On Monday I met with Joel Walinski, Brian O’Connell, Dan Olson, and Betsey Buckheit in advance of the City Council work session on Tuesday, 1/12. Both Betsey and I had expressed concerns about the original staff report provided to the Council for the work session, so the meeting was held to clarify everyone’s understanding of what would be discussed.
At the 1/12 City Council work session, input and direction on the LDC review process was given to the Planning Commission by the Council. From the Northfield League of Women Voters Observer Report of the meeting:
The Planning Commission has been working for over a year on the ordinance creating regulations to implement the comprehensive plan. According to Councilor Betsey Buckheit, who has been the commission’s council liaison, the planning commission felt that the version of the ordinance which the consultant provided was not aligned with the comprehensive plan. This work has been difficult and time-consuming for both staff and commissioners who have met weekly for a year to work on this.
Buckheit, Planning Commission Chair Tracy Davis, and city staff met yesterday and agreed on a new way of approaching the requirements for commercial and residential zones. Zones will be considered in “chunks” rather than in more global form. At issue is how much mixture of land use is acceptable in an area and where the city wants to have in each zone. Buckheit believes the new approach will not only make the work more efficient, but will result in better regulations. It should also improve communication between the staff and commissioners. At each stage of the process, the commission will ask for council review to assure that the regulations are consistent with the comprehensive plan. Before the final adoption by the city, the regulations will be brought to the public for information and response. The commission will take up the new approach at the Thursday meeting.
Wednesday I met with Brian O’Connell and Dan Olson for a brief “Chair orientation”. We also discussed some modifications to the agenda template; I’d like to include a regular slot for liaison updates, remarks from the Chair, and a report from Dan Olson on any land use applications received since the last meeting.
The Planning Commission held its work session on 1/14/10. We discussed the Council direction and determined the following course of action for continuing review of the Land Development Code:
- We will begin with the parts of the LDC which would apply to residential zoning districts. Between now and the next meeting, staff and Commission members will each review Comp Plan to identify major themes/points/principles with implications for residential land use, both to refresh our memories and to ensure that we are able to demonstrate how the details in the Code reflect the stated goals and objectives of the Comprehensive Plan.
- At the next meeting, we’ll do a sort of mashup and create a master list of the themes identified, and discuss any points on which clarification is needed. At this time we will also perform a detailed review the input received from other boards, commissions, and stakeholders to determine whether they are consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and should be reflected in the LDC.
- The Commission will request that staff show how/where each point on the master policies list is addressed in the LDC; the Commission can then determine whether the LDC draft is accurate and adequate in addressing those points.
Once we have seen how this works out in practice with the residential portions of the LDC, we can better estimate how much time will be needed for the other sections and can report back to the Council accordingly.
On Friday morning, Scott Peterson of KYMN radio contacted me for a summary of the meeting and produced this news clip.
There will be a Planning Commission special meeting on 1/21/10 at which this work will continue.
