Oh, okay. Good. >> All right. I will call the August 14th, 2025 plan commission meeting to order at 607. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. So, everybody should have an agenda in front of them. If you don't, there's some sitting over there on the side of Commissioner Logan. >> I make a motion we approve the agenda. >> I have a motion, a second. Is there any discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Uh, you should have the July 10th, 2025 planning commission meeting minutes in front of you or they're in your packets. If you don't, I think there's another one sitting over there if anyone needs to review them. Uh, were there any changes or adjustments? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve. >> I'll make a motion we approve the uh July 10th uh planning commission meeting minutes. >> Have a motion. Is there a second? Can I second even though I wasn't there? >> I'll second. >> Jump on that. >> I have a motion and a second. Is there any additional discussion? >> Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Who wants to go first? Do we have anything from the department or the commission leazison tonight? >> Uh Mr. Chair, I can just make a comment. Uh I think at our last meeting, if I recall, we had um the uh permit for the cannabis retail dispensary that was worked through based upon uh um recommendations. And I think that was it. We had some discussion on uh food truck vendors as well that I think may be coming back around uh for for some more discussions within the city. So, >> yep. Yep. Mr. Chair, and yeah, just uh piggybacking off of what uh Council Member Loadgrren said. Yeah, we get a lot of interest uh from the cannabis world uh here in Oak Park Heights. I think that's not a surprise to to you all just with our proximity here to the highway proximity to Wisconsin um thriving business corridor. I mean, people want to be here and so yes, the council did approve uh that one. I imagine that we'd have we'll have at least, you know, another one and and probably more. Um we're allowing up to four uh here in the city and so uh we'll see how that that shakes out. But there's there's always uh constant interest in our our corridor, which is uh which is great. Uh the other update that I had for the um the uh planning commission was just on our well u from a development standpoint. So the city is drilling a third well for those that are not familiar with that. Um that is over by uh the Quick Trip uh on the west side of town. So uh that is moving along uh very well. Uh they're going to be doing uh some test pumping. Our our well drilling company is going to be doing test pumping here uh shortly. Uh I'm I'm anxious uh to see too of just where we land from a PASS standpoint in that well. Uh we do have PAFS as I think all our residents are aware um below the federal level uh which is good and our wells one and two uh well three will know later this fall where that lands and and um will proceed accordingly. So uh very very pleased that that is moving forward. Uh it is also subject to a federal grant. um been in communication with our representative at the federal level. Uh don't see any issue with our money being tied up uh at a federal level uh for that project. I anticipate actually getting uh money here very shortly. Uh it's a reimburseable grant and so as we incur expenses, that's how we get reimbursed for that uh that project. So moving along well behind the scenes here. I hadn't had an update on the well to the planning commission uh for a while. So wanted to provide that uh for you. So, those are the uh two updates I had this evening. >> Thank you. Can we ask a question? Do you have any updates or comments on what was the completion on that 58th extension linking up to Manning? >> Yeah, the county's project. Yep. >> Um so, the uh the county is linking 58th Street uh to to Manning. Um they, as I think most of you have have seen, have been doing mass earth work um out there. They've completed that. There was a July uh deadline to complete that. Um they are shortly, from my understanding, going out to bid for the road uh work. I don't anticipate that occurring any of the road work occurring this calendar year. I would think that would that would be a next year um project. So, we're obviously watching that uh here from a city uh standpoint. There's um you know, not not uh crazy about the project, I'll say, and what that could mean uh to our city and traffic impacts on 5A. So, um that's essentially where it stands right now. Uh Commissioner Husb anticipate that construction on that road being next year. But again, uh from my understanding, not a city project, but just from what I hear. Yep. Thanks. >> Anything else? All right, we'll move on to the next part of the um meeting tonight. So, this is the time for visitors and public um for an opportunity for them to address the commission with questions or comments on issues that are not part of the agenda tonight. Uh please limit your comments to 3 minutes. All right. Hearing none, we'll move on over to the public hearings. Scott. >> Yes, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. Uh the Benson's have submitted an application for a conditional use permit. It would allow construction of a accessory building. Um application is actually for three conditional use permits. uh to allow reduced setback uh from uh the sideyard uh for a second uh accessory structure and for construction of sideyard for an accessory building is at 14899 Upper 55th Street North. Uh what they're asking for is 160 ft um structure and the property is zoned R1. Um the Bensons have uh provided a narrative and some uh graphics to show uh where they plan to put uh this shed. um they would use it for their lawnmower, other yard equipment. They do have a rather large garage, but they do use that garage uh also for entertaining purposes uh and uh and habitation, not habitation, but uh you know, again on a case- by case basis. Um so they prefer not to have uh some of those materials stored in their uh in their garage. The um uh property is designated as low density residential in the comp plan. Again, I said it was R1. Um, accessory buildings are required to be in the rear yard. Again, they're looking for a sideyard um a sideyard uh allowance uh in that they did have a previous uh small uh bunny hutch uh in this location and plan to put it uh in the same uh place. Uh that requires the first conditional use permit. Uh they have provided a site plan that indicates the structure would be 2 ft from the sideyard and 2 ft from the uh from the house. Uh the building uh actually 5T is required for the uh uh thank you for putting that up. Uh as far as the the diagram that shows the uh the previous structure. Uh so 2T from that uh fence or from the property line and 2T from the house. Uh the code requires 6 ft from the house and 5 ft uh from the uh from the property line. There are allowances uh in the code uh that you can uh place a structure accessory structure closer uh to the house uh with proper fire code um construction and that is what they plan to do. Uh then thirdly uh uh the zonance requires for more than one uh structure uh detached structure on a lot. uh you need a conditional use permit. Uh again, they're looking for 160 ft in addition to the existing uh existing garage. Um as you're well aware, the uh ordinance requires six uh allows for 1,200 square ft for accessory buildings of the two structures together uh would be 1,76. So they're under that requirement, doesn't require conditional use permit. Uh the planning report goes through the criteria. Um uh I guess the the point that they made they provided a a lot of pictures uh for you to review uh and uh they have a a well landscaped yard and again very limited area in that rear yard uh to put the shed. It actually just makes common sense probably to uh replace that bunny hutch with with the shed location. Really doesn't impact the neighbors. there's that fence uh in place uh already and u uh again the uh impact would be pretty low. So you can see uh on the pictures they've shown that area between uh kind of that outside deck there. Thank you. The outside deck and the uh and the fence is where they they plan to place this. So a little out of the way again allows them to fully uh utilize their rear yard. Um um so uh this may be a pretty good example of where it makes sense maybe for a sideyard placement. There's also a lot of topography on that lot. You can see the uh uh topography uh as you go down from the house. Um so any questions at this point? There's the backyard with some of the landscaping. >> I assume the neighbors have been notified and there's no issues. >> Applicants are here. Um, >> any questions for Mr. Richards? I'll open the public hearing if I hear none. All right. Um, I will open the public hearing for the Robert Benson CUP at 6:17. Now's the opportunity if the applicants or anyone else in the public would like to address the commission um or talk about anything specific. Anything you guys would like to tell us? just if you if you just come up and uh state your name and address, please. >> So, Robert Benson, 14899 for 55th Street North. So, pretty much Scott had covered everything that we're looking for. We're just looking for a place to store our outside equipment. So, it's not in the garage and we're not dealing with that. So, and it'll make our backyard look nicer. Everything will be inside instead of outside. So, >> plus the new building looks better than the old. >> Awesome. Does the Anyone have any questions for the applicant lays up? I >> think my only question is not even about the application, but once you have a twoft radius around that thing, you guys obviously take really good care of your property. I don't know how you're going to get back there for weeding and all that nastiness. So, I wish you luck. >> Oh, yeah. Well, the rock will stay there. It'll be around and we'll just spray for weeds as we >> need it. >> Yeah. Great looking house, guys. >> All right. And you you say you have talked all the or the neighbors are y >> we've talked to the neighbors about it. So >> I see them here. So they must be pretty upset. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> All right. If there's no one else that would like to address the commission, I would entertain a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. >> I have a motion and a second. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, the public hearing is closed at 6:19. >> What do we have to talk about on this one? This one seems pretty straightforward to me. >> I move I move acceptance of the that we pass on the city council recommend approval. >> I second >> with the conditions. >> A second. I have a motion and a second to uh recommend to the city council for approval of the COP needed with the condition set forth. Is there any other discussion? Mr. Richards, are we good on that? >> We're very good. Thanks. >> Perfect. All right. I would entertain a motion then or entertain a vote. All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All those opposed, same sign. Motion passes. So, um in Oak Park Heights plan commission is only a recommending body. So, we recommended approval to the city council. This will go before the city council at the what date meeting? >> Uh, 26th >> for the 26th. So, that'll be in two weeks. Um, so I would recommend that you show up to that city council meeting just they'll make the final decisions and give you final approval at that meeting. >> Thank you guys. >> Thanks, guys. I know it's a lot to go around. >> All right. Um, moving on to our next thing. It looks like we've got a few bylaw adjustments here. Um they're in your packets, guys. Um for some new businesses. Um Jacob, you want to looks like a few minor highlights. >> Yep. Mr. Chair, I can rip through them quick. Uh and this is just following up on a previous meeting that we had about a few uh cleanup items. So I'll go through them all and then we can circle back on any discussion related to them. So under um article 3 uh letter G training uh what I we uh removed there is uh the chairperson joining the training just this is just out of respect that you all have uh full-time jobs and understand that the chairperson might not be able to get to training uh new uh city uh commissioners. Uh city staff will handle that. Uh also struck some of the language about a government training service. Uh that training is no longer offered. what we're actually looking at doing here uh this year and talked to the plan commission about it previously having our city attorney come in at one of the uh future meetings once we have our new commissioner on board and walking through data practices some of the the basic items and then also talking about just generally um the planning commission uh here and answering questions uh from you all. So I think that'd be helpful. Uh done it uh previously and it's been uh very successful. Uh so that's the first one. The second one uh again fairly straightforward all these article five letter F and this talks about uh attending the meetings. We had discussed this at a previous meeting of uh city council meetings. You know, planner Richards, you know, myself, council member Ligrid, I mean, we're generally all there and so certainly not a requirement. It says shall attend. Planning commission members shall attend the city council meetings and I want to leave that up to uh the planning commission. I think that's what we had discussed of if you are able to uh attend certainly you're more than welcome. And then uh article 8 uh letter E appearance before the petitioner and this is just uh I don't know me just being hard on the language uh it says final approval and as you know uh here planning commission uh it's not of approval body it's a recommend recommending body and so that was just a minor minor edit and so those were the three that I had for the planning commission uh this evening and happy to answer questions uh from you all. I open for questions. I uh I'm opposed to the changes on F. When I came on the planning commission, there was never a there wasn't a requirement that the planning commissioner attend. And I think it's good for the city, it's good for us to be part of the city council meetings. If if even if we're not uh quotes representing officially, I think it's good for the council to see that we as members of the planning commission are dedicated to uh you know to to our job and what and what we've been appointed to. And I think I think it's good. And there have been times when I've gotten calls from uh from people that either the video didn't work or whatever and something somebody wants to know something that happened at the city council meeting that affected or that dealt with what the planning commission did. So I think I think it's good for the city. It's good for us as individuals and it's good for the city council for one of us to be there. So, I would be opposed to changing that. And if you do change it to May, then we should leave it out because anybody may attend the city council meeting. >> So, and I was kind of thinking the same thing, not to the semantics of shall, should, or need to. It's like a we recommend a person be there because even though there's the three of you that you listed that do attend now and can be there for those meetings being on this side of the table there has been times where it's probably appropriate we can be there represent stand at the podium and provide some insight. So instead of may I might recommend that we put recommend to represent or something along those lines. It's my two cents like if there's something on the agenda, >> it needs to be an as needed basis, right? It needs to be but we we do that automatically when there's something like that. We always make sure one of us is there if there's a something going on that we need to be there. Otherwise, >> if there's nothing in the last few months, sure, you can attend, but if there's something on the agenda, we should probably have someone there. So, recommend if we have something on the agenda type language. So, commissioners, something along the lines of it is recommended that each planning commission member represent the planning commission at regular city council meetings. Something something like that >> needs to be non-binding, but it needs to because otherwise we're legally used, right? We're in violation of our own bylaws right now. So, it needs to be non-binding, but it needs to be a recommendation that if there's something on the agenda that we anticipate questions for, we need to be available to answer those questions. Maybe instead of each of the a planning commissioning member is recommended to represent the planning commission at a regular city council meetings when there's a PC agenda item something cuz each at the beginning is implying that all of us need to be there. >> Yeah. >> And then the followup on the existing languages in turn. So I feel like if we're getting rid of the rotational aspect of that, you take out each say a we have had success during one of these sessions to say, "Hey, who can go?" Typically Mr. Kramer's there. Um but with him going over to Amory, they just say, "Hey, who who can go?" >> So it is recommended that a planning commission member represent the planning commission at regular city council meetings. How does that sound? If he wants if if there is a planning commission >> if there's a >> we can do that too. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I think you got it. >> Other than that, I think it looks great. Jacob, thank you for going through this and working on this. >> I did have one other one. I don't want to be that guy. I know you want me. >> Go. >> Okay. So, I'm just thinking back to like the the final eight article 8E 8. I'm reflecting on certain individuals who have had a something before us, but they didn't have a representative. So, if there's not an architect or they themselves, what do we do? because we're saying that unless that the applicant or petitioner appears personally or by representation, if no one is here to represent them, technically we shouldn't even be talking about it as a item. >> But we >> well, if we do schedule a public hearing, we still have to hold the public hearing no matter what. >> But then our recommendation is null because we don't we're the way I'm understanding this >> ever happening though. Well, there's always someone. >> This says unless there's satisfactory explanation. So, I think that would be the only kind of >> So, I don't remember if it was the stage coach condo or one of those apartments on 58th, but there was one of those sessions where we didn't have someone from the applicant here. >> Then what the planning commission should do if there's a lot of questions that you have and there's no applicant, you should continue it to the next meeting >> and you just table it. >> Continue it in that situation. Uh, Commissioner Husby, in that situation, we didn't have the petitioner was not here, but the petitioner's representative was here, so their engineer was here. >> If we're thinking about the same situation, the stage coach item. So, >> that would is still permissible under the bylaws. Essentially, how I read this for the bylaws is there has to be someone here representing the petitioner. If the petitioner is not here, >> and if there's no one, then we table it, >> then we Yep. It'd be >> without a good exc. Yep. Yeah. >> Okay. >> And and I don't know in my experience I've for planning commission I mean someone has always been >> I can't >> is always showing up. I mean they have an interest in >> it's very rare that >> Yeah. >> All good. Thank you. >> I move we accept the changes in the bylaws as laid out by Mr. rife and has changed by us tonight. >> I think we got to recommend that we recommend the city council to approve those. >> Yeah, I was going to I don't think this is a Can we amend that because it's a recommendation to the council, isn't it? We can't do that. >> Yeah, I I think it goes to the council. I'll double check. >> Yeah, it should go to the council. >> Yeah. >> Can we friendly amend that, Mr. Kramer? So, >> I hope you would. So, so the motion is we are going to recommend to the city council the changes spoken about and the changes that Jacob had put in the bylaw uh adjustments to the city council for approval. >> Correct. >> Suggested. Yes. >> Suggested. All right. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> I have a motion and a second. Is there any additional discussion? >> Great job. >> Hearing none. All those in favor say I. >> I. All those opposed, same size. >> Thank you for your stellar work, Mr. Right. >> Motion carries. All right. Old business. >> Seeing none, do we have anyformational stuff going on? >> This could very well be my last uh planning commission meeting. I thank all of you for your patience and for uh for accepting me and being tolerant of me and for your all of your encouragement. I appreciate Thank you for your service to your community. >> Thank you, Jim. >> Thank you, Mr. Kramer, for all your years of service since you've been doing it since you said 12. 12, right? That's what you said. >> I have no idea. >> No, we really appreciate everything you've done. Uh we're honestly a little sad that you're going to bail out before we can like officially say thank you in a meeting now since you dropped the bomb on us today. >> Uh have fun in Wisconsin. Don't become a Packer fan. >> I'm psyching out the council meetings over there. >> Yeah. No, we appreciate everything you've done for us over the years. So, I would uh entertain a motion to for adjournment. >> So, moved. >> Have a motion. Second. >> All in favor say I. >> Motion carries. Planning commission meeting is closed at 6:31. >> Thanks for staying after we got through your topic. You guys didn't have to do that.