[Music] call order to the planning commission. It is 6:00 on May 7th. Um, first thing we'll do is take a 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. Okay. Number three uh is our consent agenda. Looking for somebody to make a motion to approve the meeting agenda for tonight. This is Susan. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. This is Bethany. I'll second and we'll take a vote. Bethany I. Susan I. Kim I. Robin I. Next we have the approval of the April 16th, 2025 planning commission meeting minutes. This is Kim. I'll make a motion to approve the planning commission meeting from April 16th, 2025. This is Susan. I'll second. Thank you. We'll take a vote. Bethany abstain. Susan I. Kim I. Robin I. Okay. We're going to have a open open forum if anybody wants to come up and speak. Anybody online? All right. And we'll close the open forum. Uh we're going to have an public hearing now for the equipment share.com pudcup at 14045 Lake Drive pages 4 through8 and the enclosure. Eleanor, would you please read the notices published in the Forest Lake Times? Absolutely. Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held by the City of Columbus Planning Commission on Wednesday, May 7th, 2025 at 6 p.m. or as soon thereafter as parties may be heard to consider a request to allow an equipment rental facility with accessory outdoor storage at 14045 Lake Drive in the Commercial Industrial District. The hearing will be conducted in person and by interactive technology at this Columbus City Hall located at 16319 Kettle River Boulevard, Columbus, Minnesota. Members of the public interested in attending in person, monitoring the meeting, or wanting more information should contact the city offices at 651-4643120 or visit the city website at columbusmn. us. The hearing shall continue until all evidence and testimony has been received. Thank you, Eleanor. Now, I'd ask that uh the representatives for uh Equipmentshare.com, Inc. please step forward. Could have you sit in front of the microphones, please, and slide your microphones forward a little bit. Make sure you speak into the microphone for us, please. Yes, sir. Uh my name is Kevin Sammon. I'm representative of uh equipment share. Okay. What uh let's see if you could give your name, current address for the record. Oh. Uh 7910 West 131st Street Ples Heights, Illinois. And you, sir? I'm I'm Miles Aron. I work at CBRE. I represent Equipment Share as their um real estate representative. And I'd like to note, you know, obviously Michael Schmidt is also online um as a representative. Okay. Thank you. Um we reviewed your application and normal protocol for you would be to brief us a little bit about your application and your plans, please. Um equipment share um we're going to uh equipment share rents equipment from business to business. So we there's no really foot traffic. It's just comingings and goings. Um, we go ahead in the facility itself, we just maintain the equipment and and we have out outside storage. Therefore, we can rotate them and uh so a semi comes in uh drops off some equipment or picks them up and then leaves immediately. And that's the type of business that we're in. Okay. Uh, for the record, did you receive a copy of the staff report developed by assistant planner Eleanor Han dated on May 1st, 2025 regarding this application? This report notes certain findings numbering 1 through 16 on pages 1 and two. It also notes conditions numbering 1- 17. Do you understand these recommendations and conditions, and do you have any questions or comments about them at this time? At this time, I don't. Okay, at this time I'd like to open the floor to the commissioners if you have some questions. This is Susan. I have no questions. This is Kim. I have no questions at this time. I have no questions. This is Bethany. Um, one of the things that uh is on here that I've noticed, and some people may say we I like to beat a dead horse with this, but uh you have a number of dead trees in the front that is part of the uh landscaping requirement. Um, we kind of would like to know if you have any type of plan for that at this point um on replacing those. Um, have you even thought about it? I think that actually Oh, go ahead, Kevin. Go ahead, Mike. You can answer it. That didn't uh come up to my attention. Um, but we can certainly get them handled. That's not going to be an issue whatsoever. Um, I have not been to the property since I first walked it probably uh late last year. So, but we can definitely look at those trees and more or less get them replaced because we want to have a good uh a good front as well on the on the roadway there. You've got a beautiful site and the building is wonderful and everything and you know it's the trees are not out of condition of your uh receiving your permit. It's just something that uh just wanted to make you aware of. I appreciate that for sure. How often do you expect semi traffic in and off of Lake Drive? Is this a daily thing? Multiple trucks a day? Yes. Yeah, it's uh Monday through Friday typically. Sometimes Saturday, but that's usually just a last minute customer request. Maybe they need uh some last minute equipment or equipment in an emergency. But typically it is Monday through Friday from about 7 a.m. till 5:00 pm and uh trucks will come and go as they need equipment or bring equipment back. Okay. I have a question. Do you consistently work with the same customers like over and over again or is it typically new? You know, do you have like a handful of people that are always coming to you or is it more Yeah, it's a mix. It's a mixture of both for sure. Um definitely we we like to have our longevity with our customers, but we are always seeking out new customers as well. Okay. Anybody else have any other questions? Ask a few questions. Yes, you may. Hi. Um I uh I do have a few questions. Um you're in your write up you refer to a um site in Topeka, Kansas. Are there any sites in Minnesota that you have? We have one in Lakeville right now. Lakeville. So, if we wanted to look like, we could go to Lakeville and take a look at that. Absolutely. Okay. And then, um, the other question I had is, how many how many outlets do you guys run? I see in the write up, um, you referenced that there were 89 participating branches. Is that like stores or the branches something different? Uh, it's the same. Um, we actually have about 300 stores nationwide currently. Okay. And then, um, is your is your business a seasonal business? Is it primarily in the in in the non-winter months that you're renting equipment or is it year round? It's year round. We slow down in winter because obviously there's a seasonality to construction in general. Um, but for the most part, it is a year- round business. And what kind of equipment are you renting? Anything from earth moving equipment, so dirt equipment, skid steers, wheel loaders, rollers, um to aerial equipment, scissor lifts, boom lifts, things along those lines. Anything that a contractor may need, uh or even a homeowner for that matter. Okay. But it sounds like you're primarily businessto business. You're not doing much. So, if if a homeowner wanted to rent, would they do they have to go through some sort of process or it's just that that's not who you advertise to? Uh, it's not typically who we advertise to, but we certainly do rent to homeowners at times. There's no doubt about it. Okay. Uh, let's see. Oh, so you you mentioned that there's 15 to 20 um employees that you'd expect. Are most of those going to be local hires or are you bringing people in from other shops? No, no, absolutely. They're going to be local. Okay. And then I know you answered the question about um the semis, but you didn't answer how like how many a day on average would you expect? Boy, it's really going to be it's going to depend on the seasonality obviously, but I would say on a heavy day we might see We we have our own semis I guess to start. We have our own delivery team. Um we're going to have probably anywhere from two to five drivers depending on how much equipment we have there, how busy we are. And then we will have um outside haulers that come through. So I would say in a day our trucks would run um they would be in and out two to three times in the day and then we may have other trucks that come in once. So, you're probably looking at around 10 to 12 trips in and out throughout the day. Okay. Thanks. That's really helpful. I don't have any other questions. I have one quick question. Is everything on this list in this packet, is that all stored on site? There's like a huge long list of a million. Yes. There's there's a lot. It's really Yeah. Our customer our customer base drives what we have on site. Um, and then obviously we have a lot of long-term rentals. So even though that is all listed there, there's a we we pushed for what we call 70% utilization. So we want 70% of our equipment out on job sites at all times. So maybe 30% of that list would be sitting in our yard um at a given time or or even less for that matter. Okay. Excellent. Are there any questions from the commissioners? I have. At this time, I'd like to open the public hearing to the public. If there is anyone who has an interest in this application and wants to present testimony as evidence on the on this issue, please acknowledge themselves by stating their full name and address. Anybody online as well? Hi, I'm Rob Ober. My address is 14063 Lake Drive Northeast. my It's just a little easier for me to make minutes out of it if I can hear you. No problem. Um on the property, me and my wife right uh directly to the east behind the property there. And this isn't my first rodeo being up here in front of you people. We were there when CST Chad Megan Tooff built that property originally. um listened to their testimony and what they were going to do and their plans. We were there when Universal Hospital Services, JDR, bought it from Chad and Me and Dan Harding and you know what their hours are, how they were going to take care of the property and all that. But I guess I've got some genuine concerns that I've seen over the last what 5 years. Mhm. Um number one, the hours. How steadfast are you to those Monday through Friday 7 to 5:00 p.m. hours? As I mentioned, it's really um we'll have employees in there before 7, but we would not be open to the public before 7 and we would close again to the public at 5. Um we may have some employees that are in early to get ready and get the equipment set up to to be delivered. um technicians to come in and work on the equipment in the shops and then they may also stay late or come back late from a run, but for the most part 7 to five is is pretty general. When they come back from the run, are they like um making lots of noise with emptying out things and cuz that was one of the things 8:30 9:00 at night we'd hear clanking and and so we're curious on on that. It's going to be situational, but I don't know about clanking other than the driving off of, you know, equipment off of a truck um or driving it back on, but typically we wouldn't load at night. Too many times our orders change last minute and we've just learned to load in the mornings before we head out. So, um I don't know what you'd hear for banging and clanking other than maybe chains and binders that are tying the equipment down and then the equipment coming off of the truck, but that should be about it. when the equipment is coming off the truck are is the equipment being started up to back it out. So there's yes the back beeping type noises and things like that. Reverse beepers. Reverse beepers. Correct. Yeah. For safety. Yes. Are your trucks back by 5:00 or is that depend on where they're at? So it could be that's going to Yeah, that's going to depend on the day. That's going to depend on, you know, how far they may had a run. if we had a last minute end of day run or not. One other thing on the semi thing that these are full size semis coming in. Yes. Um we also had times cuz we we're sharing that driveway. I don't you've been there. So we share that driveway. And so there has been times where we've had to wait because the driver is in the driveway, you know, and they can't move into your lot or whatever. And so they've blocked it. I mean, it doesn't happen all that often, but it has happened to us. So, when they come into the drive, are they going to be coming into your yard through the fence or will they have to sit and wait and then you're going to load out on the driveway? No. No. We would not want to block that driveway any more than we would have to at any given time. It would really be, you know, if we're waiting for one truck to leave maybe for, you know, a couple of minutes to um shimmy the two trucks around each other, but other than that, they should be coming into the yard to unload. We would not be doing that on the driveway. All right. The reason I'm asking about the hours, I've heard these same hours from the two places prior and CS Street T. They had trucks coming all hours of the day, Saturdays and Sundays, dumping wood off. JDR was coming back like she said, up to 9:00 dumping garbage. That was all the clanging. They were reversing. I'm looking at him. I don't know where his camera is. But but anyway, they'd be unloading their equipment off their trucks. You hear the reverse beepers and you know, I work very hard all day. I don't want to come home, be grilling up and listening to all that at at 6:00, 7, 8, 9:00 at night. You know, I can tell you right now through our Lakeville department, our Lakeville location, I think the latest I've seen a truck there is 5:30, 6:00 at night coming in. Um, and most of the time right now they've been gone probably by 5:00. I mean, it's not always going to be consistent like that, just to be transparent and honest. But right now, that's the way it's been in Lakeville for the last year. Well, this is Kim. I have a question for your equipment. I'm assuming a lot of it is diesel and when the weather is cooler, it has to warm up before it's moved. Diesel and gasoline. Yeah, it's a mix of of either or. And we also have electric vehicles as well, electric equipment. So, but uh the diesel, the diesel does have to warm up, but as far as the equipment goes, we don't really warm the equipment up because we're just going to get it on the truck and we're going to deliver to the customer and then they're going to probably, you know, run it and warm it up themselves. Our trucks might be running, but the equipment is going to be run just long enough to get it on the truck and loaded. Okay. And so, there won't be any uh pre-starting before 7 a.m. though. Uh there may be at times because our drivers our our customers like to have the equipment delivered first thing in the morning somewhere between 7 and 9:00 a.m. per se. Uh so we may have drivers in there earlier starting up equipment. That is a possibility. Okay. How early? It's going to be really dependent on what the customers are asking for us to do and and how far the the the job is away from where we got to take it. What would be the earliest? Um I've seen trucks start at 4 or 5:00 in the morning. Um but I would say we probably have trucks we we probably have guys on average getting in between 5 and 6. takes them an hour or so to load and then to get out and make sure they get on the road and get the equipment to the customer in time. This is Susan. I have a question. Um, as far as the rental, is that based on an hour or is it based on like kind of the standard 24-hour clock? I mean, I've rented equipment, you know, sometimes based on the hour, sometimes based on the day, and I'm kind of wondering if that maybe determines as far as that startup time. We base it on day rental, uh, day, week, and month. We don't really rent by the hour. Thank you. I have a question for maybe I don't know Eleanor or Jack I'm not sure who but how long were each of the probably you guys know better than anyone how long were each of the previous businesses there in this space and is the space like flexible to be used for is it really like geared towards this very specific type of um so off the top of my head uh of doing this research. The first business that developed this um property was there from 2020 to 2023. Um and then there was another one that was until um 24. So neither of the previous businesses were there very long. Um this particular property was sort of developed as a um contractor's yard um with um there is a some vehicle bays built into the building. There's a fuel pump station in the middle of the facility in of the storage yard. And then the main thing about this property is that um we had the previous owners build a complete 10-ft tall opaque fencing that we spent a lot of time uh designing and talking to people about. I think I remember that in order. Yes, I think that you were on the planning commission when we made them uh get that fence up. Um, so although there is some flexibility in this property, it is geared towards something with a lot of exterior storage um, uh, and some vehicle repair equipment repair. That is what the building was built for and what that property is serviced for. Thank you. [Music] Okay, we'll now close the uh, we have a few more. Oh, so sorry. I was waiting to see if anyone was still on that. Oh go I'll I'll go down my my little list here. But getting back to the hours, you know, no offense Kim, but we've heard this same thing about the hours 5 uh 7 to 5 Monday through Friday, occasional Saturdays from both CST and JDR. And neither of them abided by it. We were hearing stuff Saturdays, Sundays, evenings. So my ask to the city council and the planning commission is this has got to be drilled down on and not be so gray and vague in language. You know, there's got to be something to for us to go back to. Why are we listening to this? You know, and and the starting of, you know, heavy machinery at 4:00 a.m. 6 5 a.m. 6 a.m. That's I'm sorry. I need my sleep. I have a job. Nope. Yeah, we work very hard and you know, and we we absolutely would hear that. 100% we would hear that. Yep. We're that close. And so would our neighbors. Yep. And uh so anyway, that's takes care of the hours, but the other thing I don't have the agenda packet in front of me, you know, to kind of go through that, but I know it was talked about about the garbage uh not having to be contained, I think, was somewhere in there. Yes, because of the fence enclosure. Well, I'll tell you from firstirhand experience, I've picked up tons of garbage and I have plenty of pictures on my phone. About a month ago, I spent 2 and 1/2 hours on a Saturday and I went all the way up to uh where the metal fence starts and the chain link starts and went back and all my whole entire yard and cleaned it up. and I still didn't probably get all of it, you know. So, something's got to be done with the garbage that needs to be contained. And Janet, it might have been you during one of the city council meetings when we were talking about the fence that asked for chain link on the very bottom cuz it's coming underneath there is where the majority of it's coming. Some is coming over the top also. So that's that's another big concern of ours, you know, and granted I don't think equipment share would have as much garbage as the last place cuz they had a bunch of uh trucks that were out on the road. So they'd come back and they'd unload all their junk and they didn't do a good job of getting rid of their garbage on a timely basis either, the dumpsters, you know. So go ahead. Go for your next one. Yep. And then the other thing I know this was on the on the agenda packet too was talking about the the lighting being shrouded and we've talked to uh you know CST put the lighting in so we didn't have a chance then but when JDR was coming in they were supposed to shroud the lighting uh so it's pointing down and nothing ever got done on that. So, I mean, the lights, each light just needs to be shrouded so it's going down and not pointing directly out like it is. We were hopeful that the fence that got put up bordering, you know, par parallel house. We were hoping that it was going to cover, but it's not when you're in the house. You can still see the lights over the fence. Yeah. If you're right up with the fence, obviously, but you can you can and it's very bright. We have a bedroom on that side and we have to use darkening shades otherwise it just lights up the bedroom. It's it's that light. It's that bright at night. Yeah. And the granite the uh in the summertime the trees and the leaves help that but you know the rest of the year you're seeing it. So that's another concern of ours. Um there was some alarm going off there all the time. It was really weird. It was like, and we talked to Dan, the old owner. He would like go off and it was like a recording of people. It was almost like a scare tactic. And I was talking to James, our neighbor, and he was hearing it. It's driving him nuts cuz his house is more up on the hill. And he can hear that some sort of an alarm. Is it a security alarm? Some something. I That's the only thing I can think it is. It's like a security alarm and it's a it's a male voice in a recording. Okay. to scare people off. I'm not totally sure what it is. Yeah, maybe part of emotions. I don't know. But anyway, um and we already talked about the traffic. I guess my other concern was just how nice it's going to look cuz we drive by every single day and the last place JDR was complete and total eyesore and I thank the council for requiring them to get the fence in in uh it wasn't in a timely fashion but you kind of put your foot down and gave them a deadline and I commended them. They got the got it in well prior to the deadline, you know, so we weren't looking at all that. But I guess my question is when I think of a big construction rental, you mentioned boom trucks. Do you have a bunch of trains up in the air and stuff or boom lifts? Yeah, they'll the baskets will be up in the air at times. And they'll be over the top of the 10T fence. They go high 10 foot. How many of them do you have? I mean, I haven't been down to your Lakeville location, but I plan on going down there to take a look at that. Uh, it really depends. Again, it's it it really again comes and goes with how many we have that are not on rent at the time. Um, I can tell you right now that like uh in our Milwaukee shop and even in Lakeville, we can't keep a boom lift in our yard to save our our lives, which is a good problem to have from a business standpoint, but it's also uh we're sourcing more booms to bring in for, you know, other customers still requesting them. So, it it really just depends on the time of year and how busy we are. The busier we are, the less you'll see. The reason that's kind of alarming to me, I was just down Highway 55 going to Rochester. Mhm. Uh recently and I saw a place on the right and they had a ton of boom truck lifts up in the air and it was that's all you could see. was horrible to look at. And I know Janet, you or one of the other gals on the last city council was very concerned with the ice the eyes soreness, I guess, if that's a word. Making sure that everything was below the fence, right? You know, so I guess that's a cons real concern of ours also. Do you have anything else? Who who are the typical business um businesses that you're dealing with it? We're talking small contractors, general contractors, electrical contractors, plumbing, mechanical, um landscapers, uh anybody that does anything with dirt, you know, whether it's paving or um anything to do with dirt moving material as well. I had right then I the other thing I had was containment of the equipment and I did see that in the agenda packet you were requiring them to keep everything in completely enclosed inside the fence you know so I guess our concern would be those boom lifts up you know in everybody's sight not only ours but everyone on the lake drive also and this is more curiosity are you buying or are you leasing cuz I know the the the sign out for sales or the for sale sign says you could buy or lease. So are you we're buying you're buying or purchasing? Yes. I think it that plays into how long you staying. You don't want to do this alone. Okay. Anything else for you? I think we've touched on everything and like I we our just ask is you know for the city council and planning commission kind of drill down on this stuff eliminate any gray areas you know imagine yourselves living where we are and our neighbors and everyone driving by there. I know you guys all drive down Lake Drive by there at some point you know. So, I do know the aggravation. I had trucking going through my neighborhood for 4 years. No. Semi-truckss through the neighborhood. So, I know I know you're concerned with the semi-truckss. I appreciate that. Um, the boom lifts. I'm not sure much they can do about that because of safety reasons. They have to keep those booms up so that nobody can get in them. Um, but I can tell you that the lighting, it is part of the conditions that they do have to do this. So, it is uh they do have to come into compliance with the shrouding. I can tell you that for certain that that is going to happen. Yep. I remember that with JDR. They just never did anything on it. So, nope. That'd be great. Well, anybody else have anything to add? I there are a couple things that I would like to address. Thank you so much for your comments and everything but just to provide some clarity for everybody. Um first of all the comments that you made about blocking the driveway that is a part of uh this conditions. You are not allowed to um have any vehicles stalled or parked in that shared driveway um as it is um used by multiple owners. Um, what Robin said about the shrouding of the lighting, uh, since you guys utilized the previous company's site plan, since you weren't using any site plan, you weren't suggesting any major site plan changes. Anything in that site plan that wasn't completed um that we didn't know about such as the the lighting will need to be completed. um mainly that and also um we couldn't tell since I went to visit the site when uh trees were dormant if there are some dead trees that were in this site plan those will need to be replaced as well. Okay. Um and then regarding the hours of operation, we don't um add hours of operation into our conditions. Um we don't regulate hours of condition hours of operation. Uh but we do have noise ordinances and noise violation ordinances that they will still need to abide by. Um specifically we have pretty strict 7 to 10 p.m. noise um violations. So if there are are frequent early morning um noise complaints, that is something that we are going to have to um bring some compliance inspections into and probably have to work that out with you guys as well. Um, I think that covered all of my comments on what was said today. Okay. Um, can I say something? Yes, sir. Just I know I just want to reiterate what you were talking about with the hours, Elanor. I remember reading uh some conditional use permits from some of the businesses around us. uh not CST or JDR there. And there was things in their conditional use permit, no Saturdays and Sundays, you know. Okay. So, I can definitely bring that up with um our consultants to make sure that that's still allowed in our code because some of those cups are quite old. But if it is, we might put some late night uh restrictions or Yes. you know, like I'd say we reach out to you just got to eliminate the gray areas, you know, and you know, thank you. Is that something? So, there's a 7 a.m. noise ordinance, anything before 7 a.m., like is that something when you say down in the future we could we would have to work that out? Like, is that something that can be worked out? Like, from your perspective, if the city said you can't have these noises happening before 7:00 a.m., is that possible from your perspective? It's possible. It's tricky. Like I said earlier, um we've preloaded trucks the night before. Um trying to be more efficient with our business model. And uh of course, you know, you preload at 3 p.m. and by 4:30, 5:00 a customer calls and says they don't need a piece of equipment anymore. And of course, that's the one piece of equipment that's in the way of everything else. Um, but it is definitely possible for us to start with the pre-loading and see how it goes and go from there. We'll just have to figure it out to be honest with you. Thank you. Excuse me. I know one this the backup beepers came up with another um company and I have no idea whether this works for the equipment that you have, but but they were able to use the flashing lights rather than the backup beepers. So, it still alerts, you know, when they're being backed up if there's anybody in the vicinity to get out of the way, but it it helped with the with the noise um potential. I again, I don't know that that would work for you, but yeah, unfortunately, OSHA requires backup beepers on all equipment that's on the job site when it's moving backwards. That's an OSHA. Yeah, right. That's an OSHA. That's an OSHA law. Okay. Right. All right. Just uh uh segue off of Janice. I thought I I heard the same thing that uh the the bright light backup beepers are now covered by OSHA, but I I'm not an expert on that, but you know, we should probably look into that, you know, so that would be huge if to eliminate that. Mhm. So, how much of your equipment will be will have these beepers on when it's moving around? Cuz like with JDR, I don't recall hearing much backup beepers because it's just their real big trucks, you know, which were because they mostly had pickup trucks and you know, they're they're they did have um uh what they plowed the driveway with? Bobcat. Bobcat. Thank you. And I'm sure that probably had some beep up beeper on it, but I don't recall it being a lot of vehicles that had backup. With me visualizing the type of equipment you have, I visualize a lot more having I Yeah, I envision that's okay. Okay, we'll now close the public hearing and planning commission have any more questions? I don't I don't Eleanor. All right. Um be advised that uh we'll be meeting again in two weeks uh after we've reviewed this application and we'll meet again on May 21st, 2025 to discuss the application one more time and forward our findings to the city council. We look forward to seeing you then. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you. [Music] Yeah, I seem to miss a motion there, didn't I? You can ask for a motion for that now. Oh, can we get a motion to continue the discussion that I've had her next the uh next PUDC at the next planning commission meeting on May 21st. This is Bethany. Oh, I make a motion to continue the discussion of equipmentshare.compcup to the next planning commission meeting on May 21st, 2025. This is Susan. I'll second. I'll take a vote. Bethany I. Susan I. Kim I. Robin I just so eager there. Okay. Uh we are going to have a discussion uh about love travel stop. There's some more things that have come up with that since. And Eleanor, would you like to brief us on that, please? Absolutely. We've discussed the Lo's um traffic stops um a few times now. Um the actual site plan has since been approved and that was for the addition of the additional four fuel pumps, two stations, four fuel pumps. Um and during that process, we noticed a few um issues with their screening proposals. Namely, they would have to um according to their original cup, they would have to screen their truck parking from view up to 80% opacity by um August 17th, 2027. Um over the last couple years, there's been some issues with that tree coverage and um it has become increasingly clear that they're not going to reach that um screening requirement. And so a part of this uh site plan review when they came forward to ask for something else, we put them on notice stating that they're going to have to come up with a new plan to um assist in that previously approved screening proposal. Um we pretty quickly received uh this new proposal that you have in front of you by property owner Dylan Schwarz on May 2nd, 2025. Now, according to um our city code, the zoning administrator is authorized to allow modifications to prior approved fences, screening, landscaping plans, provided the modifications are consistent with the intent and scope of the prior approved plans. This fencing um proposal is to the intent of that is to better comply with the previously approved screening. However, since it's been um brought up to the planning commission and uh there has been a significant amount of community interest in the matter, city staff is requesting any comment and uh the approval of the proposed fencing elements in order to get this um underway for them. Does anyone have any comments or questions regarding um my report andor the defenses? I I just have one question and and just more for aesthetic purposes. Will the will the fence be as far as if you're on the freeway, will the fence be in front of the trees or behind? Like would you see the trees first and then the fence or would it be vice versa? So looking at how they have it set up right now, there is an existing 4ft um chain luck fence and it's sort of between the trees if I understand this right. There's one row of trees in front of the fence and then another row of trees behind the fence. Okay. Um, and this 8-ft tall uh composite fence will replace that smaller chain link. Thank you. So, both I like it. Yeah. Oh, this TX is a nice stuff. I have used it. Yeah, absolutely. And it's very nice. It's good quality stuff. I think it'll uh it'll certainly enhance the look. Right now, I drove by there. I don't know if it was yesterday or today. Uh there was something going on on the freeway. So I had a long time to look at it and looked really ratty. And I was really happy when uh when I saw this. I was like, "Oh, thank goodness." You once again made me a happy man by doing your homework. I appreciate it. Yeah. No, and we have that fence as well. Uh I guess I'll name um Zach England by the way in case um for Love Travel Stop GM. Um but yeah, we actually have that composite fence up right now. Uh we have a six version. It's actually runs along uh from the end of our building where Hardies is at um down the drive-thru area kind of blocking between um drive-thru and the commercial side. So yeah, we have that fence now and um it's a great fence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess just a kind of sentiment that I saw this too. I was actually really pleased. I mean, we have it and I think it weathers great. It looks nice. It's going to I think just and as those trees then get bigger and mature, I think it's just going to be overall nice aesthetic. I would agree. Any other comments? No comment. Okay. I'm looking for a motion to either continue this discussion or to recommend approval of the modification of the screening proposal to the city council. This is Susan. I'll recommend approval of the Lo's Travel Stops modified screening proposal to the city council. This is Kim. I'll second the motion. We'll take a vote on that. Bethany I. Susan I. Kim I. Robin I. All right. Moved. And we're I guess we're on to the planning commissioners report. Oh, I have nothing. Do any of you have anything? I do not have anything. I have nothing. I have nothing. I thank you all. Uh assistant planners report. Yeah. Um yes, I do have one thing. Um as of Monday, I believe there is a new vacancy on the planning commission. Um we have sent out some applications. We've already uh received a few applications um for that vacant seat. Um, however, we were wondering uh if the planning commission would like to vote for a new chair and vice chair at the next meeting or if they would like to wait to um make those new appointments until the entire five seats are filled. Um, does anyone have any strong feelings about that? No strong feelings. Okay. For for me, nothing strong. I I I myself don't see where that fifth person would really their vote would be very informed at this point. So I think the four people that are here are best informed to make that decision. Okay. So I would s I would recommend that we do this next week or next next meeting. Susan, good year. Uh I didn't have strong feelings, but I know in my my day job, so to speak, that um we didn't wait for a new person. We did appoint so we could keep moving forward. And then sometimes you have to do re reorganizational, but we we use the people that again, like Robin alluded to, that are most informed at this point. Mhm. I agree. All right. I just thought it should be a discussion to be had. Um, and that will be on the next planning commission agenda to vote for new chair and vice chair. Thank you, Elanar. If there's nothing else, I'm looking for a motion to adjurnn. This is Bethany. I motion to adjurnn. This is Kim. I'll second. Take a vote. Bethany I. Susan I. Kim I. Robin I. Meeting is closed at 7, excuse me, at 6:45. [Music]