January 17, 2006 City Commission meeting minutes:

Consider initiation of a text amendment repealing the 50 foot setback requirement along West 6^th Street from Monterey Way to K-10; pursuant to City Commission direction at the January 10^th, 2006 meeting. 

David Corliss, Assistant City Manager/Legal Services Director, presented the staff report.  He said last week the City Commission indicated that they wanted this issue placed on the regular agenda for consideration as to whether or not to initiate a text amendment to the subdivision regulations that would repeal the extraordinary 50 foot setback requirement that was in those regulations along west 6^th Street between Monterey Way and K-10. 

He said staff was proceeding with establishing a date to have the public hearing to make the changes in regard to the governmental taking issue.  The City Commission resolved one of those issues on the peripheral setback requirements that were in the zoning code.

Vice Mayor Amyx asked if the right-of-way was the same width from Monterey Way to Wakarusa Drive as it was from Wakarusa Drive to County Route 13 on either side.        

Corliss said he did not believe it was, but he did not want to speak definitively on that issue without having those maps in front of him.  He said he recalled that there was a little bit of difference in the right-of-way along Monterey Way to Folks Road.  There was a difference between Folks Road and Wakarusa and it was fairly straight along Wakarusa to the west. 

He said staff could delay initiating this text amendment if the City Commission wanted additional information.

Vice Mayor Amyx said one of the reasons he brought that issue up was that he wanted that setback and right-of-way to be the same throughout. 

Corliss said he understood the question, but he was unable to give factual information at this time. 

Commissioner Schauner asked if the concern was that the extraordinary setback be extended all the way west to K-10.

Corliss said the extraordinary setback was in Article 12 of the Subdivision Regulations.  He said from West 6^th Street from County Route 13, which was essentially where the SLT was located, to Monterey Way was established in 1991.     

Vice Mayor Amyx said there were two options.  He said one option dealt with Monterey Way to Wakarusa Drive until they had discussions west of Wakarusa Drive onto the SLT which might make more sense at this point then going west.  He said if they were going to go from Wakarusa Drive, west of the K-10, then he would like to have those maps and know what the information was as far as that right-of-way and where that 50 foot setback was going to be designated. 

Commissioner Hack asked if the City Commission should delay item no. 4 until next week and do the whole thing together.

Vice Mayor Amyx said at this point, they should do Monterey Way to Folks Road because they know where that right-of-way existed, but they did not have the information that showed where the line up was.    

Commissioner Rundle said the language of initiating implied being in favor of that action.  He asked if it could be referred to the Planning Commission for consideration and recommendation.  

Corliss said that could be made very clear that it was not one way or the other in favor of the text amendment where they would be asking the Planning Commission to consider a particular item.  He said it is usually helpful to have some indication as to what to consider.  

Commissioner Rundle asked if there was any historical information about the goals, context, and rationale for putting this in place.  

Corliss said it was part of the Western Development Plan that was adopted by the Planning Commission, City Commission, and County Commission in 1988 or 1989.  He said the document he looked at regarding the setback takings text amendment issue and it was one of the recommendations in some form in that document.

Commissioner Rundle said he would like to see that information to have all the background.    

Mayor Highberger called for public comment.

Caleb Morse asked what the setback would be if this were removed from Monterey Way to Wakarusa.

Corliss said this was an extraordinary setback which would revert back to the zoning ordinance and the setback requirements along that road.

Vice Mayor Amyx asked if the discussion last week, 30 feet for commercial and 35 feet for residential.

Sheila Stogsdill, Acting Planning Director, said in a Planned Unit Development.      

Morse said the City Commission had two principle obligations with regard to this setback.  One obligation was to protect the transportation corridor and he would be very leery of removing that extraordinary setback for fear of creating another 23^rd Street, on west 6^th Street which was a highway, and right now a 5 lane street.  He said that was something that should be done only under really extraordinary circumstances.  He said they were all in favor of new urbanism, but he did not want to see new urbanism projects that bring in the negative consequences of old urbanism, putting a highway to a residential housing tract.  He said they might want to be careful about how far they would go to foster new urbanism projects.

The other obligation was to protect the people who had to live at that location.  He said those people would be living next to a highway and they really needed as much distance as they could get.  He said the extraordinary setback would provide the future residents of this particular subdivision that was in question, a little extra protection from the traffic noise, speeding traffic, and the danger that brought.       

Mayor Highberger said he disagreed with Morse.  He said everything he read showed the only way that a highway could be controlled through urban areas was by making them narrower and building closer up to those roads.  He said there were things that could be done to control speeds on roads like that and that could not be done if the road was 200 feet wide.  

He said with the 50 foot setback it might have been good to preserve the corridor, but he thought they should look at ways to do things differently.  He said even with the current right-of-way and with the setbacks that would be along that corridor they were still looking at 50 feet or more from curb to building which was a lot and it was hard to create a pleasing streetscape with that width and low buildings on either side.  He said he would be happy to break this into two parts and look at doing Monterey Way to Wakarusa now and considering the rest later. 

He said the purpose was to preserve the corridor for future transportation needs, but he was not sure the extraordinary setback was the way to do that.  He said the extraordinary setback just gave them the opportunity to pay high prices for new right-of-way.  He said if they really wanted to preserve the corridor, they should be getting the right-of-way rather than the setback.  He said he would hate to see the City get into a situation again where they spend a lot of public money improving a street that eventually would need to be widened.  In the process, the City would pay a million dollars an acre for new right-of-way to build a street that would benefit property owners and they still come back and want more money from the City.  He supported initiating the text amendment.

Commissioner Hack said she did not have a problem splitting it up until we had a clearer picture.  She said this was not in response to any specific development request it was just making it more consistent with what was already there.  She said the extraordinary setback seemed to be a little much. 

Commissioner Schauner said he agreed with part of what the Mayor said.  Acquiring right-of-way made sense for long-term protection of the corridor. 

Although he was going to vote against it either way he hoped that the City Commission would look at the first segment and deal with west of Wakarusa if and when that becomes an issue.

He said the thing that concerns him was that they were making decisions without nearly the consideration that was given in 1988 and 1989 to this corridor approach.  There was a lot of work done and a lot of hours devoted to producing that product and in fact, the subcommittee of the Planning Commissions recommended against removing the extraordinary setback.  He said he would hate to see all that historically appropriate work thrown away and to remember that when 23^rd Street was developed a little at a time, nobody ever believed that 23^rd Street would look like it did.  He said they were at a bit of a tipping point in that decisions they made about how that corridor developed further to the west, they would either learn to love or learn to hate.  

He asked the City Commission to move very cautiously before removing the extraordinary setback.  He said he was also asking that the City Commission not even consider a west of Wakarusa change in the setback requirement until such time as they had a much better idea about how that area was going to be planned.   He said that decision did not need to be made now, even if they had both maps with them tonight.

Commissioner Rundle said he continued to be troubled by the fact that all of this was based on New Urbanism.  He said they did not have any resolution in place that stated that they were pursuing new urbanism.  He said that was why he was asking the Planning Commission to review this in the broader context and not that the City Commission was requesting this. 

Vice Mayor Amyx said there was a lot of concern for the area west of Wakarusa Drive on how development might occur in the future.  He said he did not have any problem with the initiation of how the language should be handled.  He said there should be consideration given to the first section which was from Monterey Way to Wakarusa Drive and then let the Planning Commission make further recommendations for Wakarusa Drive to K-10.

Again, his biggest concern was the consistency of the setback along with the right-of-way being the same throughout that entire corridor. 

Historically in 1988 when all the discussion was taking place with the Western Development Plan concerning the need for an extraordinary setback was because they did not know how development was going to occur.  He said they had seen some of that development and now they were at the point of making a decision as going from Wakarusa Drive, west and whether they would have consistency in that corridor as far as the setbacks and right-of-way.

Commissioner Rundle said he thought Vice Mayor Amyx’s idea of splitting those areas up was a wise idea.  

Moved by Amyx, seconded by Hack, to initiate a text amendment to consider repealing the extraordinary 50 foot setback provisions from Monterey Way to Wakarusa Drive.  Aye: Amyx, Hack, and Highberger.  Nay: Rundle and Schauner.  Motion carried.                            (17)