This transcript appears to be a meeting of the **Hastings Planning Commission** from 2021. While some names in your provided list (like Melanie Peters) match, several commission members in the transcript (Hallberg, Tyken, Meske, Best, Romans) are likely members from that specific term not fully reflected in the provided current directory. Based on the context, here is the attributed transcript: [0:00] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Commissioner Meske, hi. And Commissioner Best, hi. All right, so now I guess the—uh—so for public hearings, they don't have anything today. Um, so other actions going forward here, we have the Port of Hastings Outfitters. It's a Home Occupation Permit number 2021-23 for e-bike rentals at 420 East 6th Street. Um, Justin, do you have some information for us? [0:53] **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** I do. Let me share my screen here. This is a site location—now, a little bit better map here. Um, 420 6th Street East. It's at the corner of Bailey and Sixth Street. Uh, the site um has a quite a large garage, it's about 1500 square feet, and it has some parking in the garage. The proposal is to rent electric bicycles from this location. They had intended to be into their commercial space by now, which is at the Confluence building—uh, the former Hudson Manufacturing building—and they intend to be there by next biking season. But until then, they want to keep their—their rental business going. Um, and so they would be renting them out of this location. Folks would generally come to this site in between hours of 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., uh, seven days a week. And um, they would pick up their rental bikes from this location, which is—which is a fairly good location for this because um, it is along one of our main bike routes, which is along Bailey Street here. And if they had large—large parties of multiple bikers, they would put them in the bikes in their trailer and meet them at a—at a public location, which I believe is kind of similar to how they—they operated last year at different sites. So, um, occupation license... um, there's two types: there's a Type 1 and a Type 2. Uh, Type 1 is generally for like uh a CPA or just any type of uh an office-type use at home where you really wouldn't know there's any activity going there. There's generally there wouldn't be any employee type—there wouldn't be more than one customer that would ever show up at a time, and they wouldn't be using a garage or uh accessory building for that uh type of business. Uh, the Type 2 would include one or up to all three of those conditions. Um, this one, the bikes are stored in the garage and probably wouldn't be a lot of customers coming at the same time, but you know, if you've got a group of—uh, you know, two or three, they maybe wouldn't—they may possibly come in different cars. I'm starting to say if you'd call that, you know, one customer because it would be a group of customers, or if it would be separate. But um, they believe they'd probably be on their busier days between one and three cars on the location at a time and generally they would leave before the next group would show up or individual. And so with the home occupation license review, we generally want to make sure that there's not going to be traffic or nuisances at the site or activities that you generally wouldn't find in a residential area. Probably the—the only concern that we would have for this would—would be related to uh, you know, too many vehicles being on the site or parking on the streets. Um, but the applicants, you know, said that any time there would be a group with, you know, multiple cars and the few that they said they might have at a time, they would meet them at—on location. They do have six parking spaces available on—on the site that could accommodate cars that come to this location. I think I've got a couple of here—there's a view of the front of the house street... this uh view from street and that looking down the alley. Staff sent uh noticed uh property owners within 350 feet and we received uh one—um, one uh reply uh so far from Stephanie Morgan, uh from the 400 block of Fifth Street East, saying that her and her husband have no concerns over the proposal. They're waiting for their commercial location to be completed and they wish them—them well with that. Staff can answer any questions you may have. Also, the applicant is in attendance too. [5:28] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Um, if we went on to uh kind of discuss amongst ourselves, do we want to bring in the applicant? Uh, does anybody have any questions for them? Public hearing... but if—if you guys did have any questions... Mr. Tyken? [6:14] **Commissioner Tyken:** Yeah, I—I guess I'd like to hear from the applicant just, you know, how many people do they expect? What's their typical, you know, usage of—uh, of the bikes and how long do people rent them for? Just, you know, some general overview of the business itself. [6:14] **Paul Schmitz (Applicant):** Absolutely. Uh, can you hear me? [6:14] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** We can hear you, yes. [6:14] **Paul Schmitz (Applicant):** Yes, hello and good evening and thank you for taking the time to review this. My name is Paul Schmitz. I'm a co-owner in Port of Hastings Outfitters. And to answer your question, we typically see one or two bikes at a time. On occasion, we'll see five bikes go out at a time, and usually those groups come in one, maybe two cars. Uh, very example, we had one rental yesterday with a family of—of uh five that came in and rented bikes and they were gone for about three hours on the trail. Uh, my wife, who works with the business, you know, gave him a nice guided tour, which, you know, she'll leave as well. In—in that case, it was very simple. We have plenty of space on the driveway for any vehicles to park. [6:14] **Commissioner Tyken:** You say that's kind of typical what you see? [6:14] **Paul Schmitz (Applicant):** Very typical. The most, I think, we've seen is two vehicles at a time so far um that would want to, you know, rent... um, usually because we have a limited number of bikes uh right now until we get wrapped up for the summer time. So there's only so many people that can come. [7:50] **Commissioner Tyken:** Sure. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. That's all I had. [7:50] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Mr. Tyken... uh, anybody else? Any questions for the applicant here? Uh, Mr. Schmitz, I guess the only question I had for you—um, how many bikes will you be up to? [7:50] **Paul Schmitz (Applicant):** Once the summer starts going, we anticipate to have up to 20 bikes for this season before we can get into our commercial space. Um, that's about the maximum that I feel we can handle at our current location before we get uh to the Confluence. Um, and right now we're at uh eight, with an anticipation of another five coming in this Thursday and then an additional uh bikes to fill out that 20 sometime towards the end of next month. [8:36] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Um, thank you. [8:36] **Paul Schmitz (Applicant):** Welcome. [8:49] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Uh, anybody else have any questions? Mr. Schmitz, otherwise uh we can uh let him get back to his business here and uh we can uh move on with this. All right, well, I thank you, Mr. Schmitz. Um, I think this is—looks great. Um, we're excited—at least I speak for myself here—I'm excited for the—uh, for the new business here coming through. So, um, yeah, we'll move on. [9:20] **Paul Schmitz (Applicant):** We are also very excited uh to—to be able to have this business in Hastings and, you know, bring our love of the summer fun and the tourism business here at Hastings and working with our Parks and Rec and trail systems. Um, so yeah, it's also a very exciting time for us as well. Thank you. [9:20] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Thank you. All right, commissioners, any other discussion? Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion. [9:48] **Commissioner Hallberg:** Um, Mr. Hallberg—um, I'd like the motion to approve the Home Occupation Permit uh number 2021-23 e-bike rentals for 420 East 6th Street. [9:48] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Uh, we have a motion on the floor. Uh, a second? [10:10] **Commissioner Tyken:** I'll second it. [10:10] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** All right, Commissioner Tyken with the second. Um, Justin, you want to do the roll? [10:15] **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** Yes. Commissioner Hallberg? **Commissioner Hallberg:** Aye. **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** Commissioner Peters? **Commissioner Peters:** [Silent/Aye]. **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** Commissioner Meske? **Commissioner Meske:** Aye. **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** Commissioner Best? **Commissioner Best:** Aye. **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** Commissioner Romans? **Commissioner Romans:** Aye. [10:35] **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** This will be going forward to the City Council for review. Um, with the fifth Monday, I think it's going to be going to City Council on June 7th, and this will be for a one-year provisional approval. Um, you know, I believe it—it sounds like they would only be in operation at this location for the one year, but uh procedurally after one year this is reviewed and we look to see if there's any—been any complaints or issues, and then at that time it can be approved for a full five years after that point. [11:21] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Hey, thank you, Justin. Um, any other business? [11:21] **Justin Fortney (City Staff):** Um, I don't have anything other than just uh a simple normal update. At the last Planning Commission meeting, I believe you recommended approval of the motor coach commerce facility and the City Council approved that, so uh I think that's the only item at the—on the agenda there. Um, I think coming up we have a possible site plan review uh that will be at our next meeting on the—I think it's 14th. Um, possibly we'll have some other stuff come in, but that's all we know about so far. [11:21] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** All right, thank you, Justin. Um, any other commissioners have anything? Um, otherwise we can—uh, we can take a motion to adjourn. Got a good pace here. [12:08] **Commissioner Tyken:** More meetings in the future—that's just going to say, Commissioner [Romans], talk is your leadership. [12:08] **Commissioner Romans:** Commissioner Romans, thank you. I'll make a motion that we adjourn. [12:15] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** All right, a motion to adjourn. A second? [12:15] **Commissioner Best:** I'll second. Commissioner Best with a second. [12:15] **Melanie Peters (Chair):** [Roll Call Vote] Commissioner Hallberg? **Commissioner Hallberg:** Aye. **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Commissioner Tyken? **Commissioner Tyken:** Aye. **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Commissioner Peters? **Commissioner Peters:** [Aye]. **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Commissioner Meske? **Commissioner Meske:** Aye. **Melanie Peters (Chair):** Commissioner Best? **Commissioner Best:** Aye. **Melanie Peters (Chair):** And Commissioner Romans? **Commissioner Romans:** Aye.