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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1992 09 30 Planning and Zoning Board Regular Minutes Planning and Zoning Board Minutes Special Meeting September 30, 1992 The meeting was called to order at 7:05 P.M. BOARD MEMBERS: David Hopkins, Chairman, Absent David McLeod, Present John Ferring, Present Grace Ann Glavin, Vice-Chairman, Present Hartin Trencher, Present Fred Goodrow overview of regulations, end. of Henigar & -Ray presented a report which is an our existing land development codes, land use different al ternatives, and reconunendations at the Fred Goodrow: I made a recommendation that the Ci ty of Winter Springs should consider going to the unified development code concept in rewriting its Land Use Development Regulations. The reasons are: eliminating the existing Zoning Ordinances and depending solely on the Comprehensive Plan's Land Use Map categories, which eliminates process and confusion in determining what the requirements of the two different districts are. One of the other things that we are reconunending is using Performance Standards rather than depending solely on many District requirements like property line setbacks. Also we are recommending that we look strongly at a simplified application review process by corning up with three or four basic processes that everyone will have to go through. It makes it easy for an applicant to understand what they have to do and easy for staff to relate to what the developers have to do when they are going through a review or approval process. Trencher: How many other communities are adopting this new type of land use format as opposed to the old tried and true zoning format? Is this becoming a norm that people are moving into these new kind of ways? Goodrow: I would not classify this as a norm, no. Older and larger conununities have been doing zoning for years and they have elaborate systems and it is real difficult to pull back from them. There are many visceral relationships to what they have and they can't understand what is going to happen if they pull back. Small communities that haven't been doing it for a long time, find themselves in a position, after adopting their Comprehensive Plan, to make these changes, this is the time to do it. To directly answer how many, I know alot of the newer conununities are going that way, alot the rural countries that never had zoning instead of going to Euclead zoning concepts. Largo, a larger conununity, went to this method in the early 70s, before 1985 Comprehensive Planning Act. Stuart is another conununity, but it is not the norm. .-. ~ Planning & Zoning Board Minutes Special Meeting September 30, 1992 Page 2 Richard Rozansky: Fred, what the advantages and disadvantages of this method I think we ought to discuss what the changes are ? Goodrow: The advantages are the ease of administration, ease of understanding, speed of process or decision can be made, and lesser of actual requirements in the process of change. In the long run, you will probably need less staff to administer this thing then if you continue to add this specific regulations. Trencher: We have a situation in our community where a lot of land that is basicly spoken for, currently zoned with vested rights, is this an advantage to developers in the permit processing? I don't know the development communities reaction to this? Goodrow: Let us distinguish, one is there is a difference between performance zoning and performance standards within your LDR. Performance standards is stating that you can do anything you want to do in a particular area as long as mitigate their incompatible di f ferences. What performance standards say is that in the development of a piece of ground, we are not going to tell you what kinds of setbacks, how big each lot has to be, etc. You don't give all of these constraints but allow him to do whatever he can do while still meeting your density standards, still mitigating the incompatibilities of the next door use that may already be in existence, then he can much more'easily realize the best economic advantage of the site. Trencher: Does this new format allow for a broader interruptions of the Rules & Regulations, to allow something to take place that normally would not take place under the existing system? Goodrow: It allows for a broader design perspective when you are looking at site for development. Trencher: The public might interrupt that as giving that an easer hand to developers to develope their land that may not be not be in the best interest of the public but will be in the interest of the developer. Goodrow: And that is why we are going to this process, because you represent the public and you need to tell us that this is what you want to do, actual 1 y the publ ic interest is represented very thoroughly, in one of these kinds of codes Trencher: And how is that? Goodrow: It is represented through the mitigation standards that are applied to ensure that you mitigate appropriately any e _ Planning & Zoning Board Minqtes Special Meeting September 30, 1992 Page 3 incompatible issues that occurs between the adjoining property owners. For instance, at the City Commission meeting the other ni9ht, someone brought up the issue, does that mean that someone can build a multi-family development next to a single family development. The answer is yes, it could be if you want to go that far and allow it to happen, but there would be mitigation standards that would say first of all we are going to promulgate some kin~ of buffering requirements that will continue to become more stringent and restrictive as the difference in type of uses gets further apart. Therefore, if you have two piece of property and one is an existing single family development and the piece next to it is going to put sin91e family on it, there might not be a need for a buffering requirement, if there is a wetland problem on that the site and guy wants to cluster over and build townhomes, patio homes, or three story structure in order to take advantage of the density he is allowed, the buffering standards would become larger and more landscaping, if there was forested land already there they would probably have to stay or if not they would have to plant a great deal of 1 andscaping in there to ensure it was adequatel y buffered. Trencher: But there are those who would dispute that does give that land owner in the end the ability to build that 4 story unit provided he met his other buffering requirements , where under the existing zonin9 he could not build a 4 story multi-family unit at all, because he could only build single family under the existing process. Goodrow: But sin91e families are probably allowed to go to 3 stories anyway, so it could be your decisions in regards to the standards you want to apply, 3 stories would be a cap, it would not matter if he was building multi-family or not. The view from the distance of the buffer would make it an insufficient impact. Trencher: Asked about the need to do a lot by lot analysis to implement the new re9ulations according to the Land Use Map. Goodrow: I would not recommend that be done. What you need to do is think about in general terms what is a compatible issue or problem and address by some kind of standard, such as hei9ht or buffering limitation based on a worst case scenario. Keith Bricklemyer: Mr. Chairman, in my opinion this is somewhat like a shell game, you eliminate zoning and the standards that run with each district, you create the kind of standards you want to go with each of the Comprehensive Plan Land Use Designations. What you have done is eliminated this whole series of district, which if you don't eliminate those, you are goin9 to have to lot by lot, block by block comprehensive review of every property in the City ~ .-. Planning & Zoning Board Minutes Special Meeting September 30, 1992 Page 4 to make sure that the zoning district is in conformance with the Comprehensive Plan district and go through a zoning conformance process, you may have to send a mail notice to every resident of the City in order to accomplish this. That consistency between Land Use and Zoning is somethin9 that is mandated by state law. The Comp Plan now governs, if the zoning is inconsistent you have to go wi th the Comp PI an, the decision is to el iminate zoning altogether and go with the Comp Plan, and decide if you are in this particular district under the Comp Plan, what can you do that is consistent with the Comp Plan and what are the regulations for mitigating incompatibility. David McLeod: Under our present method, single family developments we are allowing 4 units per acre and two stories high. Under this adoption, if this property has 10 acres I could build 40 structures on this single-family site. Under this adoption, if we were to do the same scenario but 6 acres was wetlands, are you saying that on the remaining 4 acres, which before could only have 16 homes on it, would now be able to develop 40 homes on 4 acres? Goodrow: That potentially is the worst case scenario that could be allowed for, in the Comp PI an we have adopted pol icies that allow for transfer of development rights. Bricklemyer: The other side of the worst case scenario you can adopt a standard that totally eliminates this problem, you take each of the eleven planned districts and say if this is going to be a 4 unit to the acre, we are never going to allow under our LDR anything in an excess of net density of 6, which is exactly what you would be doing if you assign zoning districts and someone came into a public hearing and said I want to do 7 and you would say no you are only allowed to do 6. You can establish regulations to accomplish what zoning accomplishes without having zoning or you can have the extra layer of regulations and have a zoning map. Rozansky: He had the whole staff go over this proposal and looked over the two process, and we liked this process better because it is going to eliminate unnecessary steps as we begin cranking out new regulations. McLeod: Is it cheaper for the City to adopt this new system versus the old system? Goodrow: I will answer that telling you based on my experience that during our bid process both methods end up costing relatively the same. McLeod: Do you go for public input as you go through the process? Planning & Zoning Board Minutes Special Meeting September 30, 1992 Page 5 Bricklemyer: Yes it has to. McLeod: Do you see a fair or significant cost savings in the future years by adopting, from your administration side? Rozansky: I think administering this program will be less chance of problems that we have now. McLeod: What does this do with the area of town where we now have a POD? Does there still exist a POD? Goodrow: There are 2 answers. The POD is a vested area that has all the rights assorted with it. The other side is how to address those areas which are not completely built out within a POD. When you adopted this you have to do deal with the issues of vacant lot in an existing PUD, i.e., all existing parcels must meet the old standards of POD. Or use average standards in older developments due to variances and changes to meet the requirements of adjacent developments. McLeod: As I read through this I got the feeling that what we are basicly doing was bringing the total city into a PUD. Because it allows for a lot of blending and mixing that did not happen before. Goodrow: In actually just about any development is going to go through design review standard they may not have to do in the past except for single family housing. Commercial development is going to have to go through some design process, to reviewed by staff, to ensure that they meet the buffering or water retention standards, that are applied. McLeod: How much of this will be done by staff versus coming to Board of Planning & Zoning? I notice that your chart on the back basicly shows if the area is already in place, a developer can get a permit, but if it is a new development then he has to go through a fairly similar process as we presently have. Where have we saved in staff time? Goodrow: What you are doing is el iminating processes by the flexibility you have built in, like variances and special permits. Glavin: But you loose the public input, and you have more staff decisions and less coming before this Board? Goodrow: You may depending on how you set your standards for public input, maybe be size or type, that is up to you based on the comfort level of the standards. ...... ~ Planning & Zoning Board Minutes Special Meeting September 30, 1992 Page 6 Trencher & Ferring: We have a concern that the public will have a problem understanding this document due to the jargon used. How can we make the publ ic feel that this pI an is in thei r best interest, and keep within the Comprehensive Plan? Goodrow: We can make examples of different issues for public meetings but I don' t think you want to incur the expense of creating examples for all the issues at this time. Gl avin: Keeping in mind the time constraints of November 1st before us, how are the guidelines going to drawn, with or without public input, etc? Goodrow: That will be decided through meetings along the way not necessarily before November 1st. .What I have proposed to the staff is that a draft be prepared and sent to DCA by November 1st and work from there, with the understanding that the draft is nothing more than a document to obtain monies to write this adoption over the few months. Glavin: Fred, why do you think that this system will work well in Winter Springs? Goodrow: I think that through the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan and the Land Use categories that you have applied to the Map make it easy to work with and the staff knows the process well and can use it well. Trencher: What is expected of us this evening? To recommend to the City Commission the adoption of this plan so we can send this to the State by the first of November to get the grant? Rozansky: What we are looking for is the go ahead to develop this system? Bricklemyer: The Commission wanted this discussion to occur here and a recommendation from this group, do we keep the Zoning Map, do we throw it out. And hopefully, the draft will be the basis for discussions with the Board and public. Trencher: What level will the public hearings be at the P&Z level or Commissioners level? Rozansky: That has not been determined yet. Glavin: So my understanding is that we can ask for public hearing at the P&Z level prior to presentation to the City Commissioners to ensure sufficient public input, not on the model due to time Planning & Zoning Board Minutes Special Meeting September 30, 1992 Page 7 constraints but on the actual code for adoption. Rozansky: Yes like any other code for adoption. Trencher: What would we consider to be a reasonable time table for this model? Goodrow: Six months. That includes public hearings, meeting with P&Z and City Commissioners. Trencher: I think we need to add to this draft something that states a more positive public perspective(regarding page 35). I find this language negative and not in the interest of the general public. Brickl emyer: This is not designed to be sell ing tool to the public. And that page you read was the negative explanation of the plan and was stated that way on purpose. Fred and I were talking and we agree that maybe the best way to present this model to the public is in the following: How do 1 get a permit?, Old method, New method What are the protections it provides? Old method, New method By preparing a document with examples side by side, I think you will clearly see that this system provides some significant benefits that the zoning system doesn't offer. Trencher: Made a motion to recommend to City staff that the draft product for Land Use Control. Recommendations known as Singl e Use Performance Standard system be moved forward to the City Commission as the. recommended alternative to the existinq system. McLeod seconded. Vote: Ferring, Trencher, McLeod aye, Glavin nay. Ferring reintroduced the Sprague Components annexation issue, stating he wanted the Board to vote again, for the record, as to recommending the annexation to the city Commission. McLeod noted that the Commission has already passed the ordinance and the Board has no pI ace in readdressing this issue in its capaci ty as an advisory board. Adjournment