PLANNING
COMMISSION SPECIAL MEETING
MINUTES OF MEETING NOVEMBER 19, 2007
CALL TO ORDER:
Chairman called the meeting to order at
6:30 p.m.
PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:
Don Bergwall, Ken Kraus, Pete Griffin,
John Cunningham, Alan Seymour, Roger Yoder.
Pat Soller- excused.
OTHERS PRESENT:
Bob Muth, Dan
Fitzgerald
Mr. Seymour
stated there is an item he would like the commission to consider adding to the
agenda. It is the POA language that has
been forwarded to City Council. The only thing that is requested here is a
consensus vote then Council will amend the legislation.
Voice vote was
unanimous for adding it to the agenda.
Mr. Kraus asked
how strong Council was on changing these items.
Mr. Seymour
stated the key thing was to make it mandatory.
Mr. Kraus stated
he would prefer to get something on the books even
if we don’t fully agree with it.
Mr. Bergwall
asked what the Law Director had to say when discussion came up on this item.
Mr. Seymour
stated he was surprised that it was not mandatory.
Mr. Kraus stated
if they want it mandatory, that is fine.
Consensus from
planning commission was that there were no objections to the changes council
wants to make.
DISCUSSION ITEMS:
Review the present commercial
community and business climate in contrast with the 1999 forecast.
Mr.
Seymour stated the purpose for getting together and going over this specific
subject is because it has been a long time since the comp plan has been
reviewed and there have been a lot of changes to the community since then. Before developments come before us and we
make choices on these projects, we should all get comfortable with whether the
plan as it is shown today, is as accurate as it should be and if the uses still
apply as they did in 1999.
Mr. Cunningham stated as a planning
commission we need to understand what the intent of the plan needs to be for
our purposes. It is a guidance tool, but
is not mandatory.
Mr. Bergwall stated your point as a tool and
as a guide is important, but I think we need to back up one step. I don’t understand what some of the plan pages mean
relative to the way we zone and the way they have labeled land uses in the comp
plan. It would be helpful as a first
step to say if we are going to look at defining land uses we first need to
define the categories they are in.
Discussion held on all the different
categories in the comp plan vs. what we have as zoning areas and what they
mean.
Mr. Seymour stated he would like to go over how
we have progressed for some of the projects that have come to us in certain
areas and how we’ve made choices that best suited the community based on the
developments that came before us over the last several years. The first one is Coleman’s Crossing which is
zoned SD-1 and the project contains commercial uses only. The comp plan called for light industrial,
commercial and office. In this case the
development that came before us did not contain light industrial even though it
was called for in the comp plan. In my
opinion I think it is better for it.
Mr. Seymour stated the next item is the
Links. The comp plan calls for single
family and currently it is a mix of multi family and single family.
Mr. Kraus stated the multi family was put in as
a buffer between the single family and the commercial strip on SR 736.
Mr. Seymour stated but the point is the comp
plan specifically calls for single family.
Mr. Seymour stated that another property is
Standing Stone. In the comp plan it
calls for corporate office. Is what is
going in this area considered corporate office?
Mr. Kraus stated when the comp plan was done
this area was not in the city. With a
couple of exceptions the land outside the city in the comp plan was deemed single
family and not much else put into it.
Mr. Seymour stated the property on SR 4 S.
owned by the school is called out in the comp plan to be single family
residential.
Mr. Cunningham stated he thinks schools fit
into residential zonings because with all the houses you need schools.
Mr. Kraus stated the comp plan was supposed to
be updated 5 years after it was implemented and nothing has been done.
Mr. Seymour stated when we had our joint
session with council; I think everyone agreed that it needs to be updated.
Mr. Kraus stated with the school property, I
don’t think single family is out of line.
It is surrounded by single-family zonings. It doesn’t make sense for it to be commercial.
Mr. Seymour stated it might make sense that a
pocket of businesses be out there.
Mr. Bergwall stated commercial and business are
two different things.
Mr. Griffin stated there is a pocket of TOC
right across the street from the school property.
Mr. Kraus stated we know there is no office
district in our code. So any developer
that comes in and wants to do an office development is limited to a PUD. We need to be clear in our own minds what we
mean by commercial and what is defined as corporate office. To me commercial means anything that is not
residential or manufacturing. The two
subsets of that is office and retail.
Mr. Bergwall stated he thinks we have good
distinction in the residential areas and manufacturing area. It is in the commercial, business, office…
where it gets fuzzy.
Discussion held regarding what Marysville has
and what areas are provided with services.
Mr. Bergwall stated in looking at the comp plan
it shows the 33-corridor area as residential.
That doesn’t make sense in that area.
Mr. Muth stated he
met with the planning people in
Mr. Bergwall stated in the plan, we do not talk
about research facilities at all. It
seems like we miss the opportunity to market Marysville using all of the
research facilities we have.
Discussion held on what is going on in areas
around town.
Mr. Seymour stated while we have a master plan
we have demonstrated from past projects that we deviate from it. Because the projects that come before us are
only approved because we believe they are in the best interest of the
community.
Mr. Kraus stated there should be some formula
out there that will tell you with “x” number of roof tops you should also have
“x”% of retail, “x”% office, etc. That would give us a better idea of how to
layout land uses.
Discussion held regarding on “what ifs” and how
they could and should be handled.
(In a work session type discussion, there were
a few made up examples of “hypothetical developments” that are “right” for the
community and area economy but were at locations that would forced deviation
from the Comprehensive Plan. Members
discussed probable actions by PC in those situations. Created situations
included a large project on the southwest side and west side outside the by pass
as well as Rt 33 corridor corporate office
opportunities)
Mr. Kraus stated what we’ve come down to is the
emphasis that we need to get the comp plan updated. There have been some deviations, not sure
they were major. Our zoning code needs
to be updated which we are in the process of doing. I think there should be some outside help in
doing this to get it done in a timely fashion.
Mr. Bergwall stated from this meeting there are
a few bullet points:
·
The comp plan is a reference of record and a
starting point for discussion on designating
land use.
·
A proposal that is brought to us needs to be
referenced against the comp plan and referenced against the needs and
opportunities that the development would present for today and the foreseeable
future.
·
There needs to be a balance between what the comp plan
calls for and ask, “is that a fair evolution of the
plan that meets the needs as we see them?”
·
We need to update the comprehensive plan and
our code and make sure that land uses match and are
clearly in sync with each other and that plan needs to dovetail in with an
update of the transportation plan.
INDIVIDUAL
COMMISSIONER COMMENTS
Mr. Kraus stated he thinks there was a good
discussion tonight and hopefully we can get our hands around where we are
going. It points out the need for all of
us to attend more of the planning conferences.
Mr. Bergwall- None
Mr. Griffin- None
Mr. Yoder- None
Mr. Cunningham- None
Mr. Seymour asked the citizens in the audience
if they had comments.
Mr. Fitzgerald stated neighborhood centers are
very popular. The thought process is
that you develop a retail store that can support itself within a two-mile
radius from where you are. A couple of
years ago in Marysville there was no such thing that the two-mile radius
wouldn’t cover the whole town. I think
you are on to something.
Mr. Muth stated that
it was an interesting discussion and appreciated the work and concern that is
going into the planning process.
ADJOURNMENT:
Meeting was adjourned.