how are you doing all right great uh with that uh it is 5:15 we will call this meeting of the grand meray maray Planning Commission to order um right now we have our Quorum
here this evening we have uh two Commissioners with us we've got Ben and we have Stacy so we will begin our proceedings with that um but absent will be uh Brandon and Anton today uh we have our consent agenda
before us um make motion to approve the okay there we go thank you very much all right all those in favor I I great passing on so now we have our first hearing which is the conditional use
request um is Alexander here perhaps uh would you mind coming forward to the microphone here either side I suppose would be fine thank you um and can you state your name for the viewing audience sure my name is
Alexander BB Jud okay great thank you um we have your conditional use permit before us here we've gone through that I'm sure everybody knows the location that's been there and all that kind of thing um Commissioners do you have any questions for and do you go by Alexander
or Alex or in formal settings Alexander is very appropriate thanks for asking very good very good um I mean I know that I do go ahead okay so um the question that I have is about so you're
moving from U monthly rental to shortterm right so the the big picture is there two structures on the property right um one is a 670t twostory um accommodation that's the proposed r
the other one is about a 650 ft uh one level uh structure that um we plan on continuing to occupy year round so um the proposed rental from what I know has intermittently been used by the previous
owner as a long-term rental maybe 6 to 12 months at a time I'm not certain that it's ever been occupied all 12 months out of the year on a rental basis but the previous owner from what I know did have someone there for several months okay so you've taken
uh possession of this property recently is that yeah May uh miday this okay yep very good very good so you would be moving but but again it would be moving this from something like longish stay to Short Stay correct sure and right now
you know since May 17th when we close it's we've been living in both houses okay you want to include that portion it would be going from portion of our residence got it going into the nightly short-term rental got it and so as you've stated you're living in the other
correct residence there okay great great thank you um those were my questions um okay so I went to the property today and looked around
um the proposed rental are you doing any remodeling of these so the the big picture um from the application we submitted you know there's a question about how that might affect the this proposal might affect the neighborhood in terms of construction or expansion
we're not changing anything we're not adding anything um outside of some minor cosmetic upgrades to the interior of both uh structures and in the proposed rental then how many bedrooms are in that that's a great question so I think
it's characterized as a single family structure um from a lay person's perspective I would characterize it as a studio or one-bedroom apartment setup um it's got a ground level room that's about 11 by 20 ft um a 3/4 bath and then
the upstairs bedroom is more of a loft that's accessed by a rather steep ship ladder so it's not something that's easily easily utilized by everyone um with the bedroom upstairs so it's all in all it's two rooms a 3/4 bath and a very
small Galley or kitchen set up with minimal uh appliances and such okay and in the primary residence how many bedrooms are in that two bedrooms a kitchen full bath and a
living area gotcha and when I went by today I there was a vehicle like where parked there but it looked like the parking two would block the second door into the sure so this this diagram it
would it would appear that way the definition of a parking spot I think was 20 ft by 99 ft right is the general yeah that's the requirement yeah the dimensions of a parking space and we have certainly have that so both yellow
blocks are at least 20 ft by 9 ft um the vehicle that was parked there today um wasn't parked in a way that would share but we could go out there it's just a couple blocks away I got a tape measure my truck and we could walk it out um before today I took the time to make
sure that we fell within the dimensional requirements for a parking space and then there was a vehicle parked right here in the alleyway that looked like it was for the primary resident yeah so right now we're getting some Plumbing work done so that was likely a service truck that was parked next to the
basement access to transport heavy equipment and such so you're not planning that as being one of your parking noes that's considered part of the alleyway it's the roadway which is a city roadway and you can't park in it or block it although we have had people do that in the past right well and that's
what would be one of my concerns that we have enough parking here um and that Alleyway is not in very good shape yeah I going up elaborate more on the parking issue um we're very sensitive to the alleyway and how it's utilized our front
door is on the alleyway so unlike the properties that surround us whether they're a long-term renter uh year- round owner occupied seasonal short-term whatever you um everybody has a front door on a regular street so our front door is on an Alleyway it's our only way
in and out um often times we have to back out of our space around a corner 90° turn and continue on to First Avenue because it's been blocked and we can't access and utilize the alleyway as it's intended so
we're sensitive to that part of our marketing and description of property used by a short-term rental guest would in clear excuse me include clear parking instructions um we're also not intending to operate this short-term rental during the winter months um the alleyway even
though it is a city roadway isn't maintained that I know of so snow removal I don't think occurs on a a public level so that would be another thing for you know to consider but we don't plan on utilizing this in the winter when snow would be an issue and
we are very sensitive to the alleyway and how it's used and would ensure that our guests whether they're through the shirt torm rental or our personal guest would respect the RightWay for sure great thank you for that there's
multiple private people plowing in the alley right now two at least down at the bottom and then one at the top uh maybe two at the top even uh just about everybody on this alley accesses their property for one reason or another and it is a little bit tricky to go from the
bottom to the top but it's easy to access down here anyway at the bottom it's pretty flat yeah and what do we we require for parking I know other places we've talked about making short-term rentals we have
a parking minimum what is it for we don't require parking in this Zone uh but we generally have that conversation when we talk about short-term rentals so uh I mean it's it's your decision on how many you think is reasonable for the
property like I totally agree that you can fit two cars in there if you look at the County's uh mapping of the property there is a car parked at an angle in there and you can see how it' be pretty easy to put another one in if you were thoughtful about it it's not roomy but
there's two spots there yeah well it looked pretty crowded to me and um I'm then this goes to one of the suggestions that were was brought up at a previous meeting about survey and making sure we're not crossing over onto
neighbors properties so are did somebody go out and measure cuz I just stood out there like this like H how many feet is that I didn't bring my tap measure so I'm just wondering are we sure that this box that
is shown here is and and right and you're talking about the parking space off the South Side well yeah it just didn't look like there was a whole lot of space there and there was stuff and maybe it's the neighbor stuff that's over this the line I'm just I didn't
know but that those were my concerns about it just being a crowded spot back there we did get a written comment today did folks get that sent to them yeah from an Posas yeah yeah did we get any other comments I didn't see any other
comments go ahead man yeah I don't have any questions um I drove it today as well looked at it I was surprised to see the only access off the alley right I I just said didn't wasn't expecting that but um the area certainly is uh it it it
fits it fits the area there's plenty of of of small businesses around there and that's what we're talking about and um I think it makes sense you can you can certainly the the van the vehicle was a van there today and it was a larger van and I felt like I could Burk my larger
truck next to it and still be out of the alley I would have been right up against the door well that's it but that's not my problem right like like they you can park two vehicles there well that's makes me think okay that's what it would take to get that in is to be right next
to the building and who being somebody who's paying to come and visit is really going to want to do that right well you know I agree with you Stacy I think that that's more going to be you know as a
small business owner that's going to kind of be his his issue but if it wasn't and if it was just going to be a rental longer term we we had still the same situation right so like that isn't would that be as much of an issue then I
don't I don't know right so I think about it too that uh we don't require any parking here for residential use either because of the zone that it's in but obviously it generates the need for and is using some off street parking right now and the I don't expect that
the use is going to change dramatically just given the size of the unit that's being rented so I don't know that it would typically generate more parking demand than it currently does which isn't to say there won't be a time when somebody brings three cars there but I think that's probably true of anybody's
house in town or any other rental unit where there' be a few times when they just have more than we require them to yeah very good well we uh either commissioner want to
make a [Applause] motion or I could make a motion if you wish I would make a motion to approve this uh conditional use request I I do feel like the zone is appropriate uh for
this um I mean I prefer long-term rentals but I also understand that you know people need to make a living and living here is not easy it's not inexpensive um so I certainly see that
you know people need to do that um but uh and and I think you know the limited scope that we're hearing um I do think that the appropriate limited scope in terms of seasonality um and then the parking I mean he does have it even though it's
not required um in the zone um so I think there are lots of good reasons pointing to saying yes and mostly you know it is it is an approved use we do want to be able to keep our eyes on these things
but in general it is a permitted use so that would be my my motion I'll second okay motion as second all those since we talked about okay winter I mean you're saying you don't intend to operate it in the winter time but that doesn't mean
you won't ever intend to operate it in the winter time right that's a good question um I can maybe elaborate okay a little bit more if you have the time um my wife and I bought this in May because our long-term rental was sold and we got
the boot from that a little sooner than we had hoped so we pinched our pennies went the couch cushions looked in our cars and got everything we could together to buy these two units that were in an area that we could help subsidize our our mortgage right and and
and live so um I think as it relates to your question um we don't intend to at this time not occupy the primary residence while we're renting out the
other one short term um we don't necessarily like the idea of sharing our yard with short-term rentals for 365 days a year um and we recognize that the summer time and the fall is the time people want to come and visit so we look
forward to sharing our property with people for six months of the year and enjoying it the rest of the year we generally um take some time off from work in the winter too and we don't really ever intend right now to facilitate short-term rentals without
being the people there on site to do so okay we value our time in the winter um just like most of everybody here and we don't want to add more to our plate during the offseason so the short answer is we don't intend to that's our goal I think for the next five years um at a
minimum very good I was thinking that that's the sort of thing a person might put a condition in a resolution about but rather than tie their hands with some sort of limitation that seems reasonable you'd change your mind about in the future maybe just a comment about
how snow removal to access the parking is the responsibility of the owner something like that so then if they want to do it in the winter time there's a clear path for them to do so but there's also a little bit of responsibility that goes with it that seems
fair yeah so with with that it's not different than exists today but just writing it down might be right I mean it would be useful doing it anyway if that was the intention so but fair enough we can we can add that as a a condition but that still I think so I will add that to
my motion and I'll second that motion okay all those in favor I okay motion passes thank you Alexander thanks y be in front of the City Council next Wednesday sounds
good thank you Alexander all right moving on so we now have the Cook County real estate fund variance request before us how are you doing doing well good good good to see
you well back again uh talking about variances for this uh rebuilding uh we uh unfortunately got some bids in when we were looking at the underground parking and uh they were way over what uh were feasible for us to do
which caused us to reconsider our plans our plans are now to move the building further to the West take advantage of the shorter runs for the sewer and water lines which would minimize and reduce some of our costs uh by that uh we would
also eliminate the underground parking um we have enough room on on the site to provide the surface parking uh there's a parking lot and you have the plans uh you know showing all this uh that show a parking lot to the west and a parking lot to the East and parking additional
parking to the uh to the north also right um so the building is basically three-story uh there's some mechanical and other features down in a small portion of of the basement but it really is Not instrumental to to you know our
our discussion here today the the issue is really the uh uh the elevator that has to be included uh by not having um by having the elevator we need to make sure that we have the ability to put the Elevator Shaft in that is going to have
to go through the roof and if you see by the uh the elevation drawings the uh elevation to the bottom of the or the top of the facial board on the edges of the roof is 32t 7 in the elevation to
the top of the solar panels on the roof the highest point is 34' 4 in uh so we could build this building without a variance unfortunately to get that Elevator Shaft uh we have to put that uh additional box on top of the elevator
which brings it up to 37 ft4 in so a variance of 2' 4 in to get us uh um to complete the project as it's being designed right now that uh Elevator
Shaft protrusion is only 8 ft by 9 1/2 ft in size 76 Square ft uh uh unlikely to be visible from really any anywhere um you'd almost have to be at at the same elevation as the roof to see this
uh because if you're down in front of the building on the highway side you'd be looking up at an angle like this I mean you won't even see the solar panels or you won't see the roof at all I mean you're going to see the fascia and you're going to look right up to the sky
um so um with that I mean it's like this is this is our only option in and elevators are required for three-story buildings you know we we need a variance to uh yeah to do this project so uh right and we've
already given a variance haven't we well we given a variance for higher than for higher than this 40 ft and the building located further to the East and the appearance could have looked you know more more than 35 ft
well it would have been 40t it would have off of that back or off the east because it was 30 yeah 30 ft and 40 ft and or whatever I can't remember what 35 and 45 45 makes yeah
however yes we got there uh what we're asking is for is far less than what we asked for before uh you know and you know I I just don't know how you build a three-story Building without having an elevator you don't I mean it's you know required but uh you know I can't just
even imagine anybody wanting to move into a third floor apartment and move furniture uh up and down stairways uh to uh yeah yeah all right thanks I think this is a re reasonable request uh considering you
know what we're trying to do and we made every attempt to satisfy all the requirements I mean you can see are plans for storm water management that is going to you know direct storm water to a retention Basin and deal with uh all
those issues uh you know we're going to take and uh make sure we have enough uh area to uh provide the surface parking uh we're still going to have the amenities that we had proposed to do we're just going to shift those to the east side of the property rather than
the west side where they were going to be located before right um you know just going to be a little bit more uh economically feasible I mean these are challenging projects economically just because building costs uh you know as we
all know are are high in Cook County so uh you know trying to do our best to make sure that what we develop is a is a is a good project for the community that going to provide the needs that uh been identified and uh you know people will
be satisfied and happy to to to live there so yeah great thanks thanks Tim answer any questions you might have I might have a member of the public here yes looks like we may have a member of the public here yes and would the member
of the public like to make a comment at this time that you I just read to learn oh okay great thanks to find out what the was going on over there all right property not that far away from there and I'm not here to protest anything okay all right thanks Becky questions or
like compliments or anything Compliments are accepted to you know you can do that um strange having a public hearing without people I know used to something yeah so um I would put a motion to
approve the Cook County real estate fund variance request I will second that okay we have a motion in a second all those in favor I I I motion approved thank you thank you than you thank you
gentlemen next Wednesday well seeing that you're asking for less of a variance that makes it a little easier um and now we're on to our discussion yay Patrick's going to lead this is he
now yeah whoa all right we're excited I really like the idea if I can just start this off of getting notices as soon as they come around and having
that even if you know maybe they don't make it all the way maybe they decide to back out or whatever just having some sense that somebody's thinking about doing something somebody wants to do something is really I like that personally yeah
um yeah we made uh I'm trying to find I'm catching up here so I I think it's no problem to to move forward with with that just based on you saying that unless anyone else disagrees with it um
offer a couple of caveats they're they're not problems but just something to be aware of we'll send notice out sometimes before we receive a completed application because we're trying to keep things moving so we've received most of
an application but there's a few more things we need but the deadline's Tuesday and we say all right well we need your stuff by we'll have to tighten that up a little bit I mean we'll have to have an almost completed application before we send a notice out in order to then be able to send it to you at the
same time gotcha so there might be a few projects that would have been able to get by that are going to have to do a little more work up front and do you think that's a problem making people say if they want a variance or conditional use permit come
on get your stuff in where's the problem come from well it's a problem for those people that um they're going to have to wait a little longer but it's not unreasonable to do that I think most cities would probably be
more uh conservative about it than we are so it's just what the cost is going to be is there may be some folks that end up having to wait till the next meeting yeah yeah I guess I have mixed
feelings I like the small town help people out but there's also yeah if you want us to make you informed decisions we kind of need to know yeah we need that information yeah no fa yeah
especially um I mean I liked the proposals that you had there're the three that I'm okay see there that's that's all good so when you say consider broadening the range of proximity mailings what are you
thinking that was just the comment uh I I don't have any I mean that's open to discussion so for the one we did tonight for the rental did everybody on that block both that were on all sides of
that block get notices in yeah yeah right now it's 350 ft from the boundary of the property so that would have been onto the other side of the block I know it went up one of my close neighbors got
got the mailing and so that went like way up to the next block gotcha one one thought I had and I I if we were going to expand it I'm thinking why don't we just send it to everybody because you get to the point where it's
not that much it gets pretty surgical it's a lot a lot of effort and I guess I don't totally know but something to think about well everybody is 30 times the number of people that to so I mean that's that'd be a
lot to me it's more about the notice than how many people get it how many people pay attention to it is the question I ask how many people understand it how many people ask questions about it how many people know what to do when they get it that that's
the stuff that is less yeah so I appreciate the um newsletters the weekly newsletters I like that and I like it when in there it says what we're doing or what we might
be doing um I think that is also a way to inform the public without sending them something in the mail how many people subscribe to your weekly newsletters right now it's 35ish so 30% of our
population oh that's the whole don't know how many of them are adult yeah right but I don't know I just think I guess I'm maybe 350 ft is fine yeah but I I just don't like that
um I have concerns that sometimes you have to read the paper in the back section to kind of know what's going on the rest of the county if you don't live in that area but so I would just encourage you know that newsletter is a a good spot to at least try to get that
information out it's up to people to sign up for it you can't make them read things but true I found that that is true but M it's just another effort I think that is oh saying we're trying
yeah we I we to the best of my knowledge may have missed a couple but we I've been putting them in the in the newsletter uh for the last couple years yeah and I appreciate that other people noticed that too so maybe a an additional effort to
put the word out about the newsletter is a good way to improve our notices period right yeah is that in the is that on the utility bill that comes out just it's an email
list you're not signed up for it though huh oh he's signed up for it I have no but no no I I was wondering if on the utility bill does it say you know it does say something about signing up for a newsletter yeah we can do that say something like that or no I don't I
don't think it does I don't think it does oh maybe it should or maybe we could just put CU sometimes I know the little notices will come in there and maybe just you know that that's a good idea who knows that an
hurt so talking about the all property should be surveyed one um I know that was a recommendation by a realator I don't know is that that sound crazy to me but I know it's an issue in
some parts of our County we are we are and we did have that one application that was over on somebody else's property so I think it's relatively common in the city to have that kind of small encroachment or just unawareness
of where people's property lines are but I don't know what a survey costs these days um it's not cheap no so it's one thing when you're doing a multi-million dollar project they're having a survey done it's a whole different story if I want to build uh a
you know detached garage that's going to cost me3 Grand and I need to spend 2500 on a survey to get a variance that's a kind of a big ask yeah I don't know yeah no I agree I I think I think that's a that's a
barrier to you know a lot of what we're trying to no I I certainly see the the value and oh yeah no I from time to time you know I mean we've been doing this for several years and and how many times has it really been in kind of in question I think it's maybe a couple
right um so to make that the norm for everybody that most most of them don't have those issues but not to mention getting a surveyor scheduled is no easy feat yeah there is that and you know it
does seem like when we have had those issues that people work it out and maybe that's just a better way to do it even you know beyond anything else you know like there might be the actual line but you know they've been gardening there for 20 years or whatever and it just you
know maybe it just doesn't right and both this commission and and and the city council can also just say look we're not comfortable having any any judgment on this at all until we have a survey until we know what we're talking about we can't no we can always make that Judgment at that moment yeah for
sure yeah so I would say we should not make that requirement unless unless we need it so but not generally right agreed
um I'll more time between Planning Commission meeting and council meeting was another suggestion to have more time between planning and so like next week we'll have the city council meeting and
and the suggestion is to have a bigger gap between when it goes to the and the the issue there potentially is that 60-day window but I don't know if that's really a I don't think you'd
run into that I think the question is I mean do we wait two weeks then are we just going to automatically add two weeks and say there's three weeks between the Planning Commission and the council there's sometimes at a staff level where it's really hard to turn
around right after the Planning Commission meeting process everything that happened prepare more materials for the council and get that out the door in a day or two like that can be a real challenge but most of the time it's not sometimes it is uh to it it won't take
us much longer than you know the longest it's going to take us is next Monday or Tuesday for a really complicated issue so we never need 3 weeks from today to get it in front of the council so it's really the council telling us if I don't get this until Friday afternoon and I
don't look at it until Monday you know I'm not in town or something and I've only got these a day or two to think about this that's really hard and of course that you've been in that situation so you know yeah so this was coming from city council that's the city counsel I think making that comment yeah
they should come to our meetings then well two fifths of them do that is true I know I have still hav watched last week's times meeting what did you guys do okay secret things what if we send I
don't have but we're sending the notice to you when we send the notice we can send it to the council at the same time that would be yeah that would just give them as much as we got yeah yeah I mean there's no reason they couldn't get our
pack I mean they won't know what we did but they'll know what we were doing yeah or what we were working on it it's uh you know about time management though that there's a reason the Planning Commission exists is kind of so the counil doesn't have to always do that and so would they always do that it'd be
a lot to take on and then they just have to decide okay do I need to look at this one or not most of the time probably be able to get that figured out yeah wellow it's been fun but I got a plane to catch oh really oh yeah well
some place fun going to Leadville oh yeah it's a cover uh-huh and and are you racing no Pat's racing I'm crewing oh okay see you Mike have a great trip thanks
y so um in the memo we said that we will discuss the suggestions and then any additional uh responses to the additional items so I don't know if you want to go through all of them or just pick out the ones that I mean we're
halfway through them so we want to talk through each one or just pick out the ones that you guys have I mean I well like I like the three like I said and we have kind of picked through several of these do Commissioners have particular ones that
you still want to chat out I I like the idea of a written procedure that we conduct our public hearing the same way every time and make sure cuz I know it and it's fine that um we're kind of loose I kind of like that yeah and what
you mean is or what I thought this meant was to because we don't I mean it's not technically you know we we do have the public here but it's not really in here but I always thought that we should have that in here cuz we always not always but many times we have comments you know
people Cal they want to talk and be nice ni to have that same setup that we have for Council that says like here's how many minutes you get and here's how many you know for this many you know for the issue you get this many minutes for you yourself you get this many minutes I think that would be and whether or not
useful okay so when like this applicant tonight they come forward they give their thing making sure cuz sometimes I forget we didn't ask were there any written comments um making sure we're doing
things the exact same way for every public hearing that we don't forget to do it and somebody's sitting out there that we forgot to call on because we didn't ask you did you want to talk right I mean that woman that was sitting there yeah cuz Becky we didn't ask her did she want to talk on the first one
and I thought she was with them so that was my mistake so did I so but that's what I think cleaning up those procedures just to make sure nobody comes back and says we you treated this one differently than we you did this one over making sure we always do it the
same and I would appreciate even when you're gone somebody else if I ever got to sit in that chair give me a written list of what I do first yeah and we can do that I mean we've got that for for councel so we could have that I think it could be as simple as building it into
the agenda template with like any comments received public comment period just like the yep yeah just type there yeah I think some of the time what we do and we do this C Council too I mean we do put it at the top of the agenda but
often times once we're starting in on the subject then people want to talk again and we usually do let and I think that that's fine but I think we have to leave that to our judgment it gets away from you at times too well sure like when we get 80 people
sitting in not here but at the whole place so I think at the discretion you know like this is isn't going to work right we 60 people and theyd all like to speak twice so right yeah so I I yeah to clean up some of the rules for consistency say great
like I fully on board one idea that didn't make the paper this list and something that's been discussed at least at at other meetings um and maybe it was just in like Personnel meetings but it was this idea that there would be
candidates coming to to to City staff and wanting to do such and such on their property right um and then they'd be getting potentially a hard no or because it doesn't fit the ordinance or it doesn't blah they're just getting turned away right and they're getting
frustrated and then they're like well you know this they don't want to work with us or blah blah blah we don't know about any of those things right so some of those things we don't know you're you're talking about the ask like the initial like hey
because there might be what if what point does that become like you get the same question if it's asked three times or five times or six times it's like well maybe that's it should trigger something to where we have a broader policy level discussion about exactly
that topic to address that and so how what's the mechanism that those issues get to us so maybe it would be a a way like if I'm understanding you correctly like what might be useful in that case would be like for us to just like see you know
we had this many requests for this this week and here what's you know it doesn't have to be extensive but it could just be like hey you know Joe Mo came and asked for this thing we said this to them you know just a real short blur but if we got enough of those is that is
that am I getting toward I think that I think that is am I driving what you're I think that's exactly right um so that we would know like oh this is and this is like what's been happening I mean I don't necessarily see this coming to Comm but I would see that coming to
counselors you know just so that we know like what kind of communication's going on between the public and the city I mean is this that's yes that that was what was driving the initial conversation and then when then we talked about the planning and zoning and
who makes those decisions and how does that who interacts with the public on that topic right and what information what's what are they leaving with are they leaving feeling like hey this is a I'm in a position the city wants to work with me on or they leaving in a position
where they're like no they're really hard and rigid and and they're not talking about hey go and talk to the planning committee right go and talk to them if you have an issue it's like you know bring it up you we put you on an agenda we can just talk about it so I
push back just slightly on this not I I get where you're getting at but I think that the this this is what the variance process is for so when people come with can I do this on my property here's what
the code says so you can't but you could get a variance um so it's one that's that's one way to think about that we are doing that sure and that's what a variance is but I understand that there might
be people who are not who don't want to deal with that process for whatever reason but it's just something to think about yeah and he can't make it I mean and I'm not I'm certainly not being critical of the city staff and saying hey you're not you're you're you're not you're you're not pushing people to us
and that I get that um I just somewhere in there I you know how are we going to know that new is that there's issues out there that don't come before the the board that don't make it into a pack right no I get
you and I'm not sure that there's a real clean cut way to to do that without without putting a tremendous amount of work in in the recording process of who came in and asked for such and such and such you know but maybe you know would
this be getting at it like what if we were just to let people know that we're we're open to talking because we do get emails from people you know yeah you know just out of nowhere like hey and you know sometimes we it's technical we don't I mean we kind of know but you know we don't really know so we do turn
him to Mike you know and and that kind of thing but you know maybe that part of our thing too we just kind of message out there like hey you know I mean we we are all part of the city you know some of us know know all of the ins and outs and floated was this idea that there
could be an online application you or at least just like here's what I'm wanting to do and it's an online deal that could be accessed by committee and city council oh I see what you're saying like they would get on there and they would start
filling it out they would say here's my inquiry sure and um and then everybody has an opportunity to see what that inquiry is and maybe you know if they're curious about what was the answer or what was
the followup or whatever then you can either have those if you choose those conversations but yeah but it would certainly let you know what people are asking about yeah no that would be helpful for sure so yeah that was
was an idea I don't know yeah gotcha um so all right so make that so all right Patrick are we talking about that there is no online application
right now you physically have to no all the all the applications are online oh okay currently and it's the only way we're except I mean we do make it exceptions for for people who have issues with computer access or whatever but currently we're trying to go
paperless and all of our applications are online yeah and so is the question then how many are denied before they even before they even get an
application I think what's tricky is defining yeah are you is what like let's say somebody calls me and says hey I'm wondering about this property I'm looking at would I be able to use it in this use case and we say
no the code allows this and this but not that at that point is that one of those data sets that you'd want to have is is that what you're talking about or are you talking about applications that get denied I don't think there's probably a
lot of applications that get to denied and and the reason I don't think because I think they're vetted on the front end through dialogue before they hit an application stage MH and so people aren't going to fill out an application until they've talked with somebody at
City staff most likely the the administrator and and and had that conversation no am I wrong or maybe do they talk to you about those things too or I think we all feeli calls about that generally like when when it's not
something really simple it'll get passed to me first and then uh when I it's a little out of my league I'll hand it up to Mike but usually when we're any type of can I use my land this way I I feel all those question you feel comfortable making that convers okay yeah um and
then you would direct them to the application y That's online y this is what you need to do this this this this right um a lot of that is like the connection to the to the code and what's allowed in in each Zone
um one idea I've been this this is really interesting that you're the conversation you're you're bringing up and I'm not sure exactly I don't have a great idea of how to address this or a simple solution to because I think what you're looking at
is what are people looking to do that's reasonable that we're not allowing and how do we keep track of it um and I like the suggestion you made about saying we're open about it and and maybe creating like kind of a and who
knows how how well that would work but creating like a open door you know office hours type of thing where like hey if you're trying to do something well even not so much that I mean I was hoping just you know like to my mind it's like just tell people like hey you know you got some crazy idea
that you want to do or whatever just you can just pitch it you know you don't have to MH you know go through the like pre-application just lay just that would get us all maybe just is just as simple as having a public comment period at the front of in our meetings oh I see what
you're saying so getting back to our agenda an opportunity it's like hey there's a public comment period you can certainly come and talk about any issue for five minutes that you want to talk about yeah yeah right now there isn't really an Avenue because it's either you're on
an agenda or you're not you're not going to make the agenda with you want to put up whatever yeah yeah sure yeah no I see that I don't know mhm moreover it's just like you know are are we getting are there
multiple requests over time for a similar thing that we're we're either don't know we're excluding or we weren't intentional about excluding and it's just a byproduct because we we do run into that often we change our ordinances we change codes right like things happen
right they progress and so um and what drives those things is often sometimes just Community conversation right but we're not may be getting that part of it yeah yeah I don't know and maybe it's maybe it's one person I don't know no
for sure but I I think that I mean I think what we're all talking about is that we are open and we are we do know that we change our rules you know that that just happens over time you know we don't change it until we need to you know and we have a good reason but right it does happen and you know and that's
well again that's why we have the variant and if we're given the same variance over and over again then we can go like well maybe maybe there should be an include maybe maybe we should be doing something else instead of doing variances all the time because that's not ideal either you know but all right all right yeah we
good yeah so what I've taken from just a recap um notice for the utility bills about signing up for the newsletter and including uh all the conditionally used VAR variance uh discussions or any other
discussions in in that newsletter yeah um work up a procedure uh kind of built into the agenda for making sure that we include all the public comments um and any written comments and
then coming up with some some way to I think this will have we'll have to have some more discussion about this and I'll reach out to you then and and uh figure out how to keep track of anything slipping through the the holes application wise
or or uh initiative wise on on new building projects I think that's all we we really pin down yeah that's other the just doing the suggestions that we
the other ones that we were yeah looking through yeah if my memory serves and it's it's been a a week or whatever but like you know one of the things that prompted this conversation to begin with was the
absence of of the plan unit developments in our existing ordinances right now you're looking at now how many have we talked about since right well no we had one we did have yeah that ordinance but then we had to to change it so that it
fit our actual environment but but go ahead but yeah but that was my point was like Hey like there were these opportunities that were being missed oh yeah I gota yeah yeah yeah so we missed out on all those because they looked at our ordinance we just didn't know was we
didn't know it was an issue yeah yeah right on yeah and that is that is how this goes right you know people bring it to us and then we can do something but if we don't know we don't know right right yeah
so very good anyway okay yeah good stuff thank you Patrick thank you yeah thanks everyone we are adjourned great awesome oh