hopefully everybody had a chance to uh peruse the packets that they received in the mail um if so look for a motion to approve the agenda as printed motion motion by AA second second by Kurt all those in favor say I I I opposed motion is carried thank you uh next is uh approval of minutes from December 17th anybody have
any additions or Corrections hearing none look for a motion to approve so move second motion by Ezra second by Brad all those in favor say I I opposed motion is carried is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak on something that is not on the agenda is there anybody in the audience that wishes to speak on something that is not on the agenda
is there anybody in the audience that wishes to speak on something that is not on the agenda hearing none we'll move on to the next thing um we have a Fargo Morehead diversion update by Mr Eric dods okay
good evening um thanks for inviting me here tonight or maybe Matt did the inviting but uh my name is Eric dods I work for a consulting firm called a2s I've been a consultant working on this project for I think 13 years now and the last five years or so have been focused more on the lands portion of the program um so wanted to cover just kind of a few General updates maybe you guys are familiar with some of the activities
on the project and then eventually I'll get into some some items that may be more interesting to the planning department um so brief project overview this is just a picture of the outlet structure where the channel meets the Red River up near Georgetown um you can see on the left bottom left side of the screen that's the the Weir outfall structure that that meets up with the Red River um the project of course is being designed to help reduce the flood risk in
the FM area really be able to pass 37 fet through town with a 100-year flood and be able to fight a 500-year flood that would pass 403 40 feet of river stage through faram Morad on the left hand side you can see the existing 100-year flood plane all the the light blue color is the existing 100-year flood plane and then on the right side you can see where majority of that flood plane from the improved area the protected area is removed of course
there are some impacts the project will cause primarily Upstream of that black zigzag line on the south side of the project uh brief few slides here on a construction update these are probably a month or so old but nonetheless uh you can see that overall about 61% completed with construction the P3 work is really the diversion Channel and the associated features with the channel uh that's
about 56% complete the federal work is the southern embankment so that's the that black line on the previous slide there the black line on the uh South End of the project that's the federal work so that portion is about 68% complete and then there are some remaining in town Levy Works in Fargo and Morehead that are about 80% complete the diversion Authority did put this slide together to Showcase some of the pro progress construction progress that was made in 2024 lots
of numbers on the slide um I guess pick your favorite number depending on how interested you are whether it's uh 28 million cubic yards of material excavated from the diversion Channel again I think there's about 40 million cubic yards total to be excavated so they're well over halfway on the on the material excavation 3500 trees have been planted um ongoing lots of numbers there I won't go into all that I'll spend just a little bit of time here talking about the southern
embankment that that's a portion of the project that affects Clay County um so the southern embankment really starts um south of Horus over on the I guess left side of that map in the middle uh the southern embankment is about 22 mies long it includes three different control structures the diversion Inlet structure is just south of Horus the wild rice structure is R along I29 and then the Red River structure is is on the Red River
of course there are a number of Transportation features including the I29 uh Crossing um that I29 was raised a few years ago that project is now complete there are a number of County and Township crossings that cross the southern embankment in Clay County there will be Crossings at 130th 140th 150th and then 160th which is the Comstock road so every Mile North of Comstock we'll have a crossing over the embankment um just
a little bit more detail about those three big control structures so this is the diversion Inlet structure that's just south of Horus this is essentially complete the core is just continuing to work on some gear Gear uh gear mechanism issues with the gears that roll those gates up and down um the wild rice structure about the same situation so again this is right off of I29 you might see it if you're driving south of Fargo on I29 essentially complete and then
the the Red River structure is about 70% complete um this is the largest of all the structures of course it's all three of these were built by Ames Construction under contract to the Corb Engineers the southern embankment in Minnesota there's two segments reach four is the north south segment so that starts at the Red River and goes south to the county line and then reach five is the East West segment that follows
the county line um the reach 4 started construction earlier this year really started this fall so they haven't made a ton of progress yet uh but they are out there moving some dirt and making a little bit of progress they've suspended for the winter now reach five again is the East West segment that will begin construction later this year in 2025 getting into some of the real estate side of things on the property Acquisitions um overall in the
construction footprint we're near nearly 100% complete the only thing that's not complete is final value conclusions on a few eminent domain Parcels unfortunately we haven't been able to reach voluntary agreement with everyone and so there were a number of eminent domain actions we do have all the property rights and so construction is ongoing but the valuation of those is still determined through the court process on the Upstream mitigation area that's really the area where we have
an obligation to purchase an easement that allows um us to flood or allows the project to intentionally flood some of those areas that comes with payment of course it allows farming to continue uh we're approaching 60% complete on those Upstream mitigation area flow ad gments in Minnesota specifically about 23% complete of these pie charts that I'm sharing here we produce these every month and share them with a board formed between Morehead and Clay County that
are responsible for purchasing land in Minnesota that's the MCC jpa you see on the slide title zooming in a little bit more detailed on the Minnesota side for property rights so we've acquired property rights to6 those Parcels there's still a number of them that we have a value that's still pending um a few of those are in an active eminent domain status and you know some of them are still ongoing
negotiations um don't need to go into all that detail unless you're interested but just to give you a snapshot of that again we do report this on a monthly basis to the MCC GPA spend just a little bit of time here talking about our mitigation plan so we we call this the pram uh property rights acquisition and mitigation plan this is a document that really outlines our land acquisition programs and plans that will
help us purchase the property help mitigate the impacts to Property Owners the pram includes information about you know how we're going to do those Acquisitions it's really been kind of a living document U the first version of this was published back in 2016 we have had five different versions and the sixth version is nearly final and that's really what prompted us to come here tonight um as we work on finalizing
the pram documents the DNR and the dnr's counterpart in North Dakota are two of the agencies that do some review of the document um again this has been in the works for quite a number of years uh the pram has modified a bit as the project changes years ago we had a different alignment to the project um that's been resolved and and the alignment is been established since late 2019 um you can see just sort of
the evolution of the pram and evolution of the project with this series of maps here on the left hand side that was the what we called plan a so years ago the embankment went basically straight East in Minnesota and there was a version pram 4 that was actually approved by the DNR um several years ago version five has been approved by the state of North Dakota and currently we're working on version six which adjudicates all of the differences between those versions and
tries to reconcile that moving forward forward so version six of pram is um again fully reflects what we know today as the comprehensive project it incorporates all the mitigation requirements from both the state agencies the federal government as well as the settlement agreement that the diversion Authority established with Upstream stakeholders it aligns the previous versions with uh the permits that were approved by those state agencies and adds
bit of a crosswalk so that like the DNR for example if they had approved version four there's a crosswalk between that version and version six so hopefully avoids any confusion one of the provisions that the DNR included in its permit was related to development Downstream of the embankment so this is condition number 45 in the dnr's dam safety and public Waters work permit that last sentence
that have highlighted the DNR recommends that local government units adopt requirements that no development be allowed within one4 mile of the dam or along river channels so recently as we were reviewing pram version six with the DNR they asked what steps the diversion Authority had taken to handle this permit recommendation the diversion Authority shared with
with the DNR that we had sent letters well the diversion Authority doesn't itself have any zoning Authority and so the diversion Authority took the position that we would share this recommendation with all of the zoning officials so city of Horus Pleasant Township Stanley Township on the North Kota side um Clay County here on the Minnesota side and so back in 21 um this letter that you see and I don't expect anybody to read that but
this letter was shared with the Planning Commission shared with Matt and basically just explained that those were the permit conditions that the DNR and the the state of North Dakota had a similar permit condition the diversion Authority I thought I would highlight this one paragraph that just acknowledges that the diversion Authority again does not have zoning Authority and as a result does not have the ability to enact or enforce zoning ordinances therefore the authority does not intend to make any
additional Planning and Zoning recommendations for your political subdivision Beyond those that were identified by the states as a recommendation so the letter went on to just acknowledge that the diversion Authority is available and happy to present happy to meet and discuss this matter with you as we were reviewing the dnr's recent comments on the pram I brought this issue up to Matt and Matt asked if we'd come and
just give this group of a brief presentation about what the dnr's recommendation was and uh maybe plant the seed with you for some future consideration so um this is a map zooming in on the southern embankment the yellow highlighted portion is the quarter mile buffer it's really just intended for illustration purposes the blue on this map is the 100-year flood plane with the project um you you can see there's
portions of the embankment that will not actually be touched by water during the 100-year flood plane especially down kind of in that South um Southern location South of comto there's portions of that embankment that will not be touched by it this next map then shows different flood events so the dark blue is the 100e the medium blue is the 500-year flood and then there's a light very
light blue that is what's called the pmf that's basically a Biblical type flood probable maximum flood so lots of information there um I think my goal tonight was just to share an update about the project share an update about the the pram and introduce this quarter mile recommendation again this was a recommendation from the DNR I don't know that the DNR uh or the diversion Authority have any ability to demand or enforce uh any of these zoning restrictions but with that I'd
stop that's all I had for you tonight but I happy to answer any questions Mr chair uh thank you for coming in Eric very informational I don't have any questions but that's food for thought I guess what the NR asked I'll probably let Matt maybe guide you guys through next steps if you have
any and I guess happy to stay with if you got any questions yeah Eric I guess I just one question for you is if you could um have any other uh jurisdictions adopted any zoning and and if so what have they kind of done with this recommendation sure you have any information on that yeah yeah good question so um Pleasant Township in North Dakota has adopted a zoning restriction theirs is kind of a
a two-part restri rtion anywhere within 450 ft from the toe of the embankment they have development restrictions anywhere within 350 ft no buildings uh so there's that 100 foot swath between 350 and 450 where they would allow non-residential construction um they really don't want anybody you know sleeping having living quarters anywhere in 450 ft but they
could allow nothing non-residential within that 300 between 350 and 450 and that's from the toe of the embankment so you know you can imagine the embankment comes down or that toe meets ground this map that we're showing here on this screen is Illustrated from the center line and I guess those are Nuance details that you may get into from a Planning and Zoning standpoint so Pleasant Township has adopted that um Pleasant Township is um I guess south of County Road 16
if that means anything to you I'm not sure how familiar you are but the County Road 16 is I'm trying to draw um if you know where St Benedict's Church is it's South so that main paved Road South of St Benedict's that's the start of Pleasant Township otherwise we have had some very high level discussions with staff at the city of Fargo um the
they control zoning over a portion a real kind of a small portion of the embankment on the North Cota side they haven't made any conclusions or determinations uh the staff have just anecdotally commented that they also would probably prefer not to have residential zoning right up against the embankment but I think they are open to having industrial or commercial or something again non-living quarters adjacent to that but that's maybe
just talk I don't know that they've really had any detailed discussions about it yet so I I have another question for you s so with that bank being built how far out did you buy out of buildings and residential houses along that I mean is it a half mile right now with nothing being built in that area or we we only purchased property rights for the footprint footprint of the embankment and then on the The Wet Side we purchased the eases but nothing on the dry side so there could be
stuff currently within that quarter um there there are yes I believe there's a house up on the North End right near the Red River structure and then along the east west um County Line there are a couple structures just north of that embankment yeah and I I guess I should point out the East West portion the existing road is by and large going to serve as the embankment they will be reconstructing a few portions of that road there was a lot of design details that went into geotechnical test T and instability of
the roadway itself but the majority of that road will serve as the embankment so while we say it's under construction it might look like there's not a whole lot going on one day it's a road and poof the next day it'll be an embankment so that was technical engineering to speak yeah a question on uh 100e flood and a 500e flood how much water would be contained on the bank and how close
is it to the top of the embankment um I don't know if I have those numbers at my disposal but I would say the top of the embankment is about 928 and2 ft and under a pmf flood the water surface elevation is about 923 and a half so there's 5 feet of freeboard at the pmf from the
500e flood I believe the 500 year is 922 and a half and the 100e flood is 921 A5 so you're talking 7 feet of freeboard at the 100-year flood event so Mr chair and Mr dods ultimately the the purpose behind the recommendation is essentially a damn saf yep
okay yeah I guess maybe just to add on to that I'm not sure how much this goes into detail but the DNR I think recommended this because of that you know what if the dam would ever breach um the breach analysis that was conducted concluded that if there was ever a breach the water would dissipate both velocity wise and and depthwise within a quarter mile and so I think
that was why they stuck at that quarter mile recommendation we've had at least one solar panel array that we've talked about in the last couple years but I don't remember how far way we place them yeah Mr chair that's pretty much almost right up on the dry side of of the dam and I think at that time that's something we had consulted with the conversion Authority about to to
see if there' be any issues with that and just judging by the fact that it's just kind of solar panels elevated a little bit there wasn't any any issues at at the time with that just on I can add a comment on that as well we've been approached by a solar farm developer in wilin County just south of the County Line and they are planning to build a solar array um basically
right where that yellow bar kind of turns and makes a jog to the east just kitty corner Southwest of that um there's a solar farm being planned in that location and we were able to coordinate with them to make sure that their panels were high enough to stay out of sort of Harm's Way of the flood and their control boxes would be high enough and things so that was an area that's actually in one of our flow ad gments but we felt like it was much like a utility pole or a power
pole it was acceptable at certain elevations and um Mr chair and Mr dods is there any recommendation for the county to do any zoning on the the wet side of the dam at all or is that essentially with the flow ad gments in place um when they are in
place place would that essentially restrict any development yes so in that location the flow ad easements a little bit hard to tell I'm seeing if I got a better map in here but the flow ad easements in Clay County are what we classify as Zone one which zone one is our most restrictive flow adment and it prohibits any development it prohibits any existing structures or any development um and so
I think the easement itself should restrict development um obviously the diversion Authority or the MCC jpa is the easement holder and so we have some obligations to enforce enforce those easements um there are other easements that do allow some development and for example in wilin County we've been in contact with the zoning flood plane administrator down there and
and um had some good back and forth so as she's reviewing development application she knows what her rules are and we've got a you know connection where she'll call and ask us if it's in compliant with our flow ad gement so I think there is probably in Clay County again our flow adment restricts any development so that might be sufficient I could see from a Planning and Zoning standpoint if you wanted to take some other consideration
that maybe that's a belts and suspenders but anybody else have any questions or comments for Matt or Eric thank you for coming in it was very informative thanks
yes so so Mr chair and Commissioners I was just think you know tonight was just kind of a informative um kind of session for you all just to kind of understand where the Project's at and and
maybe some potential impacts on on the Minnesota side uh as well as some potential action that the the county could take in terms of zoning in the future um and just question for you all is this something that you'd want to maybe consider further discussion on in the future um we absolutely can do that I think it we definitely should have something in place
sooner rather than later yeah one one thing that I could I could prepare to for you is just kind of a looking at um maybe a potential development buildout scenario for residential development in this quarter mile um just to see if there wasn't anything in place how many residences could potentially be constructed in in the future just in terms of our our
our density limits and things like that as well as what's currently um there I think as Eric mentioned I think there's only three houses right now kind of in that in that buffer um also you know considering some other questions about um looking at what other jurisdictions have done um sounds like no one's gone the full quarter mile um so there's some options
there uh and then options for um other types of development as well and I was thinking why would we do the bare minimum I was thinking well wouldn't a half a mile be better for a Housing Development you're putting 50 homes in there then 900 yards is better than 400 yards well yeah that that's a discussion that could be had
as well yep okay thank you okay hearing nothing further are you we okay to move on Matt yes Mr chair um like to uh look for a motion to open a public the public hearing to discuss the Clay County Land Development ordinance so moved motion by Ashley second by Sebastian all those in favor say I opposed motion
is carried uh public hearing is open thank you Mr chair see got find the most all right so in December we had gone through our um uh development code chapters or development ordinance chapters 1 through four uh certainly open to any discussion um on those chapters as well this doesn't have to be limited to to
Chapters 5 through 8 just now that you all have may had had some more time to review uh some of those chapters if there's anything that you want to um discuss further again just a reminder um those chapters are covering kind of the purpose of the ordinance uh defining what development is uh non-conformities and the establishment of zoning districts chapter 2 covering our base zoning districts so we have four base
zoning districts in the county we have agricultural General our agricultural service center limited Highway commercial and Highway commercial uh and then our overlay zoning districts um this would include all the resource protection zoning districts as well as our our flood Hazard areas and Shoreland zoning districts uh I had um mentioned this before in the past but the the state will need to review both the FL
change to the flood Hazard or the flood plane ordinance and the Shoreland ordinance um and so that will be uh taking place here in the near future uh I don't foresee any huge um issues with either of those reviews because kind of our intent with amending those two specifically those two um uh parts of the ordinance was to make them more in line with the state
Shoreland and state flood plane rules so they should actually be more in line with when with with them and the state has provided pretty good model ordinances to to follow for those uh feed Lots is the other one that the state needs to review and again that has been modified to essentially um reflect um what's in Minnesota rules and statute for feed Lots as well again in in
in chapter 4 too with uh this is probably our biggest chapter having the the use table which looks at what uses are allowed by zoning district and then different use regulations for different types of development um it's probably the lengthiest chapter uh looking at agricultural residential commercial industrial recreational Public Service utility accessory temporary uses so some changes to our like renewable uh
energy ordinance which includes wind and solar used to be in that was adopted in 2018 that was a standalone ordinance um have has that's now been kind of folded into uh the Land Development ordinance as well uh and then some other big changes just to remind you there with um one that you as a board hear a lot about is or here make a lot of
decisions on is the interim use permits for a second dwelling on a parcel and so allowing for a um accessory dwelling unit um those that was kind of the other other big one um change there any is there anything uh any questions or concerns from anyone on chapters 1 through 4 I don't think this would be your last
opportunity to if you uh go home and in the coming coming weeks are reviewing something and have a concern you can definitely uh contact me and I can bring that um to to the board yes yes I think we should have a public hearing on the on the full
yep yes yep and I would say that in terms of where we're at with this draft is it's essentially completed and just really looking for comments and and input on on that and so maybe that's a good reminder for me to kind of kind of back up um we can certainly have that public Hearing in
in in February I know there's been some interest of the board to have a uh work session on the ordinance as well and that's up to the board chair commissioner Uh Kevin Campbell if he wants to call that um where the board will kind of Workshop the the ordinance not in the at at their regular board meeting but that's open as well to the um to the public or to to planning Commissioners to attend um have you have
we already passed a deadline to have a public hearing at the Planning Commission for February no no um that's coming up though yeah yep but if you think that that's a good time to have that we certainly can um we could also wait until March and let some of the um comments come back from the uh State on some of those other that probably be a better that might be a better idea get all those comments
yep uh and then also any comments that come out of a work session if that were to happen yeah yep uh and then uh after a Planning Commission uh public hearing then it would go to the board the board can have one or as many public hearings on um the ordinance as they they see fit all right um with that that
I can jump into chapter five uh development standards and I'll just kind of walk through this um memo that I had sent out to you all just because it kind of highlights the biggest um the biggest changes uh we do also have we are tracking all these all the all the changes that are would be key changes uh in a spreadsheet as well well
and it just gets into a lot more more detail um probably the biggest thing for or one of the big things in chapter 5 for de development standards is that in our code right now we have a provision about lot setback averaging and so with lot setback averaging essentially how that works and I can try and find a
good uh example of it maybe is you can you would be able to say a um Road setback is 125 ft and your neighbor has a house at 100 feet um your next door neighbor has their house at 100 feet and the neighbor on the other side of you has their house at uh 90 ft from
the center line of the road you could take the average of that um 100 feet 90 ft and that would be your setback for uh building it wouldn't be 125 uh we're suggesting removing that I don't know what you think uh the kind of the rationale behind that is it kind of perpetuates non-conformities it's something that's used in cities quite a
bit um not really in counties um I personally could take it or leave it I don't I don't think that there's um any harm in in keeping it because usually the differences are so minor um I just want to get your thoughts on that if if we get rid of it could they still come to the board of adjustment and get a variance on that
yes now I support removing the averaging portion of it and keeping at 125 because we we do see on the board of adjustments and here where people they could use that as an argument um sure but it like to get things to conform I should say that from like in in if you're on a lake for example
um and you have a neighbor in the same situation where the the setback is 150 ft from from the lake and your neighbors at 100 feet and your other neighbors at 90 ft that would you could still build you could use that to build closer to the lake that's that's in the state Shoreland rules uh the other thing that and I can he maybe I can just go to it show you is we tried to combine all
of the development standards these are just the general standards that might not apply to um these are for our base zoning districts like egg General that's like 80% of the county um all the development standards into one table and so the the goal here is to to have this just be um very AC More accessible as opposed to just writing it out in more of a narrative format um getting all your setbacks minimum lot
areas uh what kind of subdivisions could be could be done um as well the one comment that I had on here is is um we currently don't have um a minimum lot area for Highway commercial and limited Highway commercial districts here there was a proposing a minimum lot area of 1 acre
um the only time where I could maybe see that being an issue is if someone wanted to do a um common interest community and a common interest Community would be something like a shop condo um where your lot is basically part of a building and then you would not you would never have that would be a crazy shop condo if every unit in the
shop condo was an acre in size so that's might be somewhere where a minimum of an acre could be M kind of seems maybe a little arbitrary but uh I did want to get your thoughts on on that I I think there's other standards that would make if we do get rid of if we go back to having zero minimum on that there's other standards there that would make that lot for parking and
stuff like that that would make that that lot at a size conforming to the building that's on there correct I mean yep correct and there could be a it could be something as simple as if you're doing like a common interest Community or something like that you're uh exempt from that because you're also probably not going to be able to have a minimum lot width of 100 fet as well um that's just a very specific example but I just know it's something that uh um has been proposed in
um Clay County before um and it's just becoming a more popular model of development I I would personally leave that is not having a size there on what there's other standards there that can make that lot bigger smaller okay
would that be similar to like a PUD it could be but with a PUD you can essentially with a with a PUD um and we don't have really anything for puds right now except in Shoreland but with a PUD you could basically deviate from um allowed uses allowed um and other
standards uh basically in exchange for doing other sorts of um I I don't want to call them concessions but you might do additional things um that would allow you to to to do that and that's how a lot of mixed use development gets done in in urban areas um say like a PUD you could have um you wouldn't be able that you could say with a PUD um get
not adhere to a minimum lot area or a minimum lot width or um anything like that but as part of your development you might have to have like additional screening you might have to have additional open space for example you might have to have some architectural um design standards for your construction um so there's it allows for more flexibility in development but
there's usually a development agreement that would that would take place between the the local jurisdiction in this case Clay County and and the developer does that answer your question okay um for County roadway access standards that is a large part of the um chapter uh
basically it was essentially updated to fulfill to um was pretty minor updates we uh our County engineer Justin sorm and I did take this to our Highway tracking uh committee so that's a committee that basically is made up of two Commissioners and um staff and they review um uh matters related to the the county road system and I don't think we had any major up updates to it just clarifying some some um language
and I don't know Justin if you have any comments at all on on it not really we just had to in the past kind of reference two different documents so it's just kind of cleaning it up and putting it in one spot yeah there was at one point there was a county county um roadway access policy and then there was also what was in our code and there was just some discrepancies between the to and
though that's kind of been reconciled here uh there's been some updates to parking and loading standards um get through this so I think the big thing with this is that if you ever have concerns about
parking with a use that's um coming before you um you would have the authority then now it says in here you can um you can um require a a parking study to be done and with with parking I don't think that's something this is something that's more common in um in uh municipalities or urban areas but it's something that could definitely come up so and there is
kind of a a a table that shows kind of the minimum parking spaces for different types of of land uses uh one of the other bigger changes in this section relates to signs um so some language in here that's essentially that um stating that you
know the county is not regulating content of signs um with in terms of the First Amendment rights and things like that um there are some signs though that we would prohibit um like something that's illegal um something that's sexual in nature something that's made to look like an official traffic sign um signs that are video um thinking signs that would
maybe um be a a health or a safety hazard essentially the big thing with signs is changing the setbacks um we're looking at at changing the setbacks to 10 ft off the right of way of public roads uh right now our sign setbacks are the same as structure setbacks which kind of defeats the purpose of having a sign if you're if you're going to have a sign if your sign
needs to be 125 ft off the road oh no one's going to see it and they might and if they do they're probably going to crash their car trying to Crane in their neck trying to look at it um so making that more reasonable while ensuring that they stay out of the RightWay uh also allowing for some um off premise signs um right now we don't allow any off premise signs in Clay County
um but allowing for there's some there's businesses that and this is this is common in other counties in Minnesota as well where a business might want to have a sign that you know show because they're not they're not on the main highway or something like that this would anof premise sign would allow people to see kind of where to turn for their business so almost more directional in nature not necessarily advertising um excuse me uh the there are some um
ex um exemptions to this or exceptions to this uh would be that um along state roads these would not be permitted just because they're the the road authority um unless they meet their their requirements uh Billboards uh allowing them as a conditional use in our um Highway commercial districts and some standards for that as well uh
and then any questions on signs at at all are you following State rules on those billboard on the setbacks and all that yes y oh the final um section that's new in development standards is um the requirement for just site plans um detailed site
plans if you're submitting a permanent application it should contain um these features if applicable uh the whole purpose of that I think is to give you um or whether it be uh myself looking at a development permit for a new building or whether a um applicant submits application for a use permit before the Planning Commission uh just ensuring
that you have um the applicant provides uh all the information that you need to make an informed decision I think some this is something that's kind of maybe been lacking in the past um just kind of the absence of a detailed site plan and I think it would help you all immensely to have have that um so just making it a requirement in um the ordinance is kind of the easiest way to to ensure that that that happens
and this is this is um also reiterated um in chapter 4 as well uh for the different types of um uses that would come before you whether it be um a commercial use or an industrial use or something of that nature so this is it's kind of a little repetitive but just kind of want to make sure that yeah this isn't an important
thing that needs to accompany an an application Mr chair and Matt could go back just a little bit uh Highway commercial and limited Highway commercial you have a map that actually shows where that is yes and my question is any changes in that does that mesh with the Cannabis is production and grow can only happen in those areas right correct does that affect that at all what you already have in place um
it it it wouldn't contradict it at all wouldn't no so the yellow here is showing is just shows all of the cities in the county um the green is our Highway commercial so there's some outside of Holly and then kind of along the highway 10 quarter um there is some as well
kind of around the city of Morehead um and then on 75 uh limit there's some this darker green is that limited Highway commercial so there is some limited Highway commercial um just south of of Dilworth and and southeast of Dilworth and uh east of of Morehead okay and then there's also Highway commercial with in the city of
Downer so not a whole lot of Highway commercial in County any other any questions on chapter 5 concern
comments okay chapter 6 and chapter 7 okay we'll start with chapter six is subdivisions um so this uh chapter um has gone through the um a group of Staff who deals with all the land records um related matters in in Clay County County so
the auditor's office our GIS and Communications um our assessor's office and then um recorder's office as well so they've all reviewed and and provided comments on this um this chapter as well as the um following chapter uh will also looking at having them uh reviewed um by uh a land use attorney um just because they think can get complicated with subdivisions and
also with Administration and um procedures so um we looking at a land use attorney to be um outside of they've it's been reviewed by our county attorney's office but then also um who's done a fantastic job of reviewing it um but just having a second set eyes uh with a a firm that's solely almost focused on zoning and land use have you sent it already off to them to look at it have not sent that yet they are the firm that puts on
all of the the land use trainings essentially for yep that' be good uh for so we just did some some terminology changes um what what the major subdivision planting process is required for in the major subdivision planting process is that process where a plat would become come before the planning commission and then go to the board for for approval
um also added some just updates so we're in compliance with Minnesota statutes 505 and 519b 519b is the common interest communities statute um do want to uh ask for a point of discussion is right now in Clay County before any can be done in terms of um before the county in terms of platting
if there's going to be new RightWay it can't be a private road it has to be a public road typically the township has to adopt that road um what we currently have in our current code and in our proposed code is that there's Township approval and maintenance agreements required for the platting of a new public right of way um and I am just wondering if um we should maybe broaden that a little bit to just
Township pre-approval because a Township does have every right to deny a plat and if they were able to get that at the front end um as opposed to going through the process only to have the township not sign off on the plat might save a lot of time and effort um the reason why I bring that up is um there are statutory requirements in in 505 that basically says that a board so the County Board in this case cannot approve any plat of land lying in
a town which is appointed a Planning and Zoning commission unless the town board approves the plat and the laying of streets and other public ways shown in it this approval shall be endorsed on the plat and signed by the chair of the Town board not every Township has a Planning and Zoning commission um a a few do but not every single Township has that and so my thought is as opposed to just just make it a kind of blanket cuz every Township does have to does ultimately have to
sign off on a on a plat and that would put our code in compliance with State Statute and then also would give the developer the opportunity to go or the township the opportunity to um hear about this plat on the front end as opposed to sometimes on the back end that's sometimes that happens and um
I think it would just save developers time as well I also think townships would like would want that yes I would agree yeah and the township should have it first y okay talk to your lgus before you do anything else yep okay so that's something we can tweak to yeah that's that's an easy tweak that was kind of the main um
topic that I wanted to or point that I wanted to discuss there so Al for chapter any other questions on subdivisions okay for chapter 7 um Administration and procedures so chapter 7 essentially um is what kind of defin
the the roles um and procedures for permitting and for land use decisions in the county so starting with the zoning administrator um so what our myself and our staff what our Duties are uh the County Board the Planning Commission the board of adjustment uh defining what a development permit is um uh variances in the variance process conditional use permits interim use permits uh text amendments zoning map
amendments appeals and then violations penalties and enforcement uh of any zoning infractions and so with this um we also talk about uh one thing that I wanted to make clear here uh is that the Planning Commission would be making uh environmental impact statement needs decisions and environmental impact statement adequa adequacy decisions uh that's how in in my review of how
these decisions have been made in the past um that's how it's been done but it's not in our code um so bringing that into into our code uh that's something that I want to check with that um the that attorney on just to make sure that that's correct also some changes to our appeals process um making them more clear because it's currently not very clear in our current code our current ordinance um just for use permit decisions made
by a Planning Commission um the applicant could appeal to the Board of Commissioners and then any other AG grieved party appe appealing to district court on that as opposed to going to to the um board uh the exception of that well I shouldn't say the exception um for any decision that's made by the board of adjustment uh the board of adjustment is a final they have final say
on variances so if someone wants to appeal a decision by the board of adjustment on a variance they go right to District Court um there's no Avenue to go to the board do you want to spell that out in this it is yep okay yep uh and then just a section just a new section just uh establishing that right to appeal and clarifying that appeal process and who reviews it uh the other change would be more specific
action enforcement actions for violations so looking at like administrative penalties and fines uh I know that this is something that the Planning Commission has talked about a lot uh espe especially with some of our more um uh maybe intrusive land uses or more um visible land uses and um some permit condition violations that have happened in the the past so this essentially
doesn't set like a fee schedule or anything like that but it gives the County Board kind of the framework for um determining what that uh what the administration uh or administrative penalties and fines policy would look like uh and then also um there is some ambiguity in with use permits and violation of conditions um
technically for an interim use permit for example if there's one violation of a condition um the board the the Planning Commission can revoke have a hearing to revoke the permit um that oftentimes does not give the U permit holder an opportunity or the ability to rectify try and rectify the violation um so a thought
here um was to kind of do a three strikes rule with violations giving people three chances to rectify a violation and if not then it would go before the Planning Commission uh to make a decision on um permit revocation potentially one of the benefits to that is um it gives permit holders the opportunity to to correct correct um these violations um
but also if they are not corrected it gives you as a Planning Commission a kind of a history of how that permit hold of that permit holders um actions um and would hopefully help make you all make a better decision um on the status of that permit staff would work with the applicant on those uh establishing what the condition they're
failing to meet and then working with correcting it and if they don't then there would be violation after violation after violation yes yep until the point where it would automatically trigger trigger to come back y right yep as opposed to it just being at kind of the discretion of staff to do there's something in the code that says okay we've reached this threshold now that's going to trigger you coming before the Planning Commission to have a hearing on the step status of your permit
Mr chair and that um kind of along with commissioner be's question these first second and third violations is there a schedule is there is it all negotiable or is there like first violation there's a cost involved or a penalty involved or you just give them three chances that's something that would have to be probably um developed in policy by the board in that that administrative
um penalties and fines they certainly could they might be able to do that that's something that I also would like to talk with the um uh land use attorney about um because when you start assessing monetary um penalties to permit violations um that's something I that I would want to be absolutely sure that that we can do that like for example state agencies can do that yeah um but it's not very clear if or like
your Municipal municipalities can do that um but it's not entirely clear if counties are able to do that or if the process is just the permit revocation that's and that's the only process nice to have it in writing what the process is if they come into the first or second violation before they get yeah and it's typically would be like a third you have so many days to correct this violation and if you haven't done it then it would maybe even constitute say it's a first
violation and they have 30 days to correct it or they have two weeks to correct it whatever it it should vary a little bit because some things are um like dust control for example not being applied um that might be different than um a condition about Reclamation something that might take a little bit longer to actually do and so um if they have a first violation and then a certain amount of time lapses and
they have not fixed it that could be the second violation yep and my and my question on that so would that need to come to the board for the first strike or would staff you know so so it's in public record so it's in writing who determines I mean is there mean does it have to come to the board to be a first strike and a second strike I would determine that I think yeah we would determine that and then at after
if if it did come to the Planning Commission for that public hearing um those three violations would be presented the Planning Commission could ultimately make a final determination and say well no no that wasn't actually we don't think that actually was a violation okay and any administrative decision that's that's made I should note to this is in our current code but any Administration decision that's made in
terms of approving a permit denying a permit um or making a decision on um correcting a violation the applicant always has or the permit holder applicant whoever it might be excuse me always has a right to due process and that due process right is through the board of adjustment the board of adjustment handles appeals of administrative decisions so
there is a body that if they say no that wasn't a violation there is a body that can hear that it's like if I'm get if I uh get a speeding ticket and I want to contest it to court in court that yeah and by putting it in writing here if there's a new planning director and a whole new board here we have something to go off yep it and it just makes it very clear for everyone yeah all right any
other questions on that chapter uh the final chapter is definitions um essentially it's an attempt to Define everything of that would be noteworthy or in in the um in the ordinance I have one to add there you have one for is wind brakes or shelter belts add the other the opposite one in
there I think you have shelter belts as a definition I don't think you have wind breaks and them both yeah make sure both of them because we because they're both talked about yeah and that's something we we did talk about um yeah yeah so shelter I don't think wind breakes is in there no that in there because I know there's different setbacks to wind breaks and shelter break shelter
um one item for dis potential discussion here or two actually items um is with the definitions um with the renewable energy definitions the feed lot definitions the Shoreland definitions and the flood plane within each of those sections um there are
there are definitions in there as well and when we can we have just left those definitions in those sections um couple reasons for that one is um especially for Shoreland and flood plane um it'd be nice to be able to just take those out uh when there ever there's those are two the flood flood plane and Shoreland are two I say
zoning districts um where people want to find that information and that information only and they want everything that pertains to it to flood Plaines and Shoreland in one section yeah so that was a thought there um also they have specific meanings the term terminology might have a specific meaning just relative to Shoreland or relative to flood planes so the thought was to keep some of
those separate um we also just did that for the renewable energy um and then feed Lots as well as especially with feed Lots there's very specific definitions too that would apply only to to feed lots and same with that uh where we could we just um referenced in like the in this chapter um say you wanted to find something about flood plane we just put
flood flood flood and related terms see this section that's where the definitions are going to be for flood and related terms that's kind of how we and I just want to get your thoughts on that would you prefer that or would you prefer to see just all the definitions in the definitions section could yeah we could do it in both um we did in the the rules the first section in this
um just did make note that um there are these definitions are in other sections too just to make that clear and i would support the way you have it so you it's quite overwhelming the definition that you have already and now throwing those four groups in there in addition to you know a lot
of hunting and yeah more efficient um the other thing that um the plan consultant suggested that we just decided to do is every term that has a that is defined in the ordinance is capitalized throughout the ordinance so if it's capitalized you know that if it's capitalized and it's not like a um um what's word I'm looking for proper
noun it's been a while since English um uh it's going to be in one of the definition sections and I know that did cause some confusion like when our County Recorder was reviewing the subdivision section um she was uh sending me some me messages and um saying you know like who wrote this is this there's some grammar issues going on here and it's CU I didn't explain
to her that the um defined words were capitalized so do we have that mentioned in every chapter at the beginning of every chapter stating that I don't believe so it should be I think it's mentioned somewhere but it needs to be clear yeah yeah otherwise everybody's going to look at well look at Klay County and their grammar mistakes in this yeah that's true yeah yeah as long
as it's present and it's very that that is what yeah I definitely will put it here and put it at the beginning as well yeah maybe and maybe every chapter every chapter because if you're only going to one chapter to look yep it's been I don't know it's kind of it's maybe a little too
could be a little too complicated maybe a different font on those words yeah I don't yeah that might be italicize them or right yeah I don't know or yeah or just leave them as is don't do anything with them don't capitalize yeah I don't don't yeah maybe the font thing or nothing and let people go hunting yeah yeah ask ask the
attorneys on land use they maybe' come across what they do with that you could also ask Erica what she thinks about that yeah yeah yeah it's a lot of work to go through and easy to miss some to so maybe maybe just leave them all standard and then we don't miss any of them yeah then we don't worry about it y then we don't have to notice on
every y chapter yep that's probably better now you got to make sure to change them back that you don't miss any yeah that's true how far how far are you 50% what really much all the way it be easier to be it'd be easier to go back and just grab the ones that haven't been capitalized yeah that haven't been that haven't been at this point at this point so maybe maybe you du to that route yeah might just have to leave them at this point yeah leave that up to you
guys staff can decide what to do sounds good all right any other questions on this chapter or any other chapters um yeah this won't be the last opportunity but now we kind of have a full draft that's out there um I've had a couple opportunities to review and um yeah in March I think now this will give
you all if we have a set a public hearing hearing date for it would be March 18th I think that would give ample time for for review as long as the attorneys get back to you i' I'd hold off and yeah Mr chair and Matt I like the fact
that you're making it as easy as possible for someone to come in and find it look at it see it understand it um I don't I've never had a search through pages and pages but whatever you can do to make it simpler easier to find is I think a great great thing to do yeah and that's one of the whole goals too is just to I mean just by their very nature there's they're going to be complicated but to
try and make them as access accessible as possible I think is is key uh one thing I should note too and I have to give kudos to our GIS and communications director Mark Sloan on this is we're um moving the um company that does our codification so the codification of the entire county code um will be going to a new platform form and when that
happens um it will be integrated into um the little search bar here on the Clay County website so if you're searching for something like building setbacks or something like that um the code relevant sections of the code should pop up in your search results and that currently does not happen and I think that'll make things a
lot easier for folks as well chair and Matt can I back up to Administration and procedures yes for a second the three violations how many violations do you guys get a month it depends on this on the year or on the season really okay um I would say currently for it depend and it also depends on if it's a just a building
permit violation or if it's a use permit like a a violation of a condition of a use permit um there are some depending on the use where we could go out and do an inspection uh at one um site and find five plus violations at one location sure okay I was just wondering you know I kind of go back to I don't know who mentioned it I
don't know if it was Dave or Joel not bringing these issues each time there's a violation but just letting us know hey there's a violation this is what we're doing this is the timeline like at each one of our meetings just so we know so we're aware so if somebody comes you know within our area and says hey we put this in we don't know what's going on with it it would just be kind of a nice tidbit it could be a 5 minutes before you know in our meeting so we know what's active out there but we're not acting on it
until strike three sure no I think that's that's a very um good idea commissioner hang um it's something we could we could do is we could at each meeting just give you some stats on on violations and not just limited to use permits but building permits and everything like the like so just a quick one I don't want to add to any you know I don't want to add any it's something we'd be retracking anyway so y maybe just put something in the
packet in of it's not on the agenda yeah yep yep then we aware and um yeah could do that could also do um and this is maybe getting a little off topic but also stats on just um building permits too by Township or yeah put it in the packet yep
all right I don't know Mr chair if there's anyone I don't think there's anyone online but there might be folks in the audience too who might have some comments on our um we did send notice out to all the townships and then all the cities in Clay County too and we
will do so for the next meeting as well is there anyone in the audience that wishes to speak U please come to the podium and state your name for the record please it looks like it's on uh hello my name is uh Matt racel I'm with uh Morehead Township um so yeah we got this letter just saying that we're going to this is going to be discussed tonight so very interesting discussion um there's just
some notes in here I think they must be on chapters 1 through 4 and I just had um a couple of really quick questions the first one it talks about these accessory dwelling units is there like a specific definition of what those are is there like a a size limit is there you know can it be just a a trailer you throw down is there you know I'm just wondering what what counts is that
yeah um that's a great question so in the definition it's a separate complete housekeeping unit with a kitchen sleeping area and full bathroom facilities located as on the same lot as a single family dwelling um in terms of what the standards would be let me open that up here
so some general standards just being that it be one per lot um have a minimum size of 150 square ft uh has to be detached must not surpass 75% of the principal dwelling has to be on a permanent foundation um there's some placement considerations um septic
um and that's essentially kind of okay so it's not not a tent not a camper just thrown up there it's a little more permanent yep it has to be on a permanent foundation yep all right very good um and then the other question I had is mentions that you know for certain structures you know there's a limit with a foundation and a limit without uh um that uh let's see
there would be no permit required which is fantastic I love that idea my only question with that um I was thinking about it when we're talking about setbacks from the road is how would we ensure or how would it be ensured then that those meet those requirements you know if there's no permit at all is there some kind of mechanism is there like a quick check that has to be done to make sure that they're at least meeting those setback requirements yeah Mr chair and um that's that that's
where it can get a little tricky um the only thing that we have in there to make it that enforceable is that there is a clause that essentially says that all accessory structures must meet the required setbacks okay um so if there is something that does not and it cannot be re cannot be moved um then it would be essentially treated as um well you have to move it you could try for an after Thea VAR that those would kind of be the the options for that so they wouldn't be
exempt from the setbacks per se they still have to it's it there's language in there that would State they have to meet the setbacks okay all right very good that's all I had for questions thank you is there anybody else in the audience that wishes to speak on this matter one more time anybody else in the audience wish to speak on this matter I'm hearing none look for
a motion to close the public hearing I'll move second uh motion by Ezra seconded by Ashley all those in favor say I I opposed motion is carried thank you that was uh good discussion lots of information unfinished business um no one finished business okay and on to new business I guess this maybe could have been unfinished business because we have talked about it a
couple times now but um just uh again reiterating that we're having our election of officers at our February 18th meeting um so I haven't seen anyone campaigning actively for that I haven't seen any signs um I haven't got any phone calls um so just know that that's that's coming um and then uh Brad your first term ends uh in February so we can talk if you want
to give it another 3 years or not and um go through that appointment process again but you will that's all the new business that I had thank you uh and again the the next meeting is February 18th where we will elect
officers um anybody else have any else to bring before the board hearing none look for a motion to close the meeting so moved mot Sebastian second by Ashley all those in favor say I I opposed motion is carried meeting is closed thanks everyone for