This transcript depicts a Planning Commission meeting for the City of Grant, featuring a public hearing for a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) amendment and a discussion on a new outdoor storage ordinance. [0:03] **Chair:** You all ready on your end, Kim? [0:05] **Kim:** Yep. [0:06] **Chair:** All right. Welcome. The regularly scheduled Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, August 8th, is called to order. First order or first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. [0:27] **All:** (Reciting Pledge of Allegiance) ...it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [0:40] **Chair:** Next item on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Do I... I move to approve the agenda. [0:45] **Commissioner:** Second. [0:46] **Chair:** We're going to move and we have a second. All in favor, aye. [0:50] **Commissioners:** Aye, aye, aye. [0:52] **Chair:** All opposed, nay? All eyes, no nays. The agenda is approved. Next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from the June 13, 2023 meeting. We've all had a chance to review them. I need a motion to approve the minutes. [1:05] **Commissioner:** Motion to approve the minutes. [1:07] **Chair:** You have a motion. [1:08] **Commissioner:** I'll second that. [1:10] **Chair:** And we have a second. All in favor, aye. [1:12] **Commissioners:** Aye, aye, aye. [1:15] **Chair:** All opposed, nay? All eyes up. [1:25] **Commissioner:** I abstained. I wasn't here, so I didn't... I didn't vote on the minutes. [1:30] **Chair:** Sure. All right. On to new business. Um, we do have a public hearing scheduled this evening for the consideration of application for an amended conditional use permit at 11490 Julianne Avenue North. And it looks like we have a few in attendance. Kim, did anybody um, jump on yet? [1:55] **Kim:** No. [1:56] **Chair:** Okay. Typically what we do is we will have a short discussion on some of the application items and some of the items that we've had a chance to review in the staff packet. We'll also have Jennifer do a... go through her staff report, which all of you have had access to prior to the meeting, and then we will open up the public hearing for public comment, both in person and online. Is that right? [2:24] **Kim:** Sounds correct, yep. [2:26] **Chair:** Yep. All right. Jennifer, why don't you start us out this evening with your... with the staff report, please. [2:34] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Sounds great. So, oh, there it is. I was like, "sounds great if I can find the presentation." [2:50] **Jennifer (City Planner):** All right. Well, good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. It's been a while, so it's nice to see you all in person. Uh, but I probably wouldn't recognize half of you after the last three years, so welcome back. Um, before you this evening we have a request for an amendment to a conditional use permit at 11490 Julianne Avenue North. Uh, the property does have an existing conditional use permit on it for a horse boarding and training facilities, a bunch of other uh, sort of accessory or incidental uses. The request this evening is to amend that permit for a specific uh, use and or building. So the applicant this evening is Jamie Bunner. The property, as I said, is at 11490 Julianne. It is zoned A1 and it is guided rural residential agricultural. Uh, the lot size is just shy of 35 acres and the request this evening is primarily about permission to construct an accessory building on the property uh, which will get into the use of that in just a few moments. There are some secondary requests that were also included in the narrative that I will highlight and we can talk about, but no plans or details were submitted with respect to those ancillary or additional requests. As the Chair noted, we did notice a public hearing this evening, so members of the public that wish to speak on it obviously were given that opportunity once we get through the presentation. So the primary purpose of the application or uh, sort of what the plans were about this evening are about the accessory building. The existing conditional use permits explicitly states that if any additional buildings are constructed on the property that an amendment to the conditional use permit is required. So from that perspective, that's why we're here. As you all know, the property is over the 20 acres. 20 acres is our minimum in terms of if you have more than 20 acres you have unlimited accessory buildings and square footages etc., but we do have the ability to place conditions on those things especially when the use that those accessory buildings are related to are a conditionally permitted use. So in that... in this case, that is why the conditional use permit exists for the horse boarding and training operations. So the building that's proposed this evening is approximately 720 square feet. It's an A-frame construction. The narrative details that the building would be used for office space, a public restroom, a conference room, a classroom and training or teaching area. The proposed location is actually near the existing farmhouse, which is the principal structure on the... on the site per our ordinance, and the 720 square feet is the footprint based on the survey. So I bring that up just because we're looking at an A-frame, it does look like there's some space that would be in the, you know, the upper loft area if you will. So I noted that in addition to the accessory building, there were some ancillary requests that were in conjunction with it. No plans were submitted for these items, but they were noted in the narrative; therefore, we need to address them. So those uh, requests, if you will, included remodel and update of the existing farmhouse, an equine and canine hydrotherapy facility at some point, potentially some replacement barns in the future, some clean energy improvements including solar installations, and the desire to install some EV charging stations near the existing parking areas. As I noted, none of these items are identified on the site plan that was submitted. There were... there were no architectural plans or details that were submitted with respect to that. So uh, each of those items, while they're identified in the narrative, we don't have plans to review this evening. So I did note in the staff report a few comments with respect to these ancillary requests. For example, the remodel and update of the existing farmhouse likely would not actually fall under the conditional use permit; it would be something they simply could do because that's a principal structure on the site. As a result, unless there was something like it was detached or some other, you know, strange use or funky use of it, we would just permit it. It's not something that would come before us. So in terms of uh, it being in the narrative, that's fine. We're not approving any plans with respect to that this evening, but it likely would not trigger an amendment to the conditional use permit regardless of when that were to occur. On the other hand, the equine and canine hydrotherapy facility—it's very unclear as to whether that would require a separate facility, whether it would be in an existing barn, where that would be. So from that perspective, that simply is just not something that we have before us this evening to review, which is noted in your staff report in terms of how we could address that. So we don't have plans with respect to that, therefore we can't do or perform an adequate review. So uh, when we look at conditional use permits and conditional use permit amendments, we follow the same process for an amendment as we do for a conditional use permit. Uh, that is why we are here this evening. Generally, as you all know, we take a look at what are the proposed amendments and we sort of leave the existing conditional use permit uh, put. We don't really touch it if they're using it, which in this case they are—obviously this is a horse boarding facility. These are additional uses and or an additional building. So it's really about consideration of that additional building and leaving the existing conditions in place with respect to the conditional use permit and their operations. So again, what we're looking at this evening is really that structure and the uses associated with that structure this evening. So the existing site conditions, as I noted: there is a conditional use permit that's on the property. It includes both horse boarding and training facilities, but then also has a host of other items that are identified with it. Again, some of those being uh, you know, canine related, etc., which I think is obviously how the hydrotherapy pool made its way into the narrative with respect to those uses. The proposal is not to change any of those; those would remain intact and in place, including the number of horses, etc. Uh, the property is currently developed for this use and it's been used this way for, yeah, 25 years or so plus or minus. The principal structure on site is the existing farmhouse—or technically that's how we look at it. I... I'm sure did note uh, in the staff report and then also if you took a look at the existing conditional use permit, that when the CUP was granted in 1997, it did allow for the construction of three apartment structure that's adjacent to one of the barns. That remains on the site to the best of our knowledge, and there are four other accessory buildings that exist, all supporting the function and the operations of the horse boarding facility. So uh, just an area to orient yourself as we go through the proposal. You can see here that the Sioux Line railroad is actually on the North end of the property and forms that property line. The site is accessed from the South side off of Julianne. You can see based on the aerial where those existing structures are. Obviously, there are about uh, two fairly large barns that are out there that are supporting the operations. The house is actually the small structure that's on the far East side, and then the horse boarding operations are the barns and structures that are kind of on the West side of the... of the property. So this is the survey and the site plan that was submitted to us with respect to the application this evening. You can see on sort of the right-hand side of this graphic uh, a zoomed-up version of where the proposed accessory building would be located. The house is on the South side of the driveway. The proposed accessory building is on... into the East side of the driveway as... as it sits. It does comply with all the setbacks. It does meet our regulations in terms of square footage, etc., because obviously we are dealing with a parcel that is greater than 20 acres. So I skipped ahead a little bit, but these are our standards. Again, we're not changing a lot configuration, we're not changing the principal structure, etc. The accessory building that is proposed does comply with the setbacks of our A1 standards. So we've covered the majority of this already. The last item I will bring up are actually the architectural plans. So when we take a look at dimensional standards and we look at a building plan uh, obviously we're looking for a building plan that matches with what the narrative describes is what the intended use is. In this case, they do not match with each other. So we've got essentially a description of the accessory building being used for a classroom, some conference space, a public restroom, but the floor plans and the building plans that are submitted actually show living space and entry, a sauna, a bathroom. So we've got a mismatch between the narrative and what's shown on the plans. Obviously, in this regard uh, we need to clarify what the true intent of this structure is, because obviously if this is a building that's intended to support the commercial horse boarding operation, there are some commercial standards that are going to kick into play. So for example, ADA bathrooms or one bathroom stall for example in this case, ADA parking uh, you know, a parking area in general, because in this case they are proposing to actually put the structure near the principal home and so if it's for commercial purposes and it's part of that commercial operation, some... some different standards are going to trip in. Architecturally, here's the design. You can see the A-frame. You can see very clearly that there's this steep peaked roof area on the plans that does show as a loft space. So it's about 720 square feet plus whatever that loft space is. Based on the survey and the site plan uh, it's a bit hard to read here so apologize, but on here you will see that it shows that in that peak or that roof area there's a loft space and then it says, I believe, "open to living room below." So from the loft space on the main floor it shows living space, a sauna, a bathroom, an office, and an entry. So again, that doesn't match up with what the description was, and so we need to understand exactly what we're... what we're actually reviewing here and whether or not this structure will support the operations that are intended out there. Another picture of the A-frame. So in terms of the operation, the existing conditional use permit uh, activities would remain in place. We're not looking at a change in use in this case. There are some changes that are proposed uh, with the new accessory building. Uh, some of those modifications are also described in the narrative. The narrative describes the use as... as supporting the horse boarding and training operation: a classroom, conference space, office, and public restroom. The applicant notes in the narrative that actually there used to be a barn on site that had these activities in it, but that... that barn was removed from the property. Those uses are actually documented in the conditional use permit. It's not to say that that's bad, it's just they weren't documented. So obviously if this accessory building were to be approved with these functions as noted in the narrative, we would want to update the conditional use permit accordingly to ensure that we have those uses covered and that we understand the intensity level of what those uses are. In addition, obviously we touched on this briefly, but if this is a commercial building that's going to be public restrooms or a public restroom, if it's going to have classroom or training facilities in it, we'd need to look at parking uh, in this area that's not shown on the site plan at this time. So that would need to be updated as well based on the ordinance. I believe it was something like five or six parking... parking spaces if you would, would need to be provided based on the square footage of the structure and the proposed use. So again uh, just highlighting that these items were noted in the narrative, but no plans were submitted for them: modernize/improve the farmhouse, the equine and canine hydrotherapy facility, EV charging facilities, and energy improvements. A couple of these, for example the solar panels uh, as you all know we do permit those, but we have, you know, if it's a roof-mounted system oftentimes they're just permitted and don't require special permitting. If it's a ground-mounted system uh, oftentimes they require a certificate of compliance so that we can check setbacks etc. So essentially these are things that would be handled once there's an actual project that we know what it is and they could certainly come in for that permitting. I don't believe that those are in conflict with the conditional use permit and we would not need an amended conditional use permit. Uh, the one that I think absolutely would trip the amendment process would be the equine and canine hydrotherapy facility because it... if it's in an existing facility or if it's in a new facility, we would need to know the details of that and it's certainly a different use than what is out there today. So this evening and in your packet uh, I think there's... there's some clarification and discussion that we need to have with respect to understanding exactly what's being proposed. So I think we need to clarify what the intended use of the accessory building is with the applicant this evening. Uh, if it is in fact to support the commercial operations, then we need to understand what the intensity of that use is uh, in terms of, you know, how frequently is the classroom used, how frequent is the training facility used, etc., or is it really just ancillary to the training operations and a couple of folks might pop in here and there? So we need a little bit better idea of what that is. The floor plan again does not reflect what the narrative says, so we have no sense of how much of the facility is intended for a training facility versus conference etc. Obviously there's different parking ratios, for example, that come along with those different uses. So to get an understanding of that, if the applicant truly wants us to review something with respect to an equine or a canine hydrotherapy facility, those plans would need to be brought forward and we need that information. So perhaps they can speak to the timing of what their intent was for that request. This evening in your packets there's essentially three options for action: the first is to recommend denial with with draft findings. There's some draft findings that are provided in your packet. Obviously some of those findings include the fact that the... the narrative does not match with uh, the... floor plan, so it's unclear as to what the true intent of the facility is. So that's one option. Uh, the second would be, after discussion and public testimony and hearing from the applicant, if you feel comfortable we could certainly move this forward. There's a draft set of conditions that are provided for you for your consideration; you obviously could add to those after we hear from the applicant if... if you desire. The third option would be to table the request and ask for additional information be submitted. For example, if they do want to move forward with the hydrotherapy facility, we would essentially need to have those plans before we could really make a determination whether it fits, doesn't fit, complies, etc. So with that, Mr. Chair, that's an overview of the... of the application. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have before we head into the public hearing. [19:06] **Chair:** I don't believe I saw it, but is there anything in the application that defines the expected use of the structure in terms of people per week or people per day? [19:15] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I didn't see any, but no there's no uh, description, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, about uh, how frequently it would be used, how many people could fit, you know, in what areas etc., because obviously we have a floor plan that doesn't match it so we can't really even make a lot of guesstimates uh, in terms of what they're asking for. So I think that's stuff we would need to get clarification from the applicant. [19:52] **Chair:** You guys have any questions for Jennifer before we...? Okay. Is the applicant in the room this evening? Very good. Would you mind coming up to the podium here and we can have a discussion here? Awesome. Thank you for writing a very detailed narrative in your application; that definitely helps understand what you're attempting to do with the... with the new structure. Would you mind just giving us a little additional background, especially relating to, I guess, the kind of the differences in what the narrative describes and what the structure is going to be used for and then ultimately the floor plan showing... I guess from... from our perspective not knowing the background, it looks more to be like a living space, right? An accessory building that... that is not allowed within the city of Grant. So if you wouldn't mind kind of giving us a little bit of background, that would be very helpful. [20:50] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Well, I've had the same business in Grant for like 10 years in the day camps and horse shows and boarding. Since I've had my baby, now I'm kind of scaling back. I've actually asked quite a few customers to leave. I have about five clients. Um, and from there it's going to be more of a teaching and kind of uh, learning center for the athletes that I have there now. So that would be kind of where we watch our videos, where we'll go over our plans—more of a clubhouse. Like, the barn has actually been a barn there for like over 100 years and it's not set up for, you know, bringing in equipment, video—even a video equipment—or sitting around. It would have to be completely remodeled on the inside. Um, so that... that there, I don't need any new parking. I have plenty of parking. I have way more parking than I ever need right now. Um, at the most we do our business from nine o'clock until 12 and that's it, you know, on Saturday and Sunday. Um, so I've really scaled back quite a bit, more than quite a bit from where I was at before. So our conditional use permit has us having several horses, you know, tens of... you know, like 40 horses or something like that—36—and I think now we may have 20. So it's... it's going to be a smaller operation and working with, you know, just more select clients. These aren't the clients that I haven't had for like 20 years that are in on this project. [22:11] **Chair:** Sure. Can you define a little bit what you expect in terms of just use of the structure on a daily or weekly in terms of number of people in and out? [22:20] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Um, it'll just be one at a time. You know, like me and the client will go over the horse... their horse's videos, we'll look and you know, have coffee and um, that kind of thing. It's not going to be like a major classroom where I'm having 20 people out or something like that. They'll be parking in the same area. It's directly across from my personal home um, so I can just walk over there and get to work. [22:45] **Chair:** So, and then what did you say... your hours of operation... did you say 9 to 12? [22:50] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** 9 to 12 Saturday and Sunday. The clients... yeah, the clients come out on their own, but that's really what I'm... I don't um... I no longer have the gates open so to speak and people stopping by. So it's just more appointment only. [23:05] **Chair:** Yeah, go ahead. [23:06] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** I do on weekdays during the week... no, I don't have any appointments during the week. No, they can come out on their own and like I said, it's like five people. The time that they've come out on their own I can probably count on one hand. [23:25] **Chair:** So you're not intending to use this new building during the week? [23:30] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Uh, probably most likely no, not right now. They didn't tell when she gets a little older. The office... yeah, there's an office. There's an office. This is Mr. Strobos, he's my partner and he's the one that wrote it all together, the plans. [23:43] **Strobos (Applicant's Partner):** I'm not sure I agree entirely that the plans point out an office, so that's basically for her business records. And then the spot that's identified as "living" is... is for, you know, one-on-one training sessions and it's... it's probably what, 50 yards from there to the... [24:10] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Like I coordinate the riders' fitness programs and yoga and massage, and we do all of that together and have a routine for the rider as well as the horse too. So that's kind of what we work on. [24:25] **Chair:** Sure. Greg, Jim, you guys have any questions? Dan, how about you? [24:32] **Commissioner Dan:** No, just uh... like you said, a drawing states "living" and it's kind of that... [24:37] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** I definitely want, like, you know, a shower and a proper bathroom because they'll be riding and then they come up and we, you know, have the meetings after/before rides, kind of like coaching sessions. Um, so yeah, that's part of it for us. I mean, my clients are kind of, you know, exclusive clients, you know, so I want it to be something where there's, you know, a proper bathroom with a hot tub and a sauna and they can like unwind and have a massage, yoga, you know, so that kind of thing. [25:05] **Chair:** Sure. So the intent here is that your clients won't be staying overnight? [25:10] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** No, no, no, no. No stays. No. [25:15] **Chair:** Okay. Could you describe a little bit of the purpose of the loft? The loft in the design, the second floor? [25:22] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** I wasn't thinking anything but storage. Or I mean, I just like the look of the A-frame, honestly. I didn't want something to look like it was just kind of plopped down next to the house. I thought I was kind of... I wanted to be behind the house, so it's not like this add-on look from the road—that was kind of important to me. So that was just the... the design concept that I had. I didn't want something that looked, you know, square like I just threw it out in the yard. So the front is glass and I'm just trying to have it more... I didn't want something like additional parking too, so that, you know, these are basically like, you know, my girlfriends of 20 years that they can walk up and, you know, kind of sit around more like a clubhouse situation where we go over their show videos and whatnot. [26:10] **Chair:** Okay. Thanks. Any other questions? [26:15] **Commissioner Jim:** No, I still have a little... just a little issue with the "living" right now. Whatever we're talking about sounds good, but in the future if... should there be anything um, from our point of view for long term, staying overnight or, you know what I'm getting at... [26:30] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** For sure. I think in my current CUP, that... CUP, is that right? Um, okay, it has something like if there is a living situation that they work at the farm or something like that. Um, but it's not going to be, you know, a living area. [26:50] **Chair:** Sure. You can understand our concern. The layout looks very much like a... [27:00] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Exactly. It's what... what it is, it's what do they call them now, small house or... [27:05] **Strobos (Applicant's Partner):** Yeah, design it. You just buy the kit, basically, is the situation there. [27:10] **Chair:** Sure. Yeah, go ahead, please. Uh, the equine and canine hydrotherapy facility... could you just speak to that a little bit? [27:22] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Well, um, the only difference is it's going to be able to walk in, you know, so the horse can walk in the unit. Um, in the yard. You know, we haven't gone through... it's not going to be in a separate structure by any means. It's something that we can just use over the summer. [27:38] **Chair:** Okay. It's just not noted on the plans, right? So... [27:42] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Okay, thank you. [27:43] **Chair:** And then you... you understand that we're only discussing really the... the structure itself and the other items... [27:52] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** Yeah, right. [27:53] **Chair:** ...even though they were in the narrative, that's really the only thing that we can discuss since plans were not submitted for any of the other items. [28:02] **Jamie Bunner (Applicant):** So sounds good. Yeah. [28:04] **Chair:** Very good. Thank you so much. So Jennifer, based on um, her explanation of their intended use, would it be your opinion that ADA compliant bathrooms, ADA compliant parking—all of those items would need to be required because it... it is going to be for commercial use? [28:22] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Uh, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, I think we'd have to confirm with the building official what the... I mean, obviously it's a very low occupancy in terms of what would be required, um, but I think we would have to confirm with... in terms of what, because it's really a building code issue. It's... it's less of a planning issue. It's really uh, when you've got commercial occupancy, what trips it and what doesn't. So I think we'd have to confirm with him based on that occupancy. [28:55] **Chair:** But we could put a condition that would basically lay out that the building, if approved, must comply with all that? I mean, it's going to have to anyway, but strong language sometimes is good in that regarding. [29:08] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah, because just things that stand out as... you know, that doesn't show whether there's a ramp to get in and out of the facility itself, whether there's there's that kind of ladder going to the loft... it just kind of looks like a... like a... accessory auxiliary dwelling unit rather than a commercial space. [29:30] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So yeah, I mean, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, I guess what I would say is, I'm going to bring up the... the site plan just for a moment um, because when it comes to the ADA uh, compliance piece, you actually are supposed to provide the parking space as close to the entry as possible. So complying with it at one of the other barns, that wouldn't comply uh, in terms of if this facility is intended for that. So um, obviously from what it sounds like in the narrative, and I don't know for sure, but the way it sounds is there used to be a barn that some of these activities was located in and my guess is it was probably closer to where these other barn facilities are. This is now obviously next to the principal structure. So the improvements that are on the other part of the site where the business operations are—while those are obviously, we're not touching those, everything's fine—we have to look at this from a specific... it's separate. You have to comply with the intent of the ADA for this structure, not... not as a collection. So just as that. So we... we would have to need to verify it. We'd have to verify with um, the building official exactly how that plays... plays out uh, in terms of the occupancy load. [31:05] **Chair:** Bear with me here one second, Jennifer. (Pause) Okay, you guys have any additional questions before we open up the public hearing? And then we can continue to have additional discussion after the public hearing as well depending on our comments. So very good. I need a motion to open the public hearing for consideration of application for the amended conditional use permit. [31:35] **Commissioner:** Second. [31:37] **Chair:** We have a motion and a second. All in favor, aye. [31:40] **Commissioners:** Aye. [31:41] **Chair:** All opposed, nay? Five eyes, zero nays. The public hearing is now open. It is 7:07. And at this time, both online and um, members of the audience, you guys are welcome if you wish to do so to provide any public testimony or comments related to the subject matter. We ask that you come to the podium, state your name and your address before you speak, and then provide testimony or comments based on everything you've heard. And those comments do help us in our decision making, especially when placing reasonable conditions on items like this with... with amended conditional use permits. So we value your opinion and... and welcome if anybody wants to speak. [32:38] **Jennifer (City Planner):** And Mr. Chair, I'll just say there's also a sign-in sheet. [32:42] **Chair:** Very good. Name and address, but please write it down as well. [33:17] **Chris Toonhorst (Public Speaker):** Hi, I'm Chris Toonhorst. My address is 11710 Keats Avenue North. My property intersects the applicant's property at a 90-degree angle in their back pasture, so we're kind of a distance away from their house and buildings, but we're... we have a common property line in the pastures. So what I wanted to say is we've lived there 25, 26-ish years and they have always been good neighbors to us. We've not had any issues with them. Noise, horses... no, no issues. We also had horses but no issues. So I listened to what they said about the building. I personally don't have any issues with the building itself. We won't even see the building itself from our property, even from our pasture I don't think, anyway. But it sounds like it's consistent with their allowable use. So as described by the applicant, you know, I personally don't have any issues with the structure that they're describing. I... and there were some other things that were discussed. It sounds like those are out of scope for right now, so I won't talk at all about those. I do have an unrelated question about how I could get a chance to talk with someone on the Planning Commission about um, accessory buildings and things in Grant not related to this issue. So if you could communicate with me at some point after the meeting or now, whatever's appropriate, I would appreciate that. So that's all I have. Do you guys have any questions for me? [34:55] **Chair:** No, no. Really appreciate your time and your testimony. So thank you. [35:00] **Chris Toonhorst (Public Speaker):** Thank you. I guess I can say one more thing: I did call and talk to the applicant and had a very pleasant conversation about it and it was accurately reflected in what was here today. So add that. [35:20] **Chair:** Thank you so much. Will there be anyone else in the audience wishing to provide public testimony? Doesn't look like... Kim, is there anyone online or...? [35:35] **Kim:** Mr. Chair, Planning Commissioners, we have no one um, in the room to speak. [35:45] **Chair:** Okay. I need a motion to close the public hearing. [35:50] **Commissioner:** I'll move to close the public hearing. [35:52] **Chair:** We have a motion. Do we have a second? [35:54] **Commissioner:** Second. [35:55] **Chair:** We have a motion and a second to close the public hearing. All in favor, aye. [35:58] **Commissioners:** Aye. [35:59] **Chair:** All opposed, nay? The public hearing is now closed, 7:11 p.m. Okay, so prior to tonight, going through the application and the... what's described in the narrative as um, the intended use, I gotta admit I was a little... a little confused. When I... when I see the word "conference room," I think of a room oriented something more like this, or something that's a little bit more oriented towards what I would consider commercial use and meetings of larger gatherings, things like that. But it sounds like the applicant is more looking at one-on-one type, I guess, conference, one-on-one, two-on-one type gatherings for training meetings, things like that in this... in this building. So um, compared to, I guess, my original opinion when I read the application, it does seem that it's a little bit different than how the narrative kind of portrays that. I read that as they're going to have 10 people in this building, and then you look at the building and it's not anywhere close to conducive or supportive of... of that type of use. So do you guys have any comments on... I guess, do you feel that the testimony and... and her described use matches the application? [37:10] **Commissioner David:** I don't know if I'm going to answer that question directly, but um, what I wanted to just remind the Planning Commission is that while the... the applicant made a good case and... and I understand a lot more thoroughly now what you want to do with the property, in my mind it does—in particular the architectural drawings—don't particularly reflect what you say you're going to use it for. And we have to remember as a body that this CUP runs with the land, not with the particular applicant that we like right now. So I guess my concern would be that the only way that... that I could look at approving this or recommending this to the Council would be to make sure that we go through the conditions very closely and make sure that we're safeguarding it to the specific intended use of the applicant and not allowing it to become a broader use—specifically not allowing it to become a residential use in the future um, without coming before the board again, right? So and then as in my personal view, on the other things that don't have specific plans, I don't know that they can, you know, act on those at all. So that... those would have to be excluded in my mind. [38:20] **Chair:** I agree with both those items. And one of the conditional uses that I would want to make sure to add is that "no overnight stay." Um, you know, if you look at this building, it looks like an Airbnb that you see now that people are at um, that's... that's what it looks like, whether that was your intent or not. That's just what I see when I see it on paper. So that would be a concern of mine that we're not allowing something like this. [38:45] **Kim:** Mr. Commissioners um, when you're looking at perhaps additional conditions that you would like to put in place to make a recommendation of the City Council, um, I just want you to keep in mind enforcement of those. It's kind of tough to gauge if somebody has an overnight guest. [39:05] **Chair:** Sure. [39:06] **Kim:** Rental? I think that goes with the... [39:08] **Chair:** CBO? Sure. Right. In this... I'm sorry, I didn't clarify, but the discussion now... unfortunately, the public hearing is closed. So no worries, no worries. Yes, yes. Um, all of you got a copy of the... the original CUP, yeah? [39:35] **Commissioners:** Correct. [39:36] **Chair:** Yes, absolutely, yep. Okay. And then the original CUP, if I read it right, includes residential use in some other buildings for employees, which is a little unusual for Grant, but it's... but it's allowed there. So that's, you know, I kind of want to make sure we don't expand that use as well because it's not a usual use for Grant, but it's allowed in this case in specific spaces that, of course, will—along with what Kim said—will be difficult to enforce, right? [40:20] **Commissioner Dan:** Absolutely right, yeah. Because it's... could very well change overnight into exactly what we were talking about, you know, use into a... hate to use that term "mother-in-law," overnight stay, or you know how quickly... but very easy with changing something like that, and there's no enforcements. We have to consider that in my mind. But also people could outright lie and get a addition of a pole barn and if it's hidden in the woods someplace and we don't see it, they could be doing all kinds of things there and if we're not inspecting it... but we do have a process every so many years where CUPs can be reviewed. Is that still in place? [41:10] **Kim:** Mr. Chair and Commissioners, there is a process. We as a staff review a handful of CUPs every year. They're on a rotating basis per the address. Um, and the city completely works off a complaint basis. So if a complaint were to come in about some activity on any CUP that perhaps does not allowed, zoning does go take a look at it. But a complaint does have to come in. [41:35] **Commissioner Greg:** Yeah, I tend to agree with the earlier comments. I think the consistency between the drawings and what has been written uh, is not there. So it's very difficult to... what are we really reviewing to pass it into Council? So I'm having a little difficulty drawing that correlation. I've heard what the applicant has said but um, I really... a more consistent package between what the wording is and what's actually on the paper would be very helpful. [42:10] **Chair:** One question for you guys. I don't know if you guys caught it on the narrative bottom of page two. It said an additional... this was... I just wanted to ask a question if your interpretation was... the second-to-last sentence on the bottom of page two: "an additional one or two bedrooms may be necessary to accommodate a larger family." I assume that that was referring to the principal structure? Is that...? [42:36] **Commissioners:** Oh, you guys understood? That's how I understood that. [42:40] **Chair:** And sure, based on Jonathan... what Jennifer brought up, that that's more of a building code thing, right? [42:48] **Strobos (Applicant's Partner):** Mr. Chairman, that was my understanding, that they were talking about the principal structure, sure. [42:52] **Chair:** Okay. I also... I just wanted to make sure that that "additional one to two bedrooms" wasn't being satisfied with this structure, right? [42:58] **Strobos (Applicant's Partner):** Right, right. To accommodate a family of four. [43:05] **Jennifer (City Planner):** If I could also add um, one of the draft conditions that we... that... that I proposed this evening was uh, that they actually needed to submit a revised set of plans that more closely match with the description that's in the narrative and actually probably that's closer to what was described tonight. Um, because I... I think I... I'm with you, Mr. Chair, when I read it "conference room" and "office" and that sounds like we're going to have groups of people. So it might be a, you know, an amended sort of narrative that tells us that's more closely aligned with what was described this evening, and that the plans be updated because as you all know, oftentimes we attach the plans to the conditional use permit. That's one of the ways we actually can enforce it in the future is that we have an accurate depiction of the project, and then that helps staff when we're on that five-year rolling cycle to be able to say, "okay this matches" or "it doesn't." So just food for thought. [44:10] **Chair:** Sure. So what you're saying is both an amended set of plans and narrative so that they more closely align with testimony? [44:18] **Jennifer (City Planner):** To me, I... it sounds like an addendum to the narrative based on what was described tonight, because that to me, that sounds very different than what even was in the narrative. Um, so that we have the narrative matching the plans. If that moves forward, I mean, the condition would be that those things get updated and prepared so that they can be part of the package and we have something accurate to review if the Council decides to approve it. [44:42] **Chair:** Sure. So you're suggesting the "living area" be switched to "meeting room" with layout... [44:50] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I mean, something that's more in line with the testimony of this evening, correct. Correct, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. So uh, you know, oftentimes even in small spaces like that we'll get something that shows like the display will be here, there's going to be these seats here. Um, obviously I... I do think still there might be an ADA issue with the bathroom and the... if it's truly intended for the types of meetings we're talking about for the public. I realize they're customers, but all commercial activity that... that is the public and it is your customers, and so it's certainly something we can verify with the building official. But even one or two people, I... I believe in a new facility is going to trip some of those requirements. [45:34] **Chair:** Makes sense. You guys want to review the conditions that Jennifer had listed out? I believe that would probably be our next logical step. So we are looking at under item two: the construction of a new approximately 720-foot square-foot building. The use of the building must be for office, small conference room, classroom, teaching area, and public restroom. That is consistent with what our testimony was. [46:12] **Commissioner David:** Go ahead. I... I would add to that sentence some stronger language that... that said "not for overnight stays," or "overnight stays specifically," right, "are not permitted" rather than just omitting overnight stays. [46:32] **Chair:** That make sense, Jennifer? [46:35] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Uh, yes Mr. Chair, members of the commission. I would actually propose that we just create a second separate... [46:42] **Chair:** A separate conditions? Yep, that's fine, sure. And then the next item also, Jennifer, the architectural plans... if you could change that to, or just add "the architectural plans and narrative be changed." Now, the fourth bullet: "An ADA compliant restroom must be provided." Are we 100 percent positive on that or should we just change that to that it needs to be "reviewed by uh, the inspector to determine if that's needed"? [47:25] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah, I put a note that an ADA compliant restroom must be provided and basically, "if required by building official." [47:33] **Chair:** Correct. Okay. And similar language for the parking area, too. Are you pretty confident that that will need to be provided with the...? [47:45] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So the trip... Mr. Chair, members of the commission, the tricky part about the parking is that the... the code has parking ratios based on the use. And so the use in this case was described as office, conference room, etc., for public and part of the... and so we have a per-square-foot number of stalls per those feet based on the use in our code. So that's where the number is coming from. I understand it doesn't necessarily match with what the applicant is describing as one or two clients, you know, at a time, but the structural footprint is what we go based on. So um, it... you know, we could back out maybe the bathroom space um, from the calculation, but it's a departure from the code, I guess is what I'm saying. We would deviate from the code if we're going to allow... if we're not going to have a parking standard that matches with what the code says you're providing for that type of space, if that makes sense. So that... that's where the number came from. Obviously, I understand that's not... so however you would like to address it. But... but the reality is we have the ratio in the code. [49:00] **Chair:** Well, we need the narrative to be um, redone so that it includes the use, correct? That needs to be included in the narrative and on the application, right? [49:10] **Jennifer (City Planner):** But uh, what I'm saying is "office" is still going to be what's described, and our office is, I think, one space per 200 square feet, for example. [49:20] **Commissioner David:** Yeah, I... I'd recommend that we stay with what the code starts, not deviate from that in our recommendations. [49:26] **Chair:** Absolutely. [49:27] **Jennifer (City Planner):** And if they change the plans and change the narrative to a different use, then that can be reviewed accordingly. But right now... [49:33] **Chair:** ...meant more the occupancy, the frequency of use. [49:36] **Jennifer (City Planner):** And the other thing I would say to that is, obviously, you know, part of what what your concerns as I'm hearing them are, is that this isn't a residential structure. Well, these are the things that make... make it the commercial structure that's supporting the operation, right? You know, as opposed to... so it's like parking, for example, in that quantity is based on the square footage of the building as a commercial structure. [49:55] **Chair:** Sure. Okay. So the next bullet looks like it has to do with septic, and think that you covered that quite well. Further explanation of all the other items that were in the... described in the narrative are not being considered. That looks good. I think the rest of the conditions look satisfactory. Is there any other additional concerns that you guys have that you'd like to add in additional condition? Jim, Greg? Anyone? [50:55] **Commissioners:** I think... okay. [51:00] **Chair:** Anything else you wanted to discuss, Dan? I know you kind of had a difficult time with the... the use and looking like... [51:10] **Commissioner Dan:** Sure, it was covered pretty well. [51:13] **Chair:** Okay. Well, at the end of the discussion, then, we need a... an action. Somebody to make a motion and recommendation for denial, uh, recommendation of approval for the... to pass it up to the City Council, or recommendation to table until the applicant can provide further information. [51:35] **Commissioner Greg:** I mean, this seems a bit incomplete to me to send this on to the Council with all these "to-do's," if you will. [51:43] **Chair:** Yeah, I can understand where you're coming from there. Um, you know, when I first read it before the... before we got the explanation, I was, you know, "this is completely... doesn't match at all." Now I'm coming to the... the decision that, well, I think we... I think there's plenty here that that's... makes sense. But I think there's enough that needs to be yet submitted and reviewed by staff that I think if you come back here, rather than put all that on us, on getting it done at the City Council level on staff and then go right to Council... [52:20] **Commissioner Greg:** Sure. I know we've sent other recommendations on with conditions, but to me they've been a little more concise. [52:30] **Chair:** Sure. My... my opinion, yeah. Any other comments or...? No comments? No. All right. Well, in order to move forward, somebody's going to need to make a... make a motion or one of the three alternatives. [53:15] **Commissioner Dan:** I'll make a motion we table this till the conditions we just laid out are addressed and brought back for further consideration. [53:25] **Chair:** We have a motion. Do we have a second? [53:30] **Commissioner Jim:** Second that. [53:32] **Chair:** Okay, we have a motion and a second to table until additional information is provided in the application and brought up to... to standard. All those in favor, aye. [53:45] **Commissioners:** Aye, aye. [53:46] **Chair:** Opposed, nay? Okay, no. How was I... you or I? Yeah, so four to one. So very good. So the recommendation is going to be the table until further information is provided and the application is revised. All right. Next item on the agenda is we have a public hearing for draft ordinance for outdoor storage. All right, Jennifer. I was not at the last meeting, so looking forward to hearing a summary prior to opening up the public hearing. So... [55:12] **Jennifer (City Planner):** All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the... trying to get my screen share back on. (Pause) All right. So actually this item uh, came up as a result of one of the conditional use permits that we took a look at in 2022. So obviously this group took a look at it as well in terms of our exterior and outdoor storage regulations. So after that application came through, there was some discussion at the Council level of... really our ordinance language is pretty out-of-date and doesn't have a lot of detail in it, and so it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. So the city actually enacted a moratorium uh, on... on exterior storage, which is section 32-316 of your current ordinance. Most cities actually refer to it as "outdoor storage," so I'm proposing that we sort of make that shift just for consistency because it's something that most cities know or most applicants or landowners would know, as opposed to "exterior storage"—it isn't the common... common term that's used. So that's one proposed change right there which you may or may not agree with. We can certainly keep it "exterior," I'm not... not married to it. But so the moratorium went into place uh, February of 2023. The purpose was to study the regulations that exist and then also to take a look at how other cities are regulating it with similar land-use patterns, similar types of properties. Uh, this again was initiated by the City Council, and then the moratorium obviously says that we need to study it. Once we have something to discuss, it comes before the Planning Commission as the zoning group to take a look at our zoning ordinance changes. And obviously we need to hold a public hearing. So we did go ahead and notice a public hearing this evening. I will tell you that uh, this is my first swing at the outdoor storage ordinance uh, and I have a feeling it might be a... a good topic to discuss and we don't necessarily need to pass it on tonight. We certainly can if you guys feel good about it, but it's certainly something that—especially since we might be back together again next month or in the near future—that we could certainly pick it back up. So uh, we're still within our timeline of the moratorium; it's not like we're up against a deadline with respect to that. So one of the pieces that we do when we look at updating an ordinance and when we've got an established moratorium, we have to do some research and study other ordinances uh, to demonstrate that... that we're looking uh, at uh, the topic and we're doing our due diligence. Staff did do that uh, and there's a couple common themes that come through in a lot of the outdoor storage ordinances. So the first one being that there is a separate regulation for personal outdoor storage versus commercial types of outdoor storage. Uh, in our... in the case of our ordinance right now, we really don't make that distinction. So that... that's a pretty common uh, thing or topic or set of conditions that exist in a lot of ordinances. Obviously as you all know, we have got General Business here and then we've got all of our A1/A2 properties. But just as a reminder that several of our A1/A2 properties also allow some commercial conditional use permits that are a... a more... that are a principal commercial use without having the residential component to it. So this separation is more about use as opposed to zoning. So I'm just bringing that up because obviously a lot of cities have a lot of commercial zoning or general business zoning districts etc. We don't have that here, but we do have CUPs that have out... you know, commercial uses to them. Almost all ordinances that were reviewed had some kind of screening uh, requirement as well as an increased yard setback. So uh, obviously most... most folks don't love to look at outdoor storage uh, and so to account for that uh, most of the ordinances have some kind of screening requirement and also have that it has to be set back further from property lines so as not to, you know, adversely impact the adjacent neighbors etc. Many regulations use either a percent of a property that can be... can, you know, have outdoor storage contained on it, or they have a maximum square footage, or they have some combination of both. That I feel like might be the biggest topic of conversation with respect to our ordinance because we obviously have a lot of parcels that are quite large, and 50 percent of a parcel, for example, would be an enormous outdoor storage area. So when I started to really dig into some of our parcel sizes etc., it felt like it might actually be a combination—it might be, you know, a percent and not to exceed a certain square footage, whatever those happen to be. A lot of the ordinances that we reviewed did require that whatever outdoor storage uh, is contained on the site has to be on an improved surface, so you can't just park it in your yard uh, on the grass. It needs to be on a gravel or a class five or a paved area etc. The other thing I will note is almost... I shouldn't say almost all... several of the ordinances state that exterior storage or outdoor storage is only permitted as an accessory use. It cannot be a principal use on the property. So that is very common. And bring that up because currently our ordinance actually does say "storage as a principal use" in our table of uses. Uh, I would actually say that that's more unusual than what... what I saw. Like, almost all cities say it has to be accessory to some other principal use, whether that principal use is permitted, conditionally permitted, or permitted with an interim use permit. You can't just have a storage yard, essentially. The other thing that we did is we did a survey of the Council, the City Council, to get a sense of what are their perspectives on this since they initiated it, so that it would give you a little bit of direction. Um, unfortunately for you and for me uh, they all disagreed with each other on almost everything. And so that really didn't help in terms of that we would have some direction, but they actually all uh, for the most part, kind of had different ideas about it to be perfectly honest, which is why I think it might be a spirited discussion. There were a couple things that felt like there was a bit of commonality between the the three that did respond, but there is a lot of... of inconsistency in what they thought. A couple of the things that the questions focused on was personal versus commercial storage and whether there's a difference from that. That's the one thing that they actually did agree on for the most part was that, yes, we should treat personal storage on your own property differently than a commercial business. So they kind of agreed with that, although not 100 percent, but they kind of agreed with that. Uh, they... they also uh... the questions were about whether it should be accessory or principal use. There was some agreement here as well that if we were going to allow storage as a principal use anywhere, that the only place that it could be would be in the General Business. So that is a departure from where our code is today. So that would be a change, but the idea being that the only appropriate place where a principal storage use would be would be in the General Business. Anywhere else, it would need to be accessory to some other principal use that is permitted, conditionally permitted etc. Uh, the last thing about the questions was actually whether the process, whether it was personal or commercial, should require a conditional use permit, an interim use permit, or whether it should just be permitted by right. They were all over the map on this one. So there just wasn't a lot of consistency. For that reason, I picked Interim Use Permit; seems like a good... good a good tool in this case because once again—just to remind everybody, we talked about it just with a prior applicant—conditional use permits run with the land. They're there forever as long as they kind of, you know, comply with the code or with their terms or their conditions. You can't really get rid of it. An interim use permit, on the other hand, is actually given to the operator. The pro... it is associated with the property, but it's really tied to the operator. And so if it changes hands, if activities change etc., you don't renew the interim use permit. So then you don't have a bunch of permanent outdoor storage that is all over the place. So an interim use permit in this case felt like a good... a good solution. I will say—and I thought about this in terms of let's say we have a use that's a conditional use permit as a principal use and they want outdoor storage to go along with it—you could either give them a separate IUP for the storage component of their business, or you could evaluate it and end up rolling it into the conditional use permit. It would really be on a case-by-case basis depending on how... how the city wanted to... to handle it. So that is one thing I thought about in terms of... we have a lot of conditional uses. If somebody wants outdoor storage as an accessory use to it, was the proper way to sort of memorialize that whether it's via the CUP or the IUP? Um, it does... so the draft has some performance standards that are applicable to all outdoor storage. So whether it's personal or whether it is commercial. And then there's some additional standards that I've drafted that if it is a commercial use... so obviously we've got kind of two different... two different use perspectives, personal versus commercial. So what's included in the "all" section? So this would apply to all outdoor storages that its screening is required. If you're going to have it, you need to have proper screening. I did very specifically draft in there that says that it's at ground level. We have a lot of topography here. We have a lot of situations where some properties are higher than others. It's probably not reasonable to think that we're going to screen it from all property uh, you know, view sheds. I know we have situations where that exists today. So the intent is if you're at ground level standing, all outdoor storage would have to be screened. So that means it's a fence uh, you know, some kind of privacy fence, a berm in some cases might work, or vegetation or some combination. So but it's... it's at the ground level essentially. Uh, the... the standards prohibit storage of junk and inoperable vehicles and trash and those types of things so that we don't just get a bunch of junk yards for storage areas. It must be in a clearly designated area, so we'd need a site plan to demonstrate it's complying with setbacks etc., and that the area is designated. I did go ahead and say it had to be on an improved surface; again, this goes without saying but all of these are up for discussion if you think they're good, bad, we should strike things etc. Uh, it does say that if you're going to have waste refuse or garbage, it's got to be in an enclosed structure; that stuff can't be outside, can't be in the storage area. Uh, and then there's also a timeline for storage of unlicensed vehicles; that is actually in our current code and I carried over. So in terms of exclusions for personal storage, the way that the table of uses is drafted right now, it says that for personal storage there's times when it requires a certificate of compliance as an accessory use. The idea here is if somebody has, you know, personal vehicles, two personal vehicles outside, and they've got a couple uh, you know, personal recreational vehicles, you don't have to come in for a certificate of compliance. I don't know if two is the right number for outdoors; I just threw it in for discussion purposes uh, but the idea is we don't really want everybody to have to come in here and get a certificate of compliance if they're parking a car outside—that's not outdoor storage, right? The idea is really if somebody is storing things on their property—multiple things that could be, you know, or could adversely impact a neighbor—how do I make sure that those areas are screened? That's the intent, not necessarily you have one personal vehicle in a recreational vehicle or whatever. So those are the exceptions I put in; once again, I did it for discussion purposes to get the ball rolling in terms of "is that right?" But I don't think our intent is that we want to see every single property in every single car... [1:09:40] **Kim:** No. [1:09:41] **Jennifer (City Planner):** ...Kim says no, no. So that's not the intent. Uh, in terms of the commercial standards, so there's a table draft table that's in your ordinance this evening for discussion. Uh, one of the things that came up in the City Council review response uh, was that they felt there should be a minimum lot size to allow outdoor storage. They said... one of them said 20 acres, the other two did not say an acre. So I went with the one who was detailed and said 20 acres to start the discussion. So I did put in at a minimum of 20 acres. I also did put in there uh, the area limit, which is a percent or a square footage. Again, the minimum lot area is different for General Business. So I'm sure you noticed that on the table because obviously most of our General Business parcels are pretty small. So that is the one exclusion everywhere else in the city, the 20 acres would apply. In General Business, I think it's 30,000 square feet if my memory is right, which was just based on "what do we have out there, what's going on?" Um, the location, once again uh, behind the principal structure. The exception is the General Business, which looks, talks, acts a little bit different. Uh, the other thing about the General Business is obviously that's the one zoning district uh, that we're saying you could have it as a principal use, therefore there might not be a principal structure in that case, so it would be hard to be behind it. So from that perspective, it would need to comply with all setback requirements. The other pieces again: increased setbacks everywhere in the community except for General Business. So the increased setbacks kind of double, or in some cases more so. On the side yard, 100 feet from the side yard and the rear yard for any outdoor storage areas. So if we've got minimum lot sizes at 20 acres, that should be more than doable in terms of making sure that those storage areas weren't butting up next to an adjacent property. So that's an overall summary of... of what's in the... in the draft. I'm sure you can tell that it's a draft; obviously, it's just for discussion uh, to see where we're at. Some of the things I'm curious about from you as a body are uh, the personal versus commercial distinction and whether that's a good idea; whether or not it should... outdoor storage should be a permitted uh, principal use even in the General Business, or whether it should be really just an accessory use everywhere in the community; and then the commercial use standards—the lot size, for example, is 20 acres. Does that... just for background, I think the 20 acres comes from some of our other types of commercial uses where we've had set a 20-acre minimum. So for example, um, our rural event centers, our supper clubs... are trying to think of what else... but we have several that we've said, "you need to be at 20 acres," and I think that's where the the 20 acres came from just for consistency. But I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on whether that... that... that's... that's how you feel, that 20 acres is the right number uh, and whether or not we should be looking at just a maximum square footage of outdoor storage that would be permitted in... in those cases. Is it a percent etc.? So with that, Mr. Chair. [1:13:00] **Chair:** So just to define what you're asking of us is just simply a discussion. We're not making any recommendations or anything of that nature to pass on to City Council; it's just a discussion to further refine the ordinance that will be presented to City Council? [1:13:20] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Correct. So if you feel comfortable after the public hearing, you know, if we get a... public testimony, if you feel comfortable and you make edits and want to pass it on, you certainly can. If you feel like this is so far off and I want to... "we want you to make massive changes to it," I'm happy to do that as well and we don't need to. So we're not under a, you know, a timeline per se, a deadline. If you feel comfortable with it, we absolutely can pass it on. [1:13:48] **Chair:** Sure. So there's... there's something that says you have to talk about... there's a lot of information here to consider. [1:13:54] **Kim:** Mr. Chair and Commissioners, I guess what I would recommend is taking what they take based on the looking and she can incorporate that into another draft to come back for uh, review again at the PC level. [1:14:08] **Chair:** Sure. Yep. A few comments: personal versus commercial, I think is appropriate. The one thing I would say is, I know there's a storage facility along 36 that's a... does that comply to what we're...? [1:14:24] **Jennifer (City Planner):** It's in General Business (GB). [1:14:26] **Chair:** In the GB? But does it meet these...? [1:14:28] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Well, General Business would be 30,000. [1:14:32] **Chair:** 30,000, which is only three-quarters of an acre? [1:14:35] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Ah, perfect. I missed that. Thank you. I was just wondering about to find something that is already in... [1:14:40] **Chair:** Sure, no. [1:14:41] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah, try like for the minimum, I tried to look at all of our parcel sizes in General Business to see what was a reasonable number um, that would... and so 30,000 is what I arrived at. [1:14:52] **Commissioner David:** Sure. It was based on parcel sizes. I think this is a pretty big change, and I hope we get some people calling in or some people from the audience that want to talk about this because um, I'd like to hear what the public has to say. We do... I didn't look at any other town ordinances, but I drove around Grant a few times to see what the kind of the state of affairs is in Grant. Not so much with commercial because I like splitting the commercial just like you said, but I know that there's just a wide variety of what people do. And it's really varied within the city depending on the age of the neighborhood, depending on the size of the parcel and the use. So I have a couple of things, you know, like I look around, especially in the older neighborhoods, even if they're smaller parcels or medium-sized parcels, a lot of people have, you know, three trailers. They're not running a business. They've got a snowmobile trailer, a boat, and a, you know, a little skid loader. [1:15:50] **Commissioner Dan:** Yeah, two vehicles. [1:15:51] **Commissioner David:** Yeah, or pretty much everybody in Grant has more than that. Yeah, or they've got extra vehicles and three teenagers all driving at once. So I... I guess my input would be that the... on the personal side, the number of recreational vehicles and the number of cars parked in the driveway sort of thing—it's starting to sound like suburbia and not sounding like Grant. So I... I think that's in my view too few. Yes, um, and you know, a lot of people here have a backhoe. [1:16:16] **Chair:** I'm guilty. [1:16:18] **Commissioner David:** Have a tractor, a tractor or something that maybe doesn't fit in their garage. They may or may not have a pole barn to store it in; they store it out back. Um, and I would hate to have to have Kim processing three or four CC's for every resident that wants to come in and be in compliance with everything, right? So... so I... I think some changes could happen there. I guess on the commercial side, one of the concerns I had or one of the thoughts I had is: what about farms? What about ag use? Because even larger horse boarding places that... that make hay, some of the pure agriculture operations we have store a lot of their equipment outside and on unimproved... on unimproved surfaces because it's ag equipment and that's, you know, they'd probably love to store it inside—it would last longer and the paint would look nicer—but that's a very expensive thing to do. So um, you know, I think we need to look at that in actual agricultural uses. I don't know that we necessarily want them to have to come to us for permitting for every piece of equipment that's sitting outside that has been sitting outside for years. So that's kind of what I'm looking at, is making sure we keep this the "flavor of Grant" and what kind of has been done now. Maybe it needs to get tightened up, and I don't know how much of that happens in new neighborhoods, that sort of thing with... with um, associations and all that and different rules. But in the... in the part of Grant where people have, you know, have been there forever, sure there's just such a wide variety of what's happening now. I... I wouldn't want to put half the city in non-compliance. [1:17:45] **Kim:** Mr. Chair and Commissioners, I'll just add to that: it is the majority of the Council's intent to not limit any personal outside vehicles in terms of boats. The majority—there's some... it was like they didn't write that. Yeah, this was verbal, it wasn't part of the survey. Yeah, sure um, and it is absolutely not the intent of the City Council to limit farming facilities with equipment that they're using, that's their own personal equipment. So I... I really wanted to clarify that very quickly because I don't want people listening to this thinking that their tractors are now going to have to be, you know, stored inside, right? That they're using for their own farming. That's... that's not the intent. [1:18:30] **Commissioner David:** Sure. This was more for the commercial outdoor/exterior storage. [1:18:35] **Kim:** Commercial meaning people that are... I don't know exactly what that means. I'm not going to say people that are storing other people's... [1:18:40] **Jennifer (City Planner):** ...boats. [1:18:41] **Kim:** Correct. Property for commercial. How about that? [1:18:45] **Commissioner David:** That, I think, is a good example, right? [1:18:46] **Kim:** That really is the intent, yeah. [1:18:48] **Jennifer (City Planner):** What this is aimed at. [1:18:49] **Kim:** Correct, yeah. [1:18:50] **Commissioner David:** I'm glad you brought up the agricultural piece, because I think clearly that needs to be an exception. That's... [1:18:55] **Jennifer (City Planner):** ...what's in here as well. Like in my mind, the agricultural is not commercial. [1:19:00] **Kim:** Those are... [1:19:01] **Jennifer (City Planner):** ...correct. Those are different things. So but I think stating every time somebody who has an A1 or A2 property, we don't want them having outdoor boat storage... [1:19:10] **Kim:** Exactly. [1:19:11] **Jennifer (City Planner):** ...exactly. [1:19:12] **Kim:** ...in the wintertime. [1:19:13] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Correct. [1:19:14] **Kim:** ...for higher, right? [1:19:15] **Chair:** So what we need to do is make sure there's an exception in there for agricultural equipment. [1:19:20] **Jennifer (City Planner):** A1/A2, though? [1:19:21] **Chair:** That's right. That's right. So and there's plenty of tradespeople that work in the city, too, that have their trade van, yep, you know, it just doesn't fit in their driveway it's too... or in their garage, it's too tall. So just some consideration for the businesses, the home-based businesses, or the people that maybe actually work for an employer someplace but they have to bring their... their equipment here. In... in more densely populated areas, that's a more difficult thing to do and there's all kinds of ordinances. I think a lot of people come to Grant so that they can park their electrician's van in their driveway and not get um... [1:19:55] **Kim:** ...harassed. [1:19:56] **Commissioner David:** ...harassed and right, pushed out of town. I think that... I think we need to be careful about what we loop into the ordinance when we just say "commercial," because all those things are business use. [1:20:05] **Chair:** Sure. One quick thought here: we could open up for public hearing, and just in case there are people that would like to um, move on with their evening and then we can get back to some discussion. Does that sound reasonable? [1:20:20] **Commissioners:** Yep, absolutely. [1:20:22] **Kim:** Uh, Mr. Chair and Commissioners, what you could also do is open up the public hearing, take public testimony, and then you could table the public hearing to the next meeting if you... when she brings the draft back and you would like to get more inflation from the public. It would be great to get any public testimony this evening. We could potentially table it, re-advertise it, and potentially even get some more feedback. [1:20:45] **Jennifer (City Planner):** When you table it, you do not have to re-advertise. [1:20:47] **Kim:** You do not? Okay, sure. [1:20:49] **Chair:** Okay. So I need a motion to open the public hearing. [1:20:52] **Commissioner:** So move. [1:20:53] **Chair:** We have a motion. Do we have a second? [1:20:55] **Commissioner:** Second. [1:20:56] **Chair:** We have a motion and a second to open the public hearing. All in favor, aye. [1:21:00] **Commissioners:** Aye. [1:21:02] **Chair:** All opposed, nay? Five eyes, zero nays. The public hearing is now open, 7:56. [1:21:10] **Wally Anderson (Public Speaker):** That's what I came for. [1:21:12] **Chair:** Awesome. Sorry I didn't do that sooner, sir. If you wouldn't mind stating your name and address after you sign in. Thank you for your patience as well. [1:21:26] **Wally Anderson (Public Speaker):** Wally Anderson, 8833 80th Street North. And uh, the only thing I have a problem with is I don't know who any of you guys are; there's no name in front of you. [1:21:40] **Chair:** Sure. I'm sorry. [1:21:42] **Wally Anderson (Public Speaker):** No, it's just general. I'll go... I'm the attorney, I know. So but um, I'm... I'm more at ease now with the comments that David made because of uh, the concerns that I have, which would be the storage for uh, your... your snowmobile trailer, your hobby farm manure spreader, your drop-off uh, front-end loader or whatever it might be. You know, and all that stuff is usually dropped in a... in an area where you're going to pick it up again and reuse it, not in a covered storage or anything else like that. Maybe for the winter it's all put in, but done that way. So if there can be in your hay wagons and on bigger properties and that type of thing, all consideration of: where is this stuff... where are you going to store it? And on improved surfaces, it would be kind of prohibitive to manage all that. So in moving forward, that should be... and with the explanation with Kim gave for the commercial stuff and... and storing everybody else's boat, and I understand that because you don't want a whole pile of things there. But for your own personal use that you have there um, it shouldn't be a junk item—I agree—to be hauled out of there. We have got rid of a junkyard was an eyesore for I don't know how many years, and now we have a nice housing development in there. So it all works out. But that type of thing I think is important, that we don't burden the uh, small homeowner in worrying about where his trailer is going to be because he's going to be using it all the time. So I like your input. I think it's going the right way, but I didn't know that we had to rewrite uh, ordinance on storage and what it... what it... if it was not complaint-driven, we're just going after it. I think so. And I understand it to avoid any problems with that is a good thing, to have something that responds to where Grant may be moving. But we are certainly not moving into a high-density neighborhood all around where you have to be looking at our neighbor and wondering why he has his uh, utility trailer sitting there. So that's it. [1:23:50] **Chair:** Very good. Thank you for your testimony. [1:23:55] **Wally Anderson (Public Speaker):** Thanks. [1:23:56] **Chair:** Much appreciated. [1:24:02] **Chris Toonhorst (Public Speaker):** Mr. Chairman, Commissioners, I have a couple items as well. I'm Chris Toonhorst; I spoke earlier. A couple of things—and I've never really considered myself a heavy storage person—but we have a trailer to haul the tractor on, a horse trailer, a small trailer for hauling brush, a camper, and a plow truck, right? So um, so it's funny how it does add up to maintain the kind of properties that we have. So um, so that's as you started talking about it, that is more than I was thinking, you know, when you... when you start writing these things. So maybe you can make sure you're considering that as well. From a screening standpoint, one of the thoughts that I had—especially as we go through some of these uh, climate changes or water precipitation changes—vegetation isn't permanent. So if we put in vegetation as an appropriate screen, may not always be there. So as we start thinking about that, maybe that's something that we could consider as well. So you know, particularly maybe for commercial uses, maybe vegetation's not an appropriate screen. And also as we think about screening, perhaps there's a height consideration as well. Is a two-foot rabbit fence screening? You know, is a four-foot fence screening? You know, does it depend on what you're screening? I don't know the answer to these questions, but these are some things that were coming to mind as you were discussing. The other thing that I thought about was storage location. So I know we talked about improved surface versus not improved surface, but if we talk about driveway or being adjacent to a barn, you know, that might help you discriminate what's personal and what's commercial. You know, if it's a plow truck parked right next to your barn because it doesn't fit inside, you know, maybe that's different. Or an extra car parked in the driveway, like you talked about the teenage drivers; maybe that's different than uh, than having a pasture full of dead cars. The other question that I had... so I'm kind of changing topics as I go here. But the other question that I had was: does this cover like your neighbor's junk canoe and garden pots and debris against the property line? I... I'm not clear like on what scope, you know, we're covering things. So I just had that question for you. So are you allowed to talk back to me at this point in the process? [1:26:15] **Chair:** No, not at the moment. All right. Discussion... [1:26:20] **Chris Toonhorst (Public Speaker):** Okay. Essentially, so I was wondering just like general junk instead of like big things, you know, like the trailers and the vehicles and the campers—like, is it... does this cover like little junk stuff as well? So those are the comments that I had. Thanks for your consideration. [1:26:35] **Chair:** Thank you so much. Kim, do we have anybody on the line? [1:26:42] **Kim:** We do not. [1:26:43] **Chair:** We do not. Okay. We do not have anybody else in the audience. Need a motion to close the public hearing. [1:26:50] **Commissioner:** I'll make a motion enclose the public hearing. [1:26:52] **Chair:** We have a motion. A second? [1:26:54] **Commissioner:** Second. [1:26:55] **Chair:** All in favor, aye. [1:26:56] **Commissioners:** Aye. [1:26:57] **Chair:** All opposed, nay? Five eyes, zero nays. The public hearing is now closed at 8:02. Good points. I would pretty much agree with with Wally's statement that... that is going to be a concern obviously of a lot of residents. And I think we've already been discussing that in terms of, this really isn't aimed at personal storage of personal vehicles; it's more aimed at commercial and General Business use. And so there should be a lot of discussion on accessory use versus principal use, as well as personal versus commercial. Um, in terms of answering her question: is your ordinance aimed at junk, or mainly exterior... exterior storage of vehicles? What is the definition of exterior store or outdoor storage? [1:27:50] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So uh, the way that it's drafted now, which we certainly could modify uh, means: "exterior storage of materials, equipment and products that are accessory to a principal residential use." The intent was not someone's pots or anything along those lines um, the intent obviously... the intent is sort of uh, trailers, RVs, broken-down RVs. Um, over the years I have heard actually comments, you know, conversations about people who have a bunch of stuff on their properties um, and it goes beyond what we're talking about here. It's certainly not like, "I have a horse trailer and... uh, this trailer or not." And I... I put "two" in because I knew that was unacceptable and I knew it would solicit a response, which is what I was after, because I didn't get a lot of consistency out of the Council. So it helps me to hear like the... the sort of like visceral response of like, "that's not enough." Uh, but there is also the element of: over the years we have had certainly certain properties where it's like, there's a lot of stuff that's on that property uh, that's even from a personal perspective personal property that maybe isn't a commercial use. Up until now, we've not done anything about it. [1:29:05] **Chair:** Quantify that, Kim. I mean, is it a couple times in the last 10 years? Is it a lot more? [1:29:10] **Kim:** I would say perhaps three to five. [1:29:15] **Chair:** Three to five? Okay. [1:29:20] **Commissioner David:** My understanding, there's a nuisance ordinance that takes care of that if need be. Jack needs to get out there and if it's causing a hazard um, it's noted. And at times it has gone to the county where there was like a hoarder or that sort of thing on people's property. Again, it was complaint-driven. It is in the ordinance or it's part of the nuisance that all vehicles have to be licensed and up-to-date and have tabs, or that's considered a junk vehicle and those would have to be removed. So I... I think there's already something in place to take care of those type of things. This is a entirely different issue, and it was again aimed at the commercial storage—storage for hire on people's properties. [1:30:10] **Chair:** Sure. And it was completely Council-initiated, right? It was not complaint-initiated. [1:30:20] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I think it was also initiated by the fact that we have the uses that have come before us from a conditional use permit perspective, and there's not a lot of guidance in our code about what to do with those uses. So as opposed to being complaint-driven, it was "we have applications that have been before us and we don't have much direction in terms of what that actually means." And I think that's certainly one of the... [1:30:45] **Chair:** Yes, and you alluded to that. We had a CUP, I felt that way last year during the application. [1:30:52] **Kim:** Well, the application went through you guys and then there was I think different interpretations of what outdoor storage meant. And because of that discussion and because of that kind of disagreement um, the Council decided to tighten the ornaments up. That's all they wanted to do was clarify the ordinance, right. [1:31:15] **Commissioner David:** Um, I'd just like to add that I like the language you used: "storage for hire." I'd like to see that incorporated somehow as a differentiator in the commercial where it's... it's a different thing. Even if there's even if it's an accessory use to the business that's there, storage for hire is a different thing than storing that business's own materials and trucks and various implements that they need to conduct their business under General Business. Yeah, I mean, I see that as a... as a different thing, or on under any... you know, I just see those as two different things if you're... if you're having... because it drives... it drives more traffic to your facility potentially, it drives intensity of use, if you're allowing other people to store things on your property in my opinion than if you're storing your own... your own business's material. [1:32:05] **Chair:** They kind of along those same lines... in the amended table of uses that Jennifer came up with, I think I don't have any issues in... in terms of how this was restructured. Right now there is no outdoor storage, commercial or personal, as a principal use until you get to General Business. So nothing residential A1 or A2, which I think meets the intent of what we were going after. And it's not until you get down to um, accessory use where... where an IUP is going to be required. And so I... I think the first stab at that, probably the most important thing is that table that we kind of live by and then going down the line and defining all of these items is going to be pretty important. But I think your first stab at the table is what... what I would consider acceptable. What about you guys? [1:33:05] **Commissioner Greg:** Yeah, I mean, on principle I like it. I like the separation of business and personal. Um, I just think the... the devil's in the details, right? And I think when it gets to the Council, there's going to be even more back and forth about particular uses and scope of the percent of the property that can be used and things like that. But I... I think that's... I don't think it's bad to have some controls around what happens on the properties. But I think that the devil's in the details, and there's a lot of people that are in Grant to have a little space to have their stuff. Sure. And we want to make sure that that's... that's okay. Or I want to make sure that's okay. [1:33:55] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So Mr. Chair, members of the commission, what I'm hearing—just because we're going to have to bring this back, you know—but I... I think I'm getting a good sense of the direction you guys would like to head. So the first is that, for the most part, personal storage is excluded entirely from it um, from... from a permit requirement. That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be maybe some standards that are still applicable to personal storage when it exceeds a certain amount or threshold, but it's permitted; it's not... it's not a special permit. [1:34:20] **Commissioner Dan:** So it becomes a nuisance, right? [1:34:22] **Jennifer (City Planner):** I think rich he's got junk vehicles... I mean, yeah what you're after is the everything needs to be in working order... [1:34:28] **Kim:** It's not a... [1:34:29] **Jennifer (City Planner):** ...if there's other enforcement mechanisms for some of those things then... [1:34:32] **Chair:** Right, and we could cross-reference those things potentially. [1:34:35] **Jennifer (City Planner):** So then then the exception language, if you will, uh, would essentially get revised to uh, maybe put some clarification about the personal piece in it, and then also the agricultural uses—that agricultural is not considered... it's not defined as commercial activity, essentially. So we would add that in as a... and I can work on that language. Um, in terms of the... the language around the commercial, we'd want to add in something about the fact that a commercial use would be if you're leasing or allowing the storage of other people's stuff. This is not the technical way of saying it... [1:35:15] **Commissioner David:** ...if there's a transaction involved. [1:35:17] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah, essentially if you're... if you're letting if you're letting someone pay you to store their stuff, that's commercial. Like, you're making money off of it. But I think that's one kind of commercial use. I... I also think that, you know, for a commercial use in the General Business district, no, you have to look at how much material is being allowed to be stored outside for that business. If... you know, I mean that's commercial use and those things usually come up in the CUP, but I wouldn't want to permit necessarily more of that kind of storage than we already do. [1:35:50] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Right. What I'm saying—I'm not saying that it's a replacement definition, I'm saying it gets added into it or it's its own separate definition. I have to play around with it after... after the meeting. So but the intent is that both of those things are in here, essentially. And it might end up as maybe a separate use on the use table; I don't know, I have to think through exactly how that piece of it works. Um, because I will tell you that is unusual compared to most of the ordinances I took a look at—this idea of a personal... you know, somebody on a residential property wanting to store somebody else's stuff. Like, at least it's not called out separately within their ordinance. [1:36:35] **Commissioner David:** You've always said we're different, Jennifer, in Grants. [1:36:38] **Jennifer (City Planner):** We are different, I know. [1:36:40] **Commissioner David:** Though from... my parents live in rural Wisconsin, and lots of people in rural areas make a couple of bucks by storing four or five RVs or a couple of boats, especially the closer you get to Lake Country and things like that. So I know that's the thing; it's just not in the ordinance is my point. So like in order to like... how you codify... you know what I mean? [1:37:05] **Chair:** Were there other rural areas that have ordinance or rural communities that have ordinances, or most... most of the research you found was it suburban type? [1:37:15] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Everybody... everybody has an outdoor storage ordinance. Everybody, even for the most part, yeah. [1:37:22] **Chair:** Sure. [1:37:23] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah, like rural, suburban... it doesn't matter. There's that... because especially as... as things have evolved over the last, you know, five to seven years, there's more and more people who are storing more stuff on their properties. It doesn't matter if you're in a suburban location or if you're in Grant, you know? And so how cities are dealing with it is very different in terms of, you know, "what's your pain point?" so to speak. Which is why I put "two" in, because it's like, "what's the pain point, right? Do we care about this at all or... or... or don't we?" And what I'm hearing is we don't, for the most part, like when it comes to people's, you know, horse trailers, trailers, boats, whatever. But there is other rural communities that absolutely care about those things a lot and would like them to be in an accessory building and not start outside, right? Right. So it's figuring out what the pain point is for you as a community and then writing the ordinance to reflect exactly what you guys want. So there's plenty of examples out there of like the Medinas, Oronos, that have very similar land-use patterns—they require everything to be inside, they don't want to see it, right? That's their pain point. So it's making sure that what... what's in your code matches what you guys want and what represents you as a city. [1:38:35] **Kim:** Mr. Chair and Commissioners, I would also uh, ask Jennifer to look at the language... you're going to do this all later. It concerns me that you're talking about transactions, where there's transactions for storage. Um, there's been a surrounding community that had 50, you know, recreational vehicles on their property storing it and said that they were not taking any money for that. [1:38:58] **Chair:** Oh, sure. [1:39:00] **Kim:** It was neighbors. And because then it's allowed if there's not a transaction. [1:39:05] **Chair:** Exactly. [1:39:06] **Kim:** Sure. I mean, it's like everything else in Grant—it's enforcement, right? We don't have... we don't have a form of enforcement officers going out there. So that your... oh, our hands are tied if we limit ourselves to only where transactions are being made. [1:39:23] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Which was part of the reason for saying, "okay, there's exceptions for residential." Is it... maybe it's not two, maybe it's ten, maybe it's not a number... maybe is it a title in your name? I don't care if you took money for it; it's not yours, it's someone else's motorhome, it's someone else's thing, and limit that, right? [1:39:45] **Chair:** Is the city going to search titles? I don't know. [1:39:47] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Well, yeah, I don't know, but if a neighbor complains, you might. [1:39:50] **Kim:** I know some persons... you've got 10 boats in the winter. At least 10, 15. [1:39:55] **Chair:** That's... [1:40:00] **Kim:** It's cash, it's... yeah, I'll make them. And nobody knows it, no complaints. They're so hidden that it's... you don't know how many of that... how much that goes on. [1:40:10] **Jennifer (City Planner):** It'd be how you're going to police that or... so I mean, I'd love to say that doesn't matter if no one cares, but that's not the direction the Council is pointing us in. So the enforcement in me... but the code, the way that this is drafted, is actually to say that that... that's not necessarily prohibited; you would just need a permit. So we could make sure that it's properly screened, that your neighbors can't see it, that it's not adversely impacting them. And how many are allowed before you get to needing that, right? [1:40:30] **Chair:** Maybe that's probably the better way to go about it. [1:40:32] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Again, that's too many. If it's nine, it's fine, or wherever the line is, right? [1:40:35] **Chair:** But well, and that's where the percentage of the property... the acreage comes in. [1:40:40] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yep. You guys have any thoughts on that? Limiting square footage or based on a percentage or any initial thoughts, or need some time to think about before you provide me...? Is that personal, or is that commercial? [1:40:55] **Chair:** Online, commercial? [1:41:00] **Kim:** Only commercial. [1:41:02] **Chair:** Well, but it's personal too if they're taking... if they have 15 RVs out there. [1:41:05] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Um, well yeah if they're storing RVs, but not the personal equipment is what I'm talking about. [1:41:10] **Kim:** If you use it on your property... different, right? You have 15 RVs on the property and you don't own them all—that's different. [1:41:15] **Jennifer (City Planner):** But that to me is still personal, it's not commercial unless you're taking money for it. So like, we'd have to make a distinction between things, vehicles, trailers, whatever you're using for your property is one different... like one distinction versus "I'm storing stuff that's not mine that I'm not using on the property." And if it's not mine and I'm not using it, then... then that would require a permit to make sure that it's not adversely impacting your neighbor. And and the thing is, like with your situation, if nobody knows about it, you can't see it, it's probably fine. You know what I mean? Like, it's meeting that condition. That's what I've heard more, and anecdotally more than anything, is sort of this... the situations that exist where you can see it and then neighbors don't like it. And there's literally nothing in our ordinance that would allow us to do anything about that if they're operable, if they're... you know, they're not dilapidated, they're not junk, they're not... there's not really much we can... it's not a nuisance per se. It's... it's trying to control for that situation, not for "you have a horse trailer and a..." That I understand, like the Council never intended for that to be part of the... from what I understand. [1:42:35] **Commissioner Greg:** So let me get this... maybe I missed something here. But if... if I have 10 acres and I want to store 15 boats, and if we put limits and you have to get a permit and all that, and all of a sudden I... I'm a commercially... um, I have a commercial business and I'll just with no... just getting a permit from the city and following, "okay I'm allowed to store 10 vehicles now." I can run a commercial business on my property? That's not a problem? [1:43:00] **Chair:** Was a home-based business? Okay, which we do allow. [1:43:10] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah. So I mean, that's why I get that... that's why I put certificate of compliance, because it aligns with our home-based businesses—that if you exceed a certain threshold, you're required to get a certificate of compliance. So like, in that case, that would be sort of a home-based business to a certain extent, right? [1:43:28] **Kim:** Right. [1:43:29] **Jennifer (City Planner):** And and those we require if it reach... it's like a certain number of vehicles or more, which this would trip into, then you need a certificate of compliance. The certificate of compliance is really intended not to say you can't do it; it's just to say, "okay, where is it going to be located? Make sure that your neighbors can't see it." [1:43:45] **Chair:** That brings... brings up an interesting point, though, Dan. She right now has the table at the minimum lot size under R1 of 20 acres, which shrinks the number of extra parcels for commercial... shrinks the number of parcels by... I mean, how many 20-acre plus parcels do we have in Grant, Kim? I mean, just compared to five and ten-acre parcels, it's a tiny percentage. [1:44:15] **Kim:** Yeah, yeah. [1:44:16] **Chair:** So I mean, we would be limiting the commercial use for extra commercial exterior storage to a very... or to a somewhat small number of properties if... if we kept it at 20 acres. [1:44:28] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah, and again the 20 was only for a starting point, right? Because we... one of the Council members threw it out there, so I put it. And the other two didn't comment on that. [1:44:40] **Chair:** That's right, right. [1:44:42] **Jennifer (City Planner):** That's right. And but we've also put performance standards in for other uses where the threshold was 20. [1:44:48] **Chair:** Yeah, you said that, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Which is where that came from, I'm sure of it. I'm... once, I guess one thing that I would like to say is that it seems like when you have 20-acre lot sizes, the acceptable use is... there's a little bit more forgiveness from neighbors when it's a 20-acre versus, you know, 10-acre lots in Grant can be pretty narrow. And when you start stacking exterior storage on 10-acre lots and Grant, it can be... it could be a nice sort of neighbors. But on 20 acres in general, it seems to be more acceptable for most residents that there's more use going on on those 20 acres. They're used to it. It's not a residential property. A lot of the horse operations are like that, right? [1:45:20] **Commissioner Greg:** We're talking about also a percent of the... right? If it was a 10-acre, then maybe you're allowed three if you want to... three, four boats or RVs, right? [1:45:34] **Chair:** Okay. And I... I also just want to clarify, I don't think the Council is in favor—the majority of the Council is—if a... even a 10-acre lot has 10 motor homes sitting on their lot, if they aren't taking money for it but they're just storing them, I... I don't think that that is necessarily what they would like to see unless, like Jennifer said, it was controlled with a certificate of compliance, which does not go to the City Council. There's not a public hearing. That goes to the City Planner. There is an escrow. But like she said, she looks at the site plan, she looks at what screening... there's conditions of approval for that certificate... certificate of compliance, which would then make it where the neighbors aren't bothered by that, right? [1:46:25] **Chair:** Because it gives you the opportunity to review, yes. [1:46:28] **Kim:** Right. [1:46:29] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Sure. Just like we have with what you mentioned earlier, the ground mounts for the solar. [1:46:33] **Kim:** Yeah. [1:46:34] **Jennifer (City Planner):** It's a certificate of compliance. Yeah, we have several uses that are certificates of compliance that are... they don't rise to the level of needing a public hearing. They're not... because the whole intent of them is you're mitigating adverse impacts. If there's something that they just can't mitigate, then it's either you can't do it and they can appeal to you, or it's a conditional use permit or whatever it is. But we have... we have a handful of uses that... that fit that certificate of compliance and it's really just a check to make sure that it's not going to bother your neighbor, that, you know, if it is near, that it's screened, that it's meeting setbacks, those types of things. [1:47:15] **Chair:** Sure. I personally would like to see that residential number stay at minimum 20-acre lot size for commercial or for commercial use. [1:47:28] **Commissioner Greg:** I'm feeling the Council is probably... and maybe you disagree... I think they'll go with a percentage of acreage. That's what I like to see, either because there are 10-acre lots where you could put four boats or RVs on it with no problem whatsoever. And if you're taking that away from... I don't know what the percent would be, but I like the idea of the percent on the acreage. [1:47:48] **Chair:** Or at the same time, most people that have a 10-acre lot that can store four boats that aren't bothering neighbors, they're going to continue to do it and nobody's going to call, and it's just they're going to be able to continue to do what they've always done. [1:48:05] **Kim:** Right. [1:48:06] **Chair:** And the other scenario is there's plenty of 10-acre lots that have very large accessory buildings that they might be storing some of these things for family and friends or whatever. You never see them, they're inside. [1:48:18] **Kim:** Right. [1:48:19] **Chair:** Quick question: do in General Business you just threw out 70 percent... do we have any... how many what really large General Business parcels do we have? [1:48:30] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Not many, right? [1:48:31] **Kim:** They're all... [1:48:32] **Jennifer (City Planner):** They're all pretty small, right? So we're not talking... we don't have any 20-acre General Businesses that somebody could... I mean, storage facilities are getting very popular. We don't have any General Business parcels that are 20 acres that could put in storage facility. [1:48:48] **Kim:** So the storage facility would be a facility, not open, so it wouldn't fall around us anyway, right? [1:48:55] **Chair:** Right. [1:48:56] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Um, and no, I don't... I'll double-check, but I think they're all pretty... they're all pretty small, right? Which is why then the percent is high, because I know we've got... we have quite a few parcels that are like, you know, have paving and stuff in them and lots of stuff in them. [1:49:15] **Chair:** Sure. [1:49:16] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Stored outside. [1:49:17] **Kim:** Businesses in Grant. [1:49:18] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Yeah, that's the type... [1:49:19] **Chair:** ...of nursery businesses and landscapers and... [1:49:23] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Right. [1:49:24] **Chair:** ...right. All that kind of stuff, and they have a lot of equipment, use a lot more equipment than they can afford to put underneath a roof. [1:49:30] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Right. [1:49:31] **Chair:** Okay. Does anyone have any other comments before we make a motion to potentially table this until next meeting? [1:49:40] **Commissioner:** I'll make a motion to table. [1:49:42] **Commissioner:** Second that. [1:49:43] **Chair:** We have a motion and a second to table until the next regularly scheduled meeting. All in favor, aye. [1:49:50] **Commissioners:** Aye, aye, aye, aye. [1:49:52] **Chair:** Opposed, nay? Five eyes, zero nays. I think we need 30 days to sleep on that one; that's a lot of information. But good job on a first stab. [1:50:04] **Jennifer (City Planner):** Absolutely. Thank you, Jennifer. [1:50:06] **Chair:** Agenda... you mind if I borrow yours here? Nope. Old business—do we have any old business to discuss? I don't believe we do. Okay, with that, I just need a motion to adjourn the meeting. [1:50:20] **Commissioner:** I'll make a motion we adjourn the meeting. [1:50:24] **Commissioner:** A second. [1:50:25] **Chair:** Second. We have a motion and second. All in favor, aye. [1:50:28] **Commissioners:** Aye, aye, aye. [1:50:30] **Chair:** Opposed, nay? Five eyes, zero nays. All right. Meeting is adjourned at 8:26.