Based on the context provided for the City of Hastings and the dialogue in the transcript, here is the formatted version with speaker names assigned. **Note:** While Melanie Peters is listed as the Chair in the context, the transcript reveals that **Gino Messina** (identified as the 2023 Chair) is presiding over this meeting until the 2024 elections occur. **John Hinzman** (Community Development Director) acts as the primary staff representative. *** [0:01] **Gino Messina**: Mute okay, all set. All right, good evening everyone. We will call the Hastings Planning Commission for January 2024 meeting to order. And first up is the oath of office for myself, uh, Commissioner LeBron who is not here—Commissioner Tyken who is not here—Commissioner McGrath who is here, and Commissioner Swedin. And John will be administering the oath, and then we'll move the other two to the next meeting. [0:01] **John Hinzman**: Absolutely. So if I could have, uh, Commissioner Messina, Swedin, and McGrath please, uh, stand and raise your right hand please and please repeat after me: I, state your name— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: I do affirm— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: I do affirm— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: That I will support the Constitution— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: That I will support the Constitution— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: Of the United States of America— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: Of the United States of America— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: The state of Minnesota— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: The state of Minnesota— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: And the charter and ordinances— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: And the charter and ordinances— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: Of the city of Hastings— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: Of the city of Hastings— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: And that I will faithfully discharge— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: And that I will faithfully discharge— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: The duties of Planning Commissioner— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: The duties of Planning Commission— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: For the city of Hastings— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: For the city of Hastings— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: Counties of Dakota and Washington— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: Counties of Dakota and Washington— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: And state of Minnesota— [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: And state of Minnesota— [0:48] **John Hinzman**: According to the best of my ability and understanding. [0:48] **Messina, Swedin, & McGrath**: According to the best of my ability and understanding. [1:33] **John Hinzman**: Congratulations. Thank you, thank you sir. Thank you. Would you and do Mr., uh, LeBron? Okay perfect, please rise. [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: I, Bruce LeBron, do affirm— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: That I will support the Constitution— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: That I will support the Constitution— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: Of the United States of America— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: Of the United States of America— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: The constitution of the state of Minnesota— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: The constitution of the state of Minnesota— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: And the charter of ordinances— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: And the charter of ordinances— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: Of the city of Hastings— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: Of the city of Hastings— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: And that I will faithfully discharge— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: And that I will faithfully discharge— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: The duties of Planning Commissioner— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: The duties of Planning Commissioner— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: For the city of Hastings— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: For the city of Hastings— [1:33] **John Hinzman**: Counties of Dakota and Washington— [1:33] **Bruce LeBron**: Counties of Dakota and Washington— [2:19] **John Hinzman**: And state of Minnesota— [2:19] **Bruce LeBron**: And state of Minnesota— [2:19] **John Hinzman**: According to the best of my understanding and ability. [2:19] **Bruce LeBron**: According to the best of my understanding and ability. [2:19] **Gino Messina**: Okay, welcome back. And just an introduction here to our newest Planning Commissioner, Rachel Swedin, who—this is her first meeting here. So thank you for being part of the Commission, Rachel, and welcome. All right, next we are—well, we're going to elect the Planning Commission Chair and Vice Chair for 2024. Um, do we want to proceed with that with two people missing or should we move that to the next meeting? [3:05] **John Hinzman**: It would be up to the Commissioners. A little bit of background of what we're doing here tonight: annually we elect a Chair and Vice Chair position. These are elected by motions and seconds from those available here. Anyone that has served at least one year on the Commission, which would be everyone but Commissioner Swedin, would be eligible. The positions last year were held by Mr. Messina and Halberg. So I'll leave it up to the Commission as to how they want to proceed—if they want to postpone this until the next meeting we can do that, or if they wish to proceed tonight. [3:05] **Gino Messina**: Yeah, I'd like to postpone it to the next meeting, um, and hopefully Commissioner Tyken and Commissioner Halberg are here; we can have everybody here to vote. Okay, then we will move this to the next meeting then. Right. All right, perfect. Approval of the minutes from November 27, 2023, regular meeting. Do we have any corrections? [3:51] **Gino Messina**: Additions? Nope. If none, we will consider those to be approved. All right, next up is a public hearing—Ordinance Amendment City Code Chapter 155.21, Kennels. And are you going to be doing... John's going to be doing the staff report? [3:51] **John Hinzman**: I will do the staff report, thank you Mr. Chair. All right, so tonight is a public hearing and an amendment to the city code relating to kennels. This is a one-word amendment to the code, so nothing terribly complicated on this one. The rationale behind it is our Administrative Committee of City Council has been reviewing ordinances related to dogs and cats. There's been some concern that the existing language within the city code, in which it states "kennels," could be used as a loophole for folks that exceed the limit for dogs and cats by stating, "Well, I have a kennel." [4:36] **John Hinzman**: So we decided to add the word "commercial" to kennels so that this would differentiate kennels so that they would only be for commercial purposes only. When we take a look at the zoning code, the only district in which we have kennels in there presently is the Agricultural District, in which it's a permitted use. So the only change that we have here would be to add the word "commercials" before "kennels," so it would read "commercial kennels and veterinary establishment subject to site plan review." So if a kennel were to come forward in the Agricultural District, we would review the site plan of it, but it would be a use by right, a permitted use. So that's what we have before us tonight. This is a public hearing, Mr. Chair; you can open that at this time or I can stand for any questions. [5:22] **Gino Messina**: Okay, thanks John. We'll go ahead and open the public hearing. We have nobody in chambers here. Do we have anybody on Zoom? Let me take a look here... I don't. Nope. All right, nobody on Zoom. We will go ahead and close the public hearing and then open it up to Commissioners for any questions, comments. Very straightforward. And Commissioner Swedin, if you wanted to speak, you would just hit the red button there and that would—I see that light up the microphone, I forgot to tell you that ahead of time. [6:08] **Gino Messina**: Anyone? [6:08] **Melanie Peters**: Just a quick check. Okay, so and I just, I just grabbed the city code quick. But then yeah, as far as definition of kennels, basically it just carries across—it just makes it commercial. So, "no person or combination of persons shall harbor more than three dogs or cats in combination thereof in excess" blah blah blah "without first obtaining an annual license." Kind of license from the City Court? [6:08] **John Hinzman**: So from the City Clerk. [6:08] **Melanie Peters**: So from the City Clerk. So then for this zoning part of the zoning code, basically it just limits it to for commercial purposes? [6:08] **John Hinzman**: That's right. [6:08] **Melanie Peters**: Okay, just making sure. [6:54] **John Hinzman**: Yeah, to clarify Commissioners, there's a few other ordinance amendments that will be brought forward to the City Council that were non-zoning and land use related that would not be reviewed by the Planning Commission, and they pertain to the number of cats and dogs and licensing procedures. [6:54] **Gino Messina**: All right, thank you. Commissioners, any other discussion? If not, I'll accept a motion to approve. [6:54] **Bruce LeBron**: So moved. [6:54] **Gino Messina**: All right, Commissioner LeBron motion to approve the amended City Code Chapters 155.21 Kennels. Do I have a second? [6:54] **Melanie Peters**: I'll second. [6:54] **Gino Messina**: All right, Commissioner Peters second. Any new discussion? If not, all in favor say aye. (Aye). Opposed? That motion carries. [7:40] **John Hinzman**: Okay, and then this will move forward to the City Council meeting on January 16th for first reading and then final adoption on February 5th, I believe. [7:40] **Gino Messina**: All right, thanks John. Okay. All right, under other actions, other business. [7:40] **John Hinzman**: Well, Happy New Year to you all and, uh, working into this year, we're going to have another busy year ahead of us. Just putting together information on our annual report, which I think we'll have presented at the next Planning Commission meeting here. Looking at our permit total for 2023, we had 207 permits. A lot of those coming from a couple apartment buildings that are under construction. We had 24 single-family homes under construction as well. So when we take a look at the number of units for the city, that's one of their highest years that we've had in probably the last 20 years or so. Last year we had 260, so this year down just a little bit from there. [8:26] **John Hinzman**: When we look at the future and what we might be seeing here in 2024 by this Commission, the Walden at Hastings development, which is currently under environmental review, is anticipated to move forward here. This is the area that we annexed down on Highway 316 and Michael Avenue, about 500 units altogether, various types of residential construction. So the environmental assessment will go to the Council on February 5th to go through what's called a "finding of no significant impact." If they do find that no further environmental work is necessary, then we can proceed with the land use applications on this one. So we'll have that come forward presumably over the winter into the spring, those type of approvals coming forward for Planning Commission here. [9:13] **John Hinzman**: We're also looking at a potential annexation on the west end of town on Highway 55 near 15th Street. Haven't had anything come forward officially yet, but we've gone through some initial discussions with folks and have done some studies on sewer capacity, so that might be another one coming forward. Apartment projects continue to be constructed. It's an interesting one under construction right now: the modular build done on County Road 47 and Village Trail. It's a 75-unit senior housing building, but it was constructed in modular units up near Monticello and units are being slowly trucked in. I was down there later today—I think they're up to the third floor on one area, they have a couple units there. So it's kind of interesting to see how that construction all goes, but things are proceeding there. [9:58] **John Hinzman**: So as far as our meetings go, our next meeting we have scheduled in two weeks. I don't have anything for that meeting as of this point, so we'll stay tuned to see if we hold that meeting or if we postpone that one till February. Um, we are going to have some training during the second scheduled meeting in February by our City Attorney on land use. We did this a year or two ago; it's a good refresher for those that didn't have it before and really good information for those that haven't been through it. And so I'll be sending out an invitation on that beginning part of February, but it'll be, I think, starting at 6 o'clock during our second Planning Commission meeting of the month on the fourth Monday. So we'll be going through that. That's all I had for announcements. [10:44] **Gino Messina**: Okay, John, thank you. Commissioners, anything else? No? Otherwise, um, I'll accept a motion to adjourn. [10:44] **Missy McGrath**: So moved. [10:44] **Gino Messina**: All right, second? [10:44] **Melanie Peters**: Second. [10:44] **Gino Messina**: Commissioner Peters second. All in favor say aye. (Aye). Opposed? Okay, we are adjourned.