City of Faribault Live Stream - Planning Commission Meeting - 2025-12-01

City of Faribault Live Stream - Planning Commission Meeting - 2025-12-01

Based on the context provided and the dialogue within the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker identifications. Note: While the provided list focuses on the City Council and Department Directors, this meeting is a **Planning Commission** meeting. Therefore, the "Chair" and members like "Bart," "Tina," and "Dan" are members of the Planning Commission, while "Harry Davis" and "Leslie" are city planning staff. [0:06] Chair: live. We're on call. Meeting to order. It's our planning commission Monday, December 1. Item one on the agenda, approving the minutes the last time we met for Monday, November 17th. [0:26] Chair: Got a motion for Mr. Salt. Second? [0:26] Dan (Planning Commission Member): Second. [0:26] Chair: All those in favor say I. [0:26] Planning Commission Members: I. [0:26] Chair: Oppos? No. We have the minutes approved. Public hearings. And we have members of the audience here. There's multiple things in front of us tonight. I'll just kind of give you the big picture overview. We're going to work through them all in kind of the same fashion. Uh we're going to have a presentation from the staff. They're going to tell us what the overview is, what the agenda item is. If we have any clarifying questions, we'll ask them. When the question and answer period's done, we open up public hearing. This is the public hearing part of the process. So, this is the chance. [1:05] Chair: Well, there's only two people here, but come up one at a time if you want. When the public hearing part of it's done, we shut down public hearing and then we come up here. We will discuss the issue. Somebody will make a motion to do something. We will vote on said motion and then it moves on to the city council. So, we're an advisory commission to the city council. So whatever we move forward then they take their final vote. Uh and so that all said everything on the agenda is the same way. We have the final preliminary and final plat for the Olsen edition and I am looking at Harry on this one. [1:37] Chair: Harry Davis. Thank you sir. [1:37] Harry Davis (City Planning Staff): Uh good evening um plane commission. So the first item in front of you is plary and final plat for the Olsen edition. Um, in terms of the applicant and owner, it's actually Jason Olsen who is here uh tonight if there are any particular questions uh for him. [1:58] Harry Davis: The location for this plat is 415 Brand Avenue. Um, you know, here it's just off of Highway 60, just south of Division Street. Um, as you get closer to Nature Center, here's the uh property that's outlined in yellow. Uh so it's these two properties. Uh they're both unplatted currently. And so in order to uh get a building permit for a property that's that's unplatted, you have to plat first. [2:29] Harry Davis: There's also an issue where the accessory structure is really close to or right on uh the property line that that divides these two properties that the applicant owns. So, we're kind of fixing a few different things here uh and avoiding some setback variance requests uh that would otherwise that's generally kind of what we're looking at in terms of scope of this. Um here's the zoning map. Most of the properties around it are R2 uh with some POD just to the east. [3:03] Harry Davis: Like I mentioned before, it's combining these two unpatted lots to facilitate new accessory structure. Here's the ply plat. So you can see um where the house is. It's kind of this um call it like a Tetris shape. Um there's a lot line that bisects uh what would together be one lot. At least that's that's what's here is the final plat. [3:36] Harry Davis: So in terms of the plumary and final plaid, it meets all of our criteria for uh both plat processes. We don't have any major concerns and the final plat is consistent with the preliminary plat. So we are recommending that this move forward to city council uh with a recommendation of approval based off the criteria and findings in the resolution. [3:55] Chair: Do we have questions for Harry on this one? Mr. Olson, do you have anything for us? Very good. Is that it for public hearing? I have opened the public hearing public. We're back up here for planning commission discussion and a motion. [4:15] Dan (Planning Commission Member): [Inaudible motion] [4:15] Chair: Dan's got the motion. [4:15] Planning Commission Member: Second. [4:27] Chair: I've got a motion and a second on what's been presented to us. Except they call it could be any discussion on this at all. We'll vote. All those in favor say I. [4:27] Planning Commission Members: I. [4:27] Chair: Oppos? No. That carries. Good luck to you, sir. Next week at city council. [4:43] Chair: Next up B this evening approve conditional use permit amendment the K2 uh K12 charter school on 8th Avenue and I am looking off towards Harry Davis again. [5:05] Harry Davis: Thank you Mr. Chair. Uh so the next item in front of you is a Kissu's permit amendment for charter school in C2. [5:05] Harry Davis: Uh the applicant is Jonathan Star uh on behalf of Surat Academy. Uh the owner of the property is T. Nelson Properties. Location for this is 128th Avenue. Um located here, you know, just sort of in relation to downtown Highway 60 and Lindale Avenue. So, it's just south of Highway 60 and north of Division Street near the railroad tracks. [5:31] Harry Davis: Here's a location map. So, it encompasses all this area that's within this this yellow bounding box. For those that have been on the planning commission for a little bit, there was a previous conditional use permit back in 2023 for this property. So, this seems a little familiar for some of you that uh that that have been here for a little bit. Um, this is amending that condition. Here's the zoning map. So, for a school in C2, it actually requires a conditional use permit. Um, there are some other uses that are allowed by right, like a daycare. U, this just happens to be a situation where this is a full school. [6:09] Harry Davis: It's K through 12. Um, based off of how ordinance is written, it requires a conditional use permit. The request in front of you all is to expand this school use. So, it would be an increase in area. Uh, currently what they're occupying is about 13,000 square feet. They would be uh expanding that by 6,000 square ft. So, a total of 19,000 square ft. The building itself is not changing uh which I'll get into in a minute. Um, it's just the amount of area that this use takes up. Because it's a physical expansion, it requires an amendment to the condition. [6:48] Harry Davis: So, based off of uh what they've submitted, here is here's what they're what they're working with in terms of a site plan. They do have 71 spaces uh on the property right now that uh were formally being shared with this school use and a and a daycare. [7:06] Harry Davis: That was more than adequate for both uses in this situation because they're taking over the entire building. That daycare goes away. It simplifies things in terms of the calculations for parking. Uh but they are very much adequately meeting the parking requirements. They have about 30 or so spaces to spare for this use. Um they do uh have a lot of stipulations in the original conditional use permit which would be moved over and sort of ingratiated into this new amendment uh regarding pickup uh sort of traffic flows and whatnot and requirements in terms of you know where people would be able to come in drop off uh kids and where they would be able to leave once they've done that as well as where buses park. Uh since this has started back in 2023 2024 we've had no complaints. We've had no no concerns about traffic flow within this particular area. So, we're really not too concerned with with a lot of the normal site characteristics that would be asking a lot of questions about. [7:51] Harry Davis: This has been in place for a little while. Uh they've operated as such. Um even though it is an expansion physically, they are not requesting any additional increase in terms of staff or in terms of students. What this is doing is that it's actually facilitating their original limits that they asked original Kadishu department back in 2023. Um I think it's like 250 students and like 25 25 teachers or or staff members that would be the academy and they do have adequate room for all of those staff members and for those facilities. [8:36] Harry Davis: So in terms of clean use permit it meets our criteria for that. There are no major concerns uh from staff. Traffic should remain the same. It should not change at all between the physical expansion, the physical increase of area taken up by this land use. So it meets our zoning requirements and so we do recommend approval of the conditional use permit uh for SRA Academy based on the criteria. [9:14] Chair: Thank you. Do we have questions for Harry? Tina? [9:14] Tina (Planning Commission Member): Just one. Um it talks about the former daycare. Did the daycare go out of business or did they get kicked out? Daycare is so critical. I just want to make I worry about it being displaced. So I I I just was wondering. [9:30] Harry Davis: Yeah. No, it's it's a very good question. Uh that that's not super material to the request and so I didn't ask a whole lot of questions about that. So I don't know. [9:30] Tina (Planning Commission Member): Okay. [9:30] Harry Davis: Um, the you know if... Yeah. So maybe the applicant can speak to that a little bit, but you know, in terms of the the the requests just didn't ask that question. I'm sorry. [9:54] Tina (Planning Commission Member): I understood that. So thank you. [9:54] Chair: Any other questions? Then we'll open up public hearing. [10:05] Reed Robinson: Reed Robinson. Um for Surro Academy here to more answer questions than anything else. [Inaudible] this presentation to answer your [Inaudible]. [10:24] Chair: Thank you. We can be somewhat informal since you're the only member of the public left here. Do we have any questions for them at all? Well, I'll have to come back up, but thank you, sir. Then we'll open it up for discussion here with the commission. [10:44] Chair: I remember we spent a lot of time. Is that a motion? [10:57] Bart (Planning Commission Member): Make a motion that uh that we take the recommendation. [10:57] Planning Commission Member: Second. [11:13] Chair: We got a motion in a second. Didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I just I wasn't honestly I wasn't sure. Uh, okay. We got a motion, a second. I concur with everything Bart said. In 2023, we really did a deep dive on I remember the traffic pattern and the oneway did our job back then. So, if there's not anything else, I've got a motion. I've got a second and vote. All those in favor say I. [11:30] Planning Commission Members: I. [11:30] Chair: Those no cars. Good luck. Thank you for coming out. [11:30] Reed Robinson: That's it for... in regards to the traffic. You know, we ended up working with the planning department and they worked out nicely for... I appreciate your effort in in that. [11:49] Chair: That's always good to hear because very often we never hear any followup. Glad it worked out. [11:49] Reed Robinson: Well, I think I think have not. [11:49] Chair: We'll take it. Thank you. [12:12] Chair: So now uh this next one and I'm going to go to Leslie pretty fast here. Uh so it's mighty fine coffee. There's uh a couple of resolutions in front of us of variance on the impervious surface as well as preliminary and final plat and I know uh this there there has been new information evolving. So Leslie what do you have for us? [12:26] Bart (Planning Commission Member): And before Leslie begins I do have to recuse myself. [12:26] Chair: Thank you Bart. [12:33] Leslie (City Planning Staff): Go to the... Yeah symbol. Okay. Uh hold on just a moment. Thank you. Um sorry for this late notice. Um over the weekend we received some correspondence from the applicants that um there is... okay. They received some correspondence from the applicants that um there might not be u a full support of moving the preliminary plat um forward. Um but so at this time um uh staff is making the request that you table the preliminary and the variance to the next... [12:57] Chair: Defer action to our next meeting? [12:57] Leslie: Should be December... [12:57] Chair: Got it and that was actually the request at the last... [12:57] Planning Commission Member: It's the 15th. [13:14] Chair: 15th. Okay so... and if there's any clarifications or questions I'm happy. That's just what I'm going to do now. Anybody have any questions for Leslie or Harry on this one? I would need a motion. [13:42] Tina (Planning Commission Member): Move that we um post table postpone this. [13:42] Planning Commission Member: Second. [13:42] Chair: I've got a motion in a second. And one thing I just want to mention for the record, there are no members of the public here. There's only just staff and planning commission members. So, while technically we should hold the public hearing, there is no one here. Public hearing open and closed. I've got a motion in second and we can vote. All those in favor say I. [14:12] Planning Commission Members: I. [14:12] Chair: No. Done with that. We can pull Bart back in from whatever happened. [14:39] Chair: 3D this evening ordinance approving the zoning text amendment to chapter 13. That is uh zoning tax amendment. We're going to Harry. [14:39] Harry Davis: Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, last item for tonight um is a pretty straightforward one. So, this is a small zoning tax amendment for chapter 13. So, it's our special districts chapter. Um it's the city taking this one on. Um, just to provide a little bit of background on this, it's to reestablish zoning lot standards specifically for public institutional zoning districts. Um, this is like setbacks lot width. Uh, and instead of lot area, it's actually zoning district area. It's kind of a strange thing and I'm not going to go completely into it unless we want to. [15:20] Harry Davis: But, um, basically what what we did in 2023 is we adopted public institutional zoning district for those that have been on for a while. Um or actually back in 2022 I think is when we adopted this. Um so we adopted this district for public institutional uh you know property. So that could be a school, that could be a church, that could be you know synagogue, it could be city facility. And we adopted this because we didn't really have a good uh place for all of those different uses to fit. Um we adopted uh what you see in front of us uh you know some some building setbacks a minimum district size specifically for public institutional. [16:07] Harry Davis: And then very closely after that we adopted a set of other ordinance amendments that were using an older version of our ordinance as their draft. uh and so these got lost. I blame Mark Duchane in city engineering. Um but what it what it what it comes down to is that we actually don't have uh set standards right now for setbacks for lot zoning district area or public institutional right now. So it's a little bit of wild west. We've kind of interpreted in a way that they really should be following the you know the setbacks that were adopted but legally we're kind of in this really gray area. So, we'd really like to fix that. Uh, this is just a very small change. It's just adding these these back in here. These were approved back in 2020. We're not changing them. We're just putting it back in. So, administer something. Um, generally, you know, this meets our zoning text uh amendment criteria. It reverses the changes that were currently caused. So, we are recommending that this ordinance move forward to city council with recommendation of approval. Happy to take questions. [17:20] Chair: Do we have questions for Harry at all? Uh, Bart? [17:20] Bart (Planning Commission Member): Can we stay with the Wild Wild West? [17:20] Harry Davis: No. [17:20] Bart (Planning Commission Member): Well, I voted I voted for this three years ago. [17:49] Tina (Planning Commission Member): So, have we have we been approving—has the commission been approving development based on what we're inserting into the into the code or is it just been a case-by-case decision? [17:49] Harry Davis: So, it it's it's a really good question. We haven't had a ton of like new development or additions in public institutional. We've maybe had some small things but nothing that has actually really tested the limits per se of that. Um you know it and we do have some areas where you know public institutional that zoning district area has changed. One good example of that would be the rebound project that you guys recently approved uh that I think now KGB is going in that building. So uh it's that office building just north of the law... [18:29] Tina (Planning Commission Member): I think it's the law center. [18:29] Harry Davis: Um I don't know why— [18:29] Tina (Planning Commission Member): Law enforcement center. [18:29] Harry Davis: Law enforcement. Thank you. I was thinking the public safety center. Those are um so the that that whole office building. So that district kind of changed a little bit, but how the zoning district area works in terms of you why it was created that way, how it's been interpreted, is that it's sort of using areas that could even be across streets, which is a little wild west to me already, which is why I'd really like some boundaries on this. Um, but the idea is that 2.5 acres that is owned by a county kind of across the street like it's it's all adjacent somewhat like that being the general idea. [19:14] Tina (Planning Commission Member): looking at the setback the numbers that you use for setback and maybe how you... [19:14] Harry Davis: Yeah. [19:14] Tina (Planning Commission Member): 10 feet is is off. [19:14] Harry Davis: Sure. [19:14] Tina (Planning Commission Member): If you had a precedent for putting it that way. [19:14] Harry Davis: Nope. This is exactly what was approved back in 2020. Okay. All right. Sorry for all the backstory, but yep. [19:34] Chair: Okay. Other questions at all? Again, for the record, there is no one here from the public, so no public hearing. Back up here to the planning. [19:54] Sam (Planning Commission Member): [Inaudible motion] [19:54] Chair: Sam's got the motion. Art's got the second. Any discussion on this at all? I think Bart really summarized it. It's what we did in 2022 2020 and honestly I remember on and off the... Okay, we've got a motion. We got a second. We'll vote. All those in favor say I. [20:18] Planning Commission Members: I. [20:18] Chair: I no. That carries. That's it for the public hearings this evening. Are there... I'm looking towards Harry. Request to be heard. Items for discussion, routine business. [20:18] Harry Davis: Uh, no, Mr. Chair. [20:33] Chair: Board and commission updates. [20:33] Harry Davis: I am trying to pull up the latest city council meeting. I feel like that there's u ah yeah so Jazzy the Jazzy first edition final plat. So that did go through. That did pass. Then the ordinance for trying which one is oh for Ivy Hill to reszone that property from I think it's R3 to R4. So that passed to the second reading. Uh beyond that I don't think that there are any other major updates. [21:09] Tina (Planning Commission Member): Did have a clarification I guess asked me about. Could you approve another set of storage units like they have... headline in the paper for the jazz edition? [21:09] Harry Davis: Yes. [21:09] Tina (Planning Commission Member): Yeah. [21:09] Harry Davis: So the headlines in the paper said office storage. [21:09] Tina (Planning Commission Member): So across the street is the threestory storage unit control. He said to me, "How could you approve another storage building like the one across the street?" I'm like, "I don't think that's what we did." That's not what we did. So, I just was confirming because that's not what I saw. It was like a lumber yard. I mean, business stuff, right? But it wasn't... [22:19] Harry Davis: Yeah, there is there is outdoor storage that is allowed on that property, but it's just for a business. like we're not talking about, you know, outdoor storage for like a mini storage facility. [22:19] Tina (Planning Commission Member): And that's what I—that's what what I said, but I thought, oh, the headlines in the paper were a little misleading. [22:19] Harry Davis: That's... if if if the applicant for that um if they move forward with their intended use, it'll be a contractor use. So, they'll use that outdoor storage for their own business. [22:36] Chair: Before we go, it's it's a question that I've got. I noticed at the bottom of the agenda honesty respect dedicated visionary. That new—is that a new vision statement the city's got going? Where'd that come from? [22:51] Harry Davis: So, um... administration. [22:51] Jessica Kinser (City Administrator): Yeah, Mr. Chair, I I think it's based off of the strategic plan that just got adopted. Yeah. So, it's it's this words. [22:51] Chair: Words. [22:51] Jessica Kinser: Yeah, it's words. [22:51] Chair: It's words. Okay. Got it. Uh is that it for us here today? A motion to adjurnn. [23:12] Tina (Planning Commission Member): Move we adjourn. [23:12] Chair: Tina's got the motion. I'll second. [23:12] Mike (Planning Commission Member): Mike's got the second.