[Music] for the city of Columbus. First thing I'd like to do is say the pledge of allegiance, please. Pledge 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. Excellent. Okay. Uh on our consent agenda, we need to approve tonight's meeting agenda and also the uh planning commission minutes from August 6th of 2025. >> This is Kim. I'd like to make a motion to approve the meeting agenda as well as the August 6, 2025 planning commission meeting minutes. >> Second by Mike. We'll take a vote. Kim I >> Mike I Andy I >> Robin I >> Andy can you put your mic there we go okay next we have the public open forum is there anybody here who would like to speak tonight or online hearing no one we'll move along we're going to discuss tonight the uh residential farm animal Um all of us have in front of us a little looks like presentation that we are going to be given by Eleanor. >> Yes. Um I did put together some items for the packet as well going through this but it gets a little bit confusing. So I think that a presentation might um make this a little bit simpler. So I'll get that pulled up. All righty. Um, so I'm going to go through our current residential farm animal ordinance, how we currently operate that, and then some of the things that we're going to be discussing over the next couple weeks on uh changes that we might potentially want to make or um clarifying uh items. So, the purpose of this general ordinance discussion that will go on um is that Columbus has a pretty strong agricultural history, but most animal keeping today is smallcale or hobby farms. We no longer have an agricultural zoning district. We don't really allow the commercial production of farm animals, but we do have a lot of residents that keep farm animals in smaller quantities on their property. Our current ordinance regulating all of this um all of our farm animals is a little bit outdated um in terms of other pieces of code that it references has been changed since then. it no longer correlates um and can be difficult to explain to residents um and so it creates a lot of confusion for residents um as well as difficulty in enforcement from staff to enforce the regulations that we do have and explain them to residents. So our goal is to establish clear, fair, and enforceable standards that balance what the residents want um the animal welfare and the city's rural character. um protecting both the residents that have the animals as well as their neighbors. So, to go over what our current regulations are is Columbus uses an animal uh unit system, AU system, which is pretty common for a lot of uh cities that have large farm animals um and allow residents to keep them on their property. And we use that animal unit system to determine how many animals are allowed on any given lot. So our general density rule is for hooved animals, it's um half an acre per AU animal unit. And for non-hooved animals, for chickens, rabbits, turkeys, um those smaller scale um establishments, it's just capped at 16 animals, not animal units, per acre. Um the keeping of farm animals is a permitted use across Columbus. It does not require any sort of permit. You can do it by right. Every resident has the right, if they can meet the standards, to have these animals. Um, however, there are still standards that have to be met similar to home occupation rules where um, a resident can run a small-scale business out of their property as long as it meets certain guidelines, but we don't require them to come forward with a permit to make to to allow them to have that business. So some of the standards are that um every pasture area has to have a structure that the animals can go to. Those structures must meet certain setbacks and sanitation rules. Animals require daily access to food and water. Uh slaughter is only allowed for personal use, not for um mass, I guess, sale of these animals. And then any sales that are made for animal products must comply with any state requirements for those. And so I'm going to explain a little bit about the animal density examples because that's where I think people get a little tricked up because there's a lot of math and numbers involved. So animal units are actually set by the MPCA. Um they're a general way to they're they're based on an animal's manure production. So the the impact that they would have on each each other and on nearby residents um and are a way to sort of organize how much space or how much impact a certain animal has and it's based on essentially one horse is one animal unit. A goat is um.3 animal units. In our ordinance, the acres that we're talking about is not the entire size of the lot. It's the size of the pasture. It's the area that is fenced in for the animal to live in. Um not the general size of the lot. So, for example, um according to our code, you can have two horses per acre of pasture. You can have five pigs per uh acre of pasture. You can have 6.6 6 goats per acre of pasture. Um 1.4 dairy cows. Um you can have 20 sheep per acre of pasture and approximately 16 alpacas per acre of pasture. So the symbols here in this example that I've put forth that have the um approximately sign in front of them, those are not animals that are explicitly listed in our code. They are we have a system that is essentially if it's not specifically listed it is the um average weight of the animal divided by a th00and and that's how the MPCA standards are set as well. If the animal's not listed that's how you determine it. And so these are the sort of standards that I go for when somebody calls me and says can I have goats in my backyard? um which happens quite often. So, I'm going to give an example of this is not a call that I've received, but an example of what would happen if somebody came up to me at the counter and asked, "Can I raise pigs on my property?" Um, according to our code, you can only have swine on properties that are 20 acres or more. So, um, this example parcel that I pulled up is approximately 28 acres. So, they can have pigs, but we have to figure out how many they can have and where they're allowed to have them. Um, so the first thing that I would do is pick out where the wetlands are, where the non-habitable land is. You are not allowed to have a pasture on a area that is according to our code, a pasture, a habitable acre must be adequately drained, fenced, and have constant access for the animals. So, an easy way to do this from a staff perspective is to when somebody just comes up and asks, "Where can I have my pigs?" is to point out where the wetlands are and what areas are specifically low in contours and exclude that from the area that they're allowed to have their pasture in. In this case, for this piece of property, the wetland um approximately covers 9 acres and bisects the property right in half. So that is excluded from their habitable land, their pasture land. The next step that I would usually do is talk about animal structures. You have to have an animal structure uh and we don't allow them in the front yard area. There are certain exceptions to that. Um, but in general, that's a good starting point for this conversation. So, that would eliminate this entire front area based on where the house is. Um, excluding that, technically, if they fenced in the entire area and built a structure in the center of this backyard, um, they would have approximately 8.6 6 acres of pasture land and could have 43 pigs in the backyard. That is by code exactly what it turns out to be. I would like to say at this point that that is a pretty difficult thing to explain to residents over the phone or at the front counter. >> Yeah, I bet. >> Yes. And that's how our code works and that's how many codes in um animal ordinances for farm animals work in a lot of these different cities. But there are ways that we can make this a little bit easier and make a little bit more sense. Um we're not going to be doing that today. I just wanted to bring up this project so you understand where we're at now um and what we could do in the future. So there are several things in this code that are just simply out of date and need to be removed. It references um residential zoned businesses which no longer are allowed in the city of Columbus. So that section will just simply need to be removed. The code can be a little bit confusing to read. I included it in your packet. Um and if you took a took a look through it, it can be a little bit difficult for residents to to grasp without some handholding on that. And it can be simply rewarded. keep the same standards but make it easier for residents to understand and staff that come in and look at it to be able to communicate it to residents over the counter without having to do a bunch of research to try to figure out what it means. Um, and finally, there isn't really a method of enforcement for any of these standards. Since it is a permitted use, they don't have to come ask me how many goats they can have in their backyard. they don't have to do any of that work, which is okay. That is a policy standpoint for you guys of whether or not you want to require some sort of work on the resident's end to to keep these standards enforced. Um, we currently work on a complaint based enforcement um, system where essentially if a neighbor comes in and complains about their neighbor having a bunch of animals and it's causing a ruckus, we would have Shawn, our enforcement officer, go talk to the resident, see if they're meeting all of these standards and help them work through getting to that point where it meets all of the standards. Um, and that's kind of our our system for dealing with that currently. There are also a couple things that we could talk about changing if we want to change what our current system is. Um, our definition for animal units that I talked about earlier. Um, don't include some common animals, namely goats. A lot of people want goats and it's not in the definition. They have to call me and ask. Um, and they also include chickens and turkeys in our animal unit definition, which we don't use for anything. They're just in there and they cause confusion. Um, our definition of habitable acres could be defined a little bit more. Um, it doesn't really count into take into account our Columbus's wet landscape. it doesn't really take into account a couple of different things that we'll have to discuss uh a little bit further on what if we want to change any of that. Um and then in the recommended minimum acreage per AU in a lot of other communities is 1 acre per 1 AU. We use half an acre per AU, which is not necessarily a fault, but it is something to to look at other communities that are doing a higher d uh a lower density allowance. Um, and then finally, for the keeping of some of these larger animals, we have a limit for say pigs. you can only have on lots that are 20 acres, but for some of the very small land uh lots in this community, um if you could pasture off an acre of it and you can do it to the lot lines, you can have large farm animals on that property. So, we can consider doing something about that as well. And this is going to be kind of a policy discussion and we're going to be talking to a lot of residents as well about what we want to do and what their issues are with the code. I also included this um slide about potential permitting. I talked about it a little bit in my staff report as well. Um most other cities like Columbus have a interimmuse permit, an IUP system to permit large farm animals. However, there's a long-standing history of allowing residents to operate hobby farms independently as a permitted use. um and going with the IUP system as many other cities I don't fully recommend as um that system because there would simply be too many to process um and would cause some issues similarly to when we did a residential zoned business um IUP and that caused a lot of issues and we ended up going away with that system eventually and going back to a home occupation however and then This is coming from a staff standpoint, an administrative standpoint, not a resident standpoint. You guys are the residents. Um, as I explained before, this is a difficult thing to try to explain over the phone, over the counter, um, or to residents who are looking to move to Columbus and are just trying to ask some clarifying questions. So, the other system that we could do is a zoning permit or an administrative permit where they would come in um residents would submit a simple site plan showing the location of pastures, fencing, and structures. Um it would be a staff review for compliance with all of these regulations that we have. Um that's a streamlined process. It's approved by staff. It doesn't get political, expensive, or lengthy. Um and then it provides some sort of recordkeeping and enforcement mechanism. We could also do this by a tiered system. So if you want to have a single horse or um my suggestion was small scale animal keeping so under two animal units, we can continue to do that by right and then require the zoning permit if you wanted to have a larger number of that. Once it becomes more complicated of a process to really follow all of those restrictions, it becomes an issue of enforcement of those regulations. um without any sort of guidance. And then the last thing I wanted to touch on was feed lots. We have about four pages of our city code um talking about regulations for feed lots which we no longer allow in the city. We don't have any agricultural zoning districts. Um we don't allow them in any districts and there aren't any current feed lots of record in the city. And that code for the feed lot um performance standards are no longer in date with um current MPCA guidelines, nor is it kept kept up to date with other sections of our city code. Um I am recommending that we just remove that section um as it is no longer really relevant to what our community is anymore. There's a lot of different sections in our code like this that we don't use anymore, but we have sitting around. Um, and streamlining our code so it's a little bit more navigable, a little bit more understandable and easy to read is something that we will constantly be doing. That'll be a forever process. Um, so next steps from here is I'm going to suggest having a joint meeting with the city council to discuss goals, priorities of the specific things that we want to do in this ordinance. I want to make sure that everybody's on the same page of what next steps to take on this. Um, begin meetings on those specific revisions. I'll put together a draft based on what those suggestions are in that joint meeting. and then reaching out to residents for feedback and hosting a public hearing and then finalizing that ordinance. Um, so that's kind of the next steps on that process. And at this point, I would love to see if anyone has questions or comments or pieces to take to the next meeting on this one. >> I don't have any questions. Well, I had uh one of the the set one the setback questions. We were discussing it a little bit earlier about uh where farm structures can be built. >> Mhm. >> And uh this says 100 ft from a budding property residence. Does that mean from the house or the property line? >> So it is I believe 75 ft from the property line but 100 ft from the nearest residence. So if the residence is right up against at least that is what I am thinking. Give me I want to make sure. >> Yes. So 75 ft from the property line and then 100 ft from the nearest home. >> 175 ft. >> No. >> No. >> No. So if if the the neighboring property is really close to the property line >> Yep. You've got to have the animal structure even further away. >> Okay. >> That's what that is in there for. >> Okay. >> Um you talked about removing the the code for the feed lots. >> Yes. >> I couldn't agree more with you. >> That really is I even read it and I'm like, well, this doesn't make any sense to even have this. >> No. Um um but I'm wondering if and this will be something we'll discuss with the joint meeting um if we want to have something in there that plain old says no feed lots are allowed in Columbus. >> I will have to go I agree with you there. There's a couple of points actually um there's a couple points in the code that mentions feed lots but not this feed lot. Um there's conflicting definitions of feed lots throughout our code and so simplifying that tracking down every time it's mentioned and making sure that it makes sense. I agree with that. That is something that we should do. Yeah. And we're talking about the zoning permit and administrative permits and tiered threshold. And I agree that we need to, you know, people should have as little red tape as possible >> or their little hobby farm or whatever else you might want to call it. You know, a goat and a few chickens or something like that. It's a hobby farm and it's not harmful to people. So, I think we do need to make that streamlined for the citizens. >> I completely agree. I think that that would putting up the least amount of red tape while still having a way to at least >> have some recordeping or a way to enforce the standards that are hard to explain. >> Yeah. >> Just have them submit a site plan. >> Yeah. Because, you know, it's kind of nice to know where the animals are. >> You know, we just open it up to Oh, anybody can have animals if it meets this criteria. Wouldn't it be kind of nice to know who's >> I guess yeah >> got the animals >> and that can be a larger discussion with the city council if we want to propose that >> um method. I was thinking mostly from a from a staff perspective on that of what I would do to make it easier on a day-to-day basis, but that is that is a larger policy concern. Okay. That's all I had on that. Anybody else? >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Then we'll move on to the next item. My motion here. Fencing restrictions. This should be a fun one. >> Should be super fun. Um, we mentioned this last meeting and I wanted to put together at least a couple of the propositions that I've heard um, bouncing around in writing so we can discuss them and it doesn't need to be if we decide to not go with it, that's completely okay. Um, but our city's current fence regulations are limited to two provisions. There's only two rules. Fences may not exceed 6 ft in height and the finished side must face abudding properties and the right of way. Um, fences taller than six feet can be permitted, but only under only in the commercial and industrial districts and under a conditional use permit or a site plan review. Um, any fences taller than than 6 ft in the commercial or industrial district will come before you guys. Um, I have been getting a couple calls recently along busier art from residents along the busier arterial roads requesting taller fences due to increased traffic and noise complaints um to provide a s sound barrier um for their home. So, a couple of the common fence provisions that aren't um too without getting too deep in the weeds about fencing regulations. Um requiring the first one would be requiring a fence permit or at least a survey for boundary fences. um that would be only required if the line is not clearly defined to ensure that the fence is uh actually erected on the resident's property. Currently, when people call me and ask if I can put up a fence somewhere, um I always recommend that they have it staked um and properly identified uh to double check it. It's in the resident's best interest um to do so, but we don't require it in any way. So that is one methodology that a lot of other cities employ is to just make sure so we don't hear from them 5 years later. Um and it causes a huge issue when somebody builds their fence on the wrong side of the property line. Um barbed wire and electric fences. We can uh prohibit these in residential areas except when used for the confining of farm animals in those pasture areas. livestock or crop protection and also allowing an exception for the commercial industrial districts. If there um if there's this concern with safety or security, you can also approve those through a cup or a site plan review in the same process that we do with the taller fences for those areas. And then the last one is the one that I've been requesting, but last time we talked about a general concern of the appearance of taller fences along those roads that people are driving through our city on. Um, we do want to keep that rural character and the aesthetic of our neighborhoods intact. Um, so the regulations around that could be um allowing them if they meet a higher setback further away from the road so they're not right up against it and disturbing the the consistent view of the neighborhood. Um, one of that method is having a 20 foot setback and using our effectively obscured language which we have pretty consistently through our code. we say effectively obscured which means at least 80 opaque 80% opaque around. So essentially this would be allowing those taller fences behind the tree line. Um alternatively a lot of other cities that allow taller fences just say you have to meet building setbacks for those. So that would be a 75 ft setback from the right of way um to have those taller fences. And that would be in the case of a house that's 300 feet down. I don't know why they would want a taller fence to help with sound barrier in that case, but that is what I found while looking up. Other neighboring communities that allow taller fences, they usually have it set to um whatever the building setbacks are. >> Anything else? That's what I've got. If you've got some some guidance or opinions if we want to pursue anything or if we're we're good leaving it as is. >> Um I had a question about um this opakquakeness. >> Okay. Somebody wants to put up a fence that's closer. They have to do the opaque. Do they get like a five-year plan to meet that or are they going to have to plant trees like immediately? So in the past what we've done um we have this rule for having um accessory buildings in your front yard. Um you are allowed to do it if it is effectively obscured from view. Um, typically it is only allowed if there is an existing at least some existing landscaping, mostly obscured. And then we do a a site visit, go check it out. Can you see the area from the street? Um, are those trees going to be entirely bare in the winter and therefore not obscuring them in the winter? Um, and if not, we um have them put together a landscaping plan and typically plant them before allowing any of the structures to be put up. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Those are the questions I had on this. I a little direction for you anyway. Um, the other thing was the 75- ft front yard setback. That pretty elim eliminates a lot of houses from doing that simply because that fence is going to be 20 25 ft from their front of their house. >> Mhm. Mhm. >> Effectively, they can't see anything now. >> Exactly. >> So, I think that that really, you know, like I said, it would be eliminating 90% of the people in this town. >> Yes. being able to do that >> and I agree with you on that. >> Anything else? >> Would we dictate what kind of material they would use for the fence? >> So, we don't currently have any material guidelines on fences. This is for residential um fences to go up. They wouldn't typically go before you guys um in any way. That is something that we could do whether we want to do it across the board or simply for these very specific for the taller fences. We have more limits on what you can build them out of. Is there >> do we define what a fence is? What I'm getting at is could somebody use like cement block and build like a fortress and then call it a fence? >> Well, because some >> Yeah, someone would do that. >> Somebody would do that. >> Somebody would do that. Um in the past we have a definition for building walls or retaining walls. Um yeah for we do define that as a different thing and those must meet um building wall setbacks. >> Okay. >> So you can build a a cement wall but it has to be 75 ft away from the road and 20 ft away from your neighbors. >> Okay. We don't have something typically banning them from doing that if they want to. >> No. Right. No, but I mean I could see some people if they want privacy and noise reduction, they just put a concrete wall, you know, with brick or block right alongside their >> That would look pretty. >> Yeah. >> We're trying to maintain more of a >> a rural character. >> Yes. That would kind of defeat that purpose. >> Yeah. But if we have concerns about the taller fences and it seems >> I I >> Yeah, >> I wanted to bring it up with some restrictions to see if we felt okay about it with those restrict with some of the setback rules and some material things, but I I get where we're going here. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean it I don't want to see, you know, a 8ft tall cedar fence and two houses down it's an 8ft tall chain link fence with slats in it. And >> yeah, >> you know, I really hate to ruin our our nice rural look by >> not having some say in the materials being used. >> Okay. >> Uh for fencing that are going to be of oversized. >> Okay. >> So, this is Rob. Um, to your point, uh, I believe it was right right before I got on council, there was there was an issue where someone didn't like the light shining into their yard, so they put, uh, like a galvanized, uh, panels up, screwed it to their fence so that the light would reflect back at the neighbor's house instead of theirs. There's issues like that have come up. So maybe it is a good idea that you look in as a as a commission look into that in the council, >> at least some basic. Um, >> I think there need to be some basic guidelines. >> Yeah. >> Are we going to get some pretty god- aful looking things out there? >> Think that's an understatement. >> Yeah. You might end up with junkyard fencing, right? Corrugated metal. >> Yeah, we don't need that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Anybody else? >> Uh, yeah. This is Andy. Um, so if you permit the fence, could you put in the permit? That's you say you have to plant 6 foot plus trees every so many feet part of the final approval for the >> for the for the fence I guess >> for the fencing. >> Yeah. >> Yes, you can um do that for I'm just basing it off of how we do our accessory structures when they're in the front yard and they have that effectively obscured. if they don't quite meet it, it's part of the the permit requirements to submit landscaping details and um commit to that. >> But as part as part of final inspection, that could be all right, the trees are planted, they're 6 feet plus tall. >> Mhm. >> They're going to grow in next two or three years and you won't see the fence anymore. >> Yes. Yes. I would I would make that be that would be very similar to the love situation with the opacity and not meeting requirements and stuff like that. And that's why I say is there a >> you know, is there some leeway to get there? You know, maybe they maybe they have some hedges that's going to cover 50% of the fence. Okay, >> they need to let those hedges grow taller. Do they have some time to do that? We don't have anything specifically written in code regarding that. It would be when we've done it in the past, it's been a part of those commercial and industrial approvals. Um, and then that timeline is written into their larger permit. For residential screening requirements, it is not as cut and it's not as set in stone, I guess. It's not written anywhere in their permit. So that can also be something to be discussed of if we want to go into >> tree requirements. >> I would I would think we you know uh we gave Lo's 5 years to get their opacity to where it was supposed to be. I think it' be only fair to the residents that they get at least that much time as well >> to reach opacity. Otherwise, you having people having to plant some awfully big trees in their yard to hide that fence that they want to put up. >> Yes, >> that is all that I had on here. >> I suppose for some general direction, is this something that we want to keep discussing for the arterial roads, materials, landscaping, trees? I I would I would think that we would like to continue to discuss this. >> Perfect. >> I think now that we've talked a little bit, we all probably have some more questions and >> more questions and ideas on how to >> ideas that we we want to come up with. So, I think this is something to >> to not table but to uh come back to >> can do. [Music] and then the Okay, so I can come back with a a more indepth fencing um ordinance proposal. >> Yeah, >> including some of those comments. Thank you so much. >> You would do that for me. >> Thank you. I love clear instructions. >> All right. Thank you. Okay, if there's no other discussion, um, planning commissioners report, I really have nothing other than to say that I was glad everybody read up on their stuff and had knew what was going on tonight. I appreciate that. Um, then we go to you, Alanor, assistant planners report. >> I don't have much um to report this week. Um, we will be meeting again on the 17th. Um, we have a couple of things on the uh some presentations on the agenda there from potential developers. >> Okay. Excellent. >> Glad to hear that. >> Well, if there's nothing else, you'd like to take care of the last item on there. >> Hi, this is Kim. I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second by Mike. Take a vote. Jim I. >> Mike I. Andy I. >> Robin I. Meeting is adjourned. [Music]