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PL 11/01/2006 - 30897� CITY OF FRIDLEY PLANNING CONIlVIISSION MEETING NOVEMBER 1, 2006 CALL TO ORDER: Chairperson Savage called the Planning Commission meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. ROLL CALL: Members Present: Leroy Oquist Diane Savage David Kondrick Dean 5aba Larry Kuechle Members Absent: Brad Dunham Baxbara Johns Others Present: Julie Jones, Planning Coordinator � APPROVE PLANNING COMNIISSION MEETING MINUTES: October 18, 2006 MOTION by Commissioner Kondrick, seconded by Commissioner Oquist, to approve the minutes as presented. � UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIItPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED. 1. PUBLIC HEARING: Consideration of a Special Use Permit, SP#06-09, by Amtech Lighting, to allovv a changeable electronic sign in a C-1 zoning district at the property, generally located at 6485 East River Road NE. MOTION by Commissioner Kondrick to open the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Kuechle. UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED TI3E MOTION CARRIED AND THE HEARING OPENED AT 7:32 P.M. Julie Jones, Planning Coordinator, stated the petitioner is Amtech Lighting on behalf of Croix Oil Company. The petitioner is requesting a special use permit to have an automatic changeable sign for the gasoline pricing portion of their new freestanding sign at the BP gas station at 6485 �, East River Road. This sign has already been installed due to a staff oversight. Once the sign was installed, staff immediately brought it to the attention of the sign contractor and they did ^ respond immediately as well as the property owner and did everything within their power to get staff an application right away at the next available deadline and have been very apologetic about the oversight themselves. Ms. Jones stated the freestanding sign is right on the corner of the property which is zoned C-1 Local Business so the commercial sign requirements in our sign code apply to this property. The station store was built in 1991. The sign permit for the existing freestanding sign was issued this past July, and the sign was installed some time later. Staff is pleased with the appearance of the new sign. The automatic changeable signs are an approved special use in our sign code in any zoning district except residential. The sign message on these types of signs is only allowed to change once every 45 seconds. The existing sign is 79.65 square feet (just within the 80 foot maximum allowed for this type of zoned district). The sign is located more than 50 feet from the residential district both across East River Road and directly to the east of this property. That LED portion of the sign can only be used for numbers for gas pricing. It cannot feasibly be used to display a word message. Ms. Jones stated staff does recommend approval of this special use permit #06-09 with stipulations not that the proposal does meet all the requirements within the sign code. The stipulations proposed are standard to these types of special use permits and are as follows: 1. Petitioner shall obtain sign permit and current sign erector license prior to installing any signage on the site. 2. Message on L.E.D. section of sign cannot change more often than allowed by City � Code. � 3. The message on LED section on the sign can never flash or have motion that may distract vehicular traffic in the area. Duane Downey, Amtech Lighting, and Kevin Koenig, Croix Oil Company, approached. Mr. Downey stated the L.E.D. lighting is the growing trend in the gas station business because of the liability of the old changeable copy letters. Commissioner Kondrick asked them whether they were oka.y with the stipulations. Mr. Downey and Mr. Koenig both replied, yes. Commissioner Savage asked Ms. Jones whether staff has heard any adverse comments about this. Ms. Jones replied, no. No one else was present at the hearing to address the Commission on this item. MOTION by Commissioner Saba to close the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Kondrick. � UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED AND THE HEARING CLOSED AT 7:38 P.M. � � MOTION by Commissioner Saba approving Special Use Permit, SP#06-09, by Amtech Lighting, to allow a changeable electronic sign in a C-1 zoning district at the property, generally located at 6485 East River Road NE with stipulations as submitted. Seconded by Commissioner Kondrick. UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED. 2. PUBLIC HEARING: Consideration of a Special Use Permit, SP#06-10, by Amtech Lighting, to allow a changeable electronic sign in a C-2 zoning district at the property, generally located at 5695 Hackmann Avenue NE. MOTION by Commissioner Oquist to open the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Kondrick. UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED AND THE HEARING OPENED AT 7:39 P.M. Julie Jones, Planning Coordinator, stated the petitioner is requesting a special use permit to have �"�, an automatic changeable sign for the gasoline pricing portion of an existing freestanding sign at the Holiday station store at 5695 Hackmann Avenue NE. This property has been used as a service station since the 1950's and is zoned C-2, General Business, so the commercial sign requirements of the sign code would apply. The current station store was built in 1999, and a sign pernut for the existing freestanding sign was issued that same year. Petitioner is proposing to replace the pricing portion of the sign. Ms. Jones stated Code allows automatic changeable signs as an approved special use in any zoning district except residential. The sign message cannot change any more often than once every 45 seconds. This existing sign is 77.5 square feet, so it is within the 80 square feet maximum allowed for this zoning district for a freestanding sign. The sign is located more than 50 feet from the residential property to the south and the residential property to the east. The sign is only capable of displaying pricing and is not capable of displaying word messages. Staff recommends approval of this special use permit with the following stipulations: 1. Petitioner shall obtain sign permit and current sign erector license prior to installing any signage on the site. 2. Message on L.E.D. section of sign cannot change more often than allowed by City Code. 3. The message on LED section on the sign can never flash or have motion that may distract vehicular traffic in the area. �--� Commissioner Kondrick asked if the City has thought about standardizing the size of the numbers/letters? [c3 � Ms. Jones replied there has not been any discussion and her first thought is it would depend on how close the sign is to the roadway and that may make it difficult to put a limitation on the size. Mr. Downey approached as representative for Holiday Station stores. He stated it probably is not a bad idea to limit the size, i.e. 30-inch letters, because they could get rather large. Chairperson Savage asked if he had any problems with the stipulations? Mr. Downey replied, none at all. No one else in the audience chose to address the Commission on this issue. MOTION by Commissioner Kondrick to close the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Kuechle. UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIRPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED AND THE HEARING CLOSED AT 7:48 P.M. MOTION by Commissioner Saba approving Special Use Permit, SP#06-10, by Amtech Lighting, to allow a changeable electronic sign in a C-2 zoning district at the property, genera.11y located at 5695 Hackmann Avenue NE with stipulations as submitted. Seconded by ^ Commissioner Kuechle. UPON A UNA1vIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIItPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED. 4. RECEIVE THE MINUTES OF THE SEPTEMBER 7. 2006, HOUSING & REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY MEETING. MOTION by Commissioner Kondrick, seconded by Commissioner Oquist, to approve the minutes as presented. UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIItPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED. OTHER BUSINESS• Ms. Jones stated, for several months, staff has been working on Text Amendment 06-02 of the City Code relating to the Commissions, particularly the section to the Appeals Commission and substitutes for it. Because of the 60-day action law and wanting to keep applications moving forward and meeting the 60-da.y requirement of processing them, when the City does not have a quorum on either Planning Commission or Appeals Commission, they want to have substitutes from the other fill in so there can still be a meeting. That is specified in Chapter 6 of the City ^ Code in regards to the Planning Commission but is not addressed under the Appeals Commission. So even though it has been an ongoing policy, a couple of the councilmembers felt � � that it should be put in writing. The City is proposing to state that at any meeting of the Appeals Commission, if there is less than that a quorum present, the Chair of the Planning Commission or the Chair's designee shall serve as a member of the Appeals Commission in that member's absence. The Chair will be called first and then they will go down the line. The second reading for this text amendment is expected November 13. Ms. Jones also talked about another Text Amendment to Chapter 14 (Junk Vehicle Code) which is coming back for Second Reading on November 13. This is regarding the City's contract with the towing company to dispose of junked vehicles that do not get claimed. The Code actually states that the City needs to sell those at public auction and they have not done that traditionally for a number of years. So they are proposing a text amendment for the Code to actually match what our actual practice is and our contract arrangement is with our contractor. Ms. Jones stated that at the last Council meeting, they had the assessment hearing for public nuisance abatements, which is capturing some folks' attention because the City does have a record dollar amount of assessments for public nuisances this year. That is, in part, she thinks, because the staff has been a little more aggressive on dealing with some of these problems that we have out in the community, but do not get resolved by our standard practice of sending letters and people voluntarily complying with outside storage issues, etc. A big part of why they are seeing some higher numbers is because of the high number of foreclosures they have seen this year in homes and a lot of people abandoning homes and leaving junk strewn in the yards, not mowing their yards, and nobody taking responsibility for a number of months. The City has � about $28,000 of nuisance abatements that have not been paid that will now be assessed to the 30 properties that were involved. ADJOURNMENT: MOTION by Commissioner Oquist, seconded by Commissioner Saba, to adjourn the meeting. UPON A UNANIMOUS VOICE VOTE, CHAIltPERSON SAVAGE DECLARED THE MEETING ADJOURNED AT 7:59 P.M. Respectfully submitted by, , � ��=�-���,� ��� °� . Denise M. 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