owner on one side of this alley believes that the remaining ten feet would be his from this point forward. City Engineer Jones said the remaining ten feet would actually still be a public alley. Commissioner Stratton asked, since this is concrete and used by this business for parking, who maintains it? City Engineer Jones said he didn’t know who placed the concrete there, but he assumed that whoever placed the concrete there would either maintain it or not maintain it. Commissioner Stratton said so it will remain public property? Mr. Jones said the ten feet would remain public property unless that owner wanted to petition to vacate that, which would be a separate request. The reason we are leaving the alley open is because the alley does extend further back to the west, and if we close the entire 15 feet between these two lots that would actually leave a little island alley back there because there is no access to that alley from the west. This property owner just needs to close the five-foot portion to get clear title to the property because their building does encroach into this alley. Commissioner Hubbard made the motion to vacate the north five feet of the 15-foot alley. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Miller and passed unanimously. The Fourth Order of Business was a request to vacate a 15-foot wide area on each side of South Greenwich Avenue between East 5th Street and 6th Street to reduce the existing 80-foot right-of- way to 50 feet. Submitted by Dave Garza on behalf of Dan Lightfoot d/b/a Church of Christ. (ST.17.11.86) 2 Planner Walden said the church owns property on both sides of this street on this portion of Greenwich. The applicant is requesting a partial closure of the street. Currently, the street has an 80-foot right-of-way (ROW) that was historically platted. That is the width of ROW that you would need for an arterial road such as Parkway Avenue. Typically, with a local street such as Greenwich, we have a 50-foot ROW. This request is to close the outer 15 feet on either side of the ROW in order to accommodate parking. This will transfer ownership of 30 feet of city property to the church and reduce the ROW to a more standard 50-foot ROW. We asked if there were utilities present. We did determine that there is an existing sewer line that will require an easement. There may be additional utilities which will need to be addressed prior to this request being approved by the City Council. Again, lessening the ROW will allow the church to use this property. There is not a strong purpose outside of maintaining an easement for this to actually remain as public ROW. The recommendation for action on this item is approval with contingency. The contingency is that suitable easements are provided to accommodate both City Corporation and other private utilities before approval by the City Council. Chairman Boyd asked City Engineer Jones if he had any issues with the partial closure. Mr. Jones had no issues with reducing the width of the ROW. The chairman noted out that currently, they are parking on the city’s ROW, which is fine, however they back into the street which is non- conforming with the code. He asked if that was an acceptable practice. Planner Walden said it is an issue that we have in a number of locations throughout town. It is technically not in conformance with the code; however, it has historically been something that has happened just about everywhere. It is a difficult thing to bring a lot of these into conformance simply because they are just so many instances of it in the older part of town. City Engineer Jones pointed out that the street is not heavily travelled at all It doesn’t have any effect on the parking out there that is already there that’s not in conformance and it’s certainly not going to allow any additional parking of that nature out there. What it will do is give them the opportunity to build this parking lot that will hopefully help to alleviate some of that parking where they back into the street. Mr. Garza said some of the utility companies have yet to respond. We still have two more months before the City Council meets to consider adoption. The electricity is all overhead. It is not going down the street; it is in the back along the railroad and on the other side. We were talking about the sewer line, they sent be a location where they tapped it and if you take that location and extend it back to the east, we have discovered it is actually in the alley that we are not closing. There should not have to be any easement for that. We don’t know where the natural gas line is located. We are waiting on their response. All the water is on the north and east so there is no problem there. If there is anything underground, it may be cable. They normally stay on the poles and the poles are all outside of this project. There are no overhead cables going down the street. Commissioner Stratton made the motion to approve contingent upon the provision of easements necessary to accommodate utilities. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Miller and passed unanimously. 3 The Fifth Order of Business was a request to discuss amending the Zoning Code in regard to the following: 1) parking surfaces and parking requirements, 2) amending the Special Use Permit process to eliminate the requirement for City Council review and approval, 3) alter the non- conforming provision, 4) permanent installation of a food truck court(s), and 5) AIRBNB (Short- term Rentals). (MS.17.10.89) City Planner Walden handed out a packet of proposed revisions to the zoning code. He said this will be somewhat of a rolling thing that we will have for the next few meetings. After I got through digging into this and drafting it, I realized that I shouldn’t bring all of it to you at once because it would be a little overwhelming. I just brought three of the five elements tonight. We will defer items 1) parking surfaces and parking requirements, and 4) permanent installation of a food truck court(s), to a future meeting. We will handle these as we get through them and once you feel comfortable with the changes we will set up a public hearing and move to recommend adoption. We are not in any hurry to complete these changes. I just want to make sure that you all are as comfortable as possible. I’m going to go through some of this tonight and then see where we are and have some discussion on it. I’m not suggesting any formal action be taken tonight. Planner Walden presented the code amendments and they were discussed in detail. There were numerous questions and suggestions for improvement. Mr. Walden said he will consolidate those ideas. The commissioners were in agreement that these were items that would improve the zoning code and agreed that he should formalize the changes and distribute the proposed revisions for review prior to the next meeting. Mr. Walden said he would prepare a draft for the commission to review in the December 2017 meeting. . The amendments discussed were as follows: 1) Special Permit Use A. Remove the requirement for City Council approval of Special Use Permits. B. Broaden allowances for appeal of Special Use Permit approvals. 2) Non-conforming Use Provisions A. Allow remodel of non-conforming structures without Board Of Adjustment approval as long as the remodel does not increase non-conformity. B. Allow additions to non-conforming structures without BOA approval as long as the addition does not increase non-conformity. 3) AIRBNB (Short-term Rentals) A. Consider creating requirements on short-term rentals within neighborhoods B. Business license C. Owner occupancy 4  D. Occupancy limitation E. Event use limitation F. Rental time limitation Other Business: A request to move the December Planning Commission meeting to December 18, 2017 at 5:30 p.m. Commissioner Miller made the motion to approve the new meeting date. Commissioner Hubbard seconded the motion and passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned. ___________________________________________ Chairman Dennis Boyd 5