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PL 12/19/2012 PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING December 19, 2012 Chairperson Kondrick called the Planning Commission Meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jack Velin, Brad Sielaff, David Kondrick, Leroy Oquist, and Dean Saba MEMBERS ABSENT: Brad Dunham and Tim Solberg OTHERS PRESENT: Julie Jones, Planning Manager Approval of Minutes: November 21, 2012 MOTION by Commissioner Oquist to approve the minutes as presented. Seconded by Commissioner Sielaff. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. PUBLIC HEARING 1. Consideration of a Text Amendment, TA #12-03, by the City of Fridley, to consider updated language changes in the R-1, R-2, and S-1 Residential Zoning Code sections regarding allowable home businesses. MOTION by Commissioner Saba to open the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Oquist. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS OPENED AT 7:04 P.M. Julie Jones, Planning Manager, stated, currently, the restrictions for home businesses are listed in the “Definitions” section of the Zoning Code, which is odd. The City’s legal counsel has never been comfortable with this format and would prefer to see the actual requirements in the body of the particular zoning section. Ms. Jones stated that staff is recommending amending the R-1, R-2, and the Hyde Park sections of residential zoning, putting the language under “Permitted Uses.” Right now, home occupation is listed in those Code sections under permitted accessory uses, but the requirements of a home occupation are back in the definition sections, making people jump back to a different section to determine what is allowed. For the convenience of on-line code viewing, staff does not want viewers to have to jump back and forth from section to section. They want to list requirements CITY OF FRIDLEY SIGN-IN SHEET I I PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING I lNa.me Address/Business Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 2 of 10 in one spot. Ms. Jones stated the way the Code is written has effectively protected the residential character of neighborhoods, but could be better. One proposed change is including the word, “owner” in the definition. Right now it refers to “occupant,” and the City has had cases where the owner is conducting the home occupation but is not an occupant of the residence. Ms. Jones stated that staff also added a reference to noise, odor, heat, and some other things the Code currently does not specifically spell out. The City has had some cases where there has been an issue of odor or noise affecting the residential character of the property. Ms. Jones stated also the City has had a lot of cases where people are using their garage for their home business and, therefore, there is no place to store the vehicles related to the home. Staff wanted to make it very clear, that the term “accessory structure” includes your garage. Ms. Jones stated another improvement includes permitting one non-occupant employee. Right now, the Code states only one first-degree relative is allowed to be an employee in a home business. It has been kind of difficult for staff to go in and determine who is a first-degree relative. It would be easier to determine if they live there. Other cities have allowed this. Staff researched and used applicable language from other city codes to refine Fridley’s. Ms. Jones stated the only significant change staff proposed is that equipment not normally found in a home can be installed for a home occupation. This means special equipment for a commercial kitchen or special HVAC systems necessary for a beauty salon that do hair treatments would not be permitted. She said staff debated this point as they knew of a home commercial kitchen for a cake baking business, and it did not seem to be a problem. But, staff felt a business with a commercial kitchen would typically impact the neighborhood. Ms. Jones stated where staff had some concerns and debate about the above was beauty shops in the home. If you are doing a lot of hair treatment, the State Building Code or some other State licensing authority requires you to have a special HVAC system, because there are a lot of chemicals being used. With what staff is proposing here, that use would not be allowed. Staff is not aware of any home salon that would be impacted by this change. Staff is aware that some home barber shops exist, but are unfamiliar with the intensity of their work. Ms. Jones clarified staff’s concern about suddenly making someone’s business a code violation that was not previously. The general consensus among staff is that it is too risky to allow a commercial kitchen in a residence. Ms. Jones stated the commercial parking regulations are in Section 506 of City Code and are not in the Zoning Code. Staff wanted to repeat those requirements in the Home Occupation section. Ms. Jones stated staff added a sign limitation reference. Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 3 of 10 Commission Oquist asked what about the signage that is just in your window? Ms. Jones replied, the Code says you are allowed to have up to a 4-square foot sign attached to the home. Commissioner Saba asked about signs attached to a vehicle? Ms. Jones replied that such a situation would be addressed in revisions to the sign code, which Ms. Stromberg is working on currently. Ms. Jones stated another change is reducing the number of students allowed in the home. Currently, code allows for six students at a time. Staff felt that did not match the requirement of no more than two parking stalls needed at any given time for customers. Therefore, staff reduced the allowable student number to four, which also seemed to be the standard in other cities. Ms. Jones stated that current code provides specific daycare requirements, but since that is all regulated by the State and is subject to change, staff changed the language referring to the State requirements. Ms. Jones stated current code states no retail sales are allowed. For example, if someone who cuts hair in the home would not be allowed to sell shampoo or hair product. Commissioner Saba asked what about people selling things such as Pampered Chief products, Tupperware, etc.? Ms. Jones replied, residents can have that in the home. They just cannot use their garage to store product. Most of those businesses are where people are having parties at other homes and the product gets delivered. Ms. Jones stated another improvement proposed in the Code would be adding an allowance for mail order and internet businesses. Ms. Jones stated staff established garage sale limitations. Staff came up with allowing no more than ten days of garage sales in a 12-month period. Ms. Jones stated one of the most common home occupation violations is vehicle repair, so staff added clear language on prohibiting vehicle repair. Also, staff proposes limiting deliveries and truck traffic. Ms. Jones stated the code sections which would be affected by this text amendment are R-1, Single Family Residential, R-2 Two-Family Residential, and S-1 Hyde Park Neighborhood. Right now these are the three sections of the Zoning Code that allow Home Occupations as an accessory use. No permit is required. Staff only has about a dozen illegal home occupation cases a year, but those cases consume a great deal of staff time. Because a home business is Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 4 of 10 someone’s livelihood, they often refuse to immediately stop activity. Ms. Jones stated for those people who are honest and want to follow the rules, the Code limitations will be clearly written in the applicable zoning section of code and viewable online. Ms. Jones stated that staff wants to protect the residential character of R-1, R-2, and Hyde Park neighborhoods, and support home businesses that can reasonably be accessory to the main function of the home as a residence. Ms. Jones stated staff has not received any inquiries or comments on this proposed text amendment. The purpose of this hearing is to give the public an opportunity to comment. A public hearing will also be held on the proposed ordinance on January 7, 2013 at the City Council level. Commissioner Oquist stated one thing that is a little questionable is regarding mechanical equipment that is not necessarily found in a home. That could be an argument. However, he does not know how they should deal with it. Ms. Jones agreed that particular proposed requirement was the only one that staff had some debate about in their discussions. Commissioner Oquist stated because you could buy a nice six-burner stove that is for the home. It is not necessarily a commercial stove. Ms. Jones stated commercial stoves are very expensive and it is not common they would see those. There was one case where a home was built specifically for this and was designed to have a commercial kitchen because they did cake decorating. That business is no longer there in the home. However, that was the only case staff could think of where the Building Official knew where someone had put in a commercial kitchen. Commissioner Oquist questioned what if he is a chef and wants to cook in a commercial-style kitchen in his home but does not plan on doing it as a business. Ms. Jones replied, that would not be considered a home occupation if you are not doing it for a profit. Commissioner Oquist stated he thinks everything else covers what the staff is attempting to do. MOTION by Commissioner Saba to close the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Oquist. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS CLOSED AT 7:28 P.M. Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 5 of 10 Chairperson Kondrick stated he did not have any problems with this. The staff did a thorough job. Chairperson Saba stated he agrees it was a lot of work. MOTION by Commissioner Saba approvingText Amendment, TA #12-03, by the City of Fridley, to consider updated language changes in the R-1, R-2, and S-1 Residential Zoning Code sections regarding allowable home businesses. Seconded by Commissioner Velin. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. PUBLIC HEARING 2. Consideration of a Text Amendment, TA #12-04, by the City of Fridley, to consider renumbering and code language updates to Section 205.30 of the Fridley Zoning Code in addition to a map of the existing approved locations for telecommunications facilities being added to Appendix A. MOTION by Commissioner Oquist to open the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Saba. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS OPENED AT 7:30 P.M. Ms. Jones stated that online code viewing is prompted staff to realize that a map is needed on the City Web Site of the approved sites. What is available is just a listing of locations by name of business. There is no listing of address or PIN number. What is happening now is folks in the industry who are looking to fill gaps in their coverage area want to go on the City's website and look at a map. For example, one may go in and say they need more coverage in the northwest part of Fridley. They would want to see what options are in that area of the City. Ms. Jones stated thatthe sites that are mapped are the sites that were originally selected because they are locations less intrusive to residential areas and tend to be locations where there are already structures that are high, such as water towers, power lines, or industrial-commercial areas. There are 15 approved sites in the Code. Ms. Jones stated besides creating the map, staff also updated the list with addresses and PIN's added. Ms. Jones stated the advantage of a map is it visually shows coverage areas of the approved sites when locating new towers or equipment. This will allow telecommunication providers to research that information quickly on-line without having to contact a staff person to answer their Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 6 of 10 questions. It really helps eliminate confusion where oftentimes someone is calling and is from out of state. Ms. Jones stated the disadvantage of putting this map out there is that it does not show those sites that have been approved by special use permit since the original approved sites were put in place. Nor are they showing those sites that existed before the Code went into effect in 1997. Staff is in the process of creating a different map that will show that as well and will be deciding if they will put that on the web as it would have to be updated with every special use permit. Chairperson Kondrick asked whether staff has considered other locations in the City other than those already authorized? Ms. Jones replied, no, they have not because, if you look at the map, you can see how they are geographically scattered across the City. It really has served the City well. There are sites that have been approved by special use permit in addition to those sites for various reasons but, for the most part, when someone calls and wants to argue that some particular location is not covered by an approved site, they end up deciding to go on one of the approved sites. Commissioner Oquist asked, why do they need two maps and why not just add special use permit sites to the approved site map? Ms. Jones replied, because they are not the original approved sites. They really only want people to go to those approved sites instead of picking new ones. Commissioner Oquist stated the existing map is the existing approved sites, but he still does not understand why not just combine them? Ms. Jones stated for the technicality of having this on-line and this being the Code and those sites that are approved by the Code, they felt it was important to separate the two. Generally staff tries to direct persons to the approved sites first. Commissioner Oquist stated they are trying to separate the approved sites from the special use permit sites, and you really want to do that with two different maps. Ms. Jones replied, right. Commissioner Sielaff asked what about just using GPS to view them according to address? Ms. Jones replied, that she did not know if that was feasible, but she would ask the question. Chairperson Kondrick asked if she could look into that. Ms. Jones stated staff did not want the City to incur the expense of a text amendment to change the map every time an SUP for a new telecommunications site was approved, so it would be Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 7 of 10 good to keep the maps separate and they can deal with that internally. Ms. Jones stated staff went through the telecommunications overlay code language word for word and other things staff proposes changing include:  Inserting the effective date of the original ordinance  Referring to Chapter 128 for removal procedures  Clarify the need for a scalable site plan  Clarify that tower heights can be less than 125 feet Commissioner Oquist asked why do they have the application for automatic meter reading devices in this particular overlay district? Ms. Jones stated that was a text amendment made after the original Code was passed. Commissioner Oquist stated but essentially it has nothing to do with telecommunications. Ms. Jones stated that is where they put it in the Code. There was some fear that some private company was going to want to come in and install these devices and staff wanted to address it in the Code. It really has not come to fruition. Chairperson Kondrick asked what is it they are metering? Things like the City's water meters? What is important that they may want to meter off these towers? Ms. Jones replied, the technology they were referring to is not necessarily going to go on the towers. It was some technology sounding like it would go on light poles. She got the impression it was not at all related to the automatic meter reading the City was going to have. Chairperson Kondrick stated the point is the City of Fridley wants to have control over who is metering and what they are metering, is that accurate? Ms. Jones she assumes that is the purpose they were trying to achieve. MOTION by Commissioner Saba to close the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Oquist. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS CLOSED AT 7:43 P.M. Chairperson Kondrick stated he has no problems with this. Again, the staff did a great job. He read the whole thing. His questions were answered. The map on the back does explain where the locations of the different facilities are and why they are located there. MOTION by Commissioner Oquist approving Text Amendment, TA #12-04, by the City of Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 8 of 10 Fridley, to consider renumbering and code language updates to Section 205.30 of the Fridley Zoning Code in addition to a map of the existing approved locations for telecommunications facilities being added to Appendix A. Seconded by Commissioner Sielaff. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. PUBLIC HEARING 3. Consideration of a Text Amendment TA #12-05, by the City of Fridley, to consider corrections to automatic meter reading and telecommunications permit fees in Chapter 11 of Fridley City Code. MOTION by Commissioner Oquist to open the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Velin. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS OPENED AT 7:43 P.M. Ms. Jones stated currently somehow the fees that were approved by one of the text amendments previous to this Code section never got put in Chapter 11, and in all these years nobody had noticed it although the City has been charging the fees all along. Except for the AMR fee that has never come to fruition. Chairperson Kondrick asked how did staff determine what those fees might be for Fridley? Ms. Jones stated those are the fees that were approved back in a 1997 text amendment. Chairperson Kondrick asked whether the City is competitive or are they over or under? Ms. Jones replied, she has not researched that, because Fridley’s fees are based upon staff time. Commissioner Oquist asked if the City will have to pay $25 per house to change the water meters? That is something that will need to be clarified. They started that changeover. Ms. Jones stated it was per piece of equipment install on each light pole. Chairperson Kondrick stated it does say $25 per facility. It is not noted on here, and he asked could they charge it once a year? Ms. Jones stated it would be a one-time installation fee. Chairperson Kondrick stated it should say that. Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 9 of 10 Ms. Jones stated what was originally approved for the telecommunications fee was to have two different fees, one $400 and one $500. One was for approving co-locating on an existing tower and, ironically, that was the higher fee of $500. The $400 was for locating on an approved site. Staff did not see any reason why the fees should be different so they went with the lower rate. Chairperson Kondrick stated he thinks this is okay other than specifying the installation fee is a one-time deal. Commissioner Oquist stated staff may want to look into changing that "$25 per facility." He thinks some of that should be defined a little better than that. Technically his house is a facility; therefore, there is $25 fee for changing that meter. MOTION by Commissioner Oquist to close the public hearing. Seconded by Commissioner Saba. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS CLOSED AT 7:52 P.M. MOTION by Commissioner Saba to approve Text Amendment TA #12-05, by the City of Fridley, to consider corrections to automatic meter reading and telecommunications permit fees in Chapter 11 of Fridley City Code. Seconded by Commissioner Oquist. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. Receive the Minutes of the November 1, 2012, Housing and Redevelopment 4. Authority Commission Meeting. MOTION by Commissioner Oquist to receive the Minutes. Seconded by Commissioner Saba. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. 5. Receive the Minutes of the October 1, 2012, Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting. MOTION by Commissioner Velin to receive the Minutes. Seconded by Commissioner Sielaff. UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY. Planning Commission December 19, 2012 Page 10 of 10 OTHER BUSINESS: Ms. Jones stated the City officially received a livable communities TOD grant from the Metropolitan Council for a master plan for the TIF District in the area south of the train station to the freeway from Main Street west to the river. Staff will be working on that for the next two years. Chairperson Kondrick asked, what was the amount? Ms. Jones replied, $100,000. Really they need to double that to do the project, but somehow they are going to try and work with that. It will involve a lot of staff time. Chairperson Kondrick asked when they gave the City the grant did they provide an expectation list? Ms. Jones replied that staff will be learning more in a meeting at the Metropolitan Council in January. ADJOURN MOTION by Commissioner Saba adjourning the meeting. Seconded by Commissioner Sielaff UPON A VOICE VOTE, ALL VOTING AYE, CHAIRPERSON KONDRICK DECLARED THE MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY AND THE MEETING ADJOURNED AT 8:01 P.M. Respectfully submitted, Denise M. Johnson Recording Secretary