PCAgenda_04Aug24 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

proposing this as an interim use rather than a conditional use would be "more palatable," giving the • Farmer's Market as an example. Ms. Jones gave clarification that Staff did not suggest the interim use option to Mr. Bertz. This was his suggestion; Staff merely told him what the procedure was for applying to amend the code. She listed several dissimilarities between the TIES proposal and the Farmer's Market interim use. • Farmer's Market is on site for a period of five hours or less, one day per week, five months of the year. Storage at TIES would be round the clock, seven days a week, all year. • Farmer's Market is a public service and community amenity provided by Twin City Co-op Credit Union without charge to the City, the community or to the Market. Storage at TIES is intended as arevenue-producing business unrelated to the nonprofit organization's educational mission. • Farmer's Market is located in the B-2 zone, which is dissimilar to B-3, both by location and by use. Mr. Bertz acknowledged that parking is not directly related to TIES mission, but if it is not allowed they will have to draw that revenue away from their funding for their educational mission, so it does directly affect their mission. There being no other persons who wished to speak, the hearing was closed. Commissioner Heideman offered the observation that Mr. Bertz had characterized Staff objection as being about appearance and potential blight, but in fact appearance was not mentioned in Staff findings or given as an objection. Rather, security and safety were issues raised. Commissioner DeLeo concurred. He said it is pretty clear storage is not allowed in this district, but there may be a more creative solution. • Heideman asked the City Attorney if restricting the use to existing accessory structures wouldn't, in fact, keep the use to the TIES property. Ms. Worthington said she was not aware of any other detached accessory structures in B-3. She made a distinction between storage as an accessory use to the principle use in the principle structure and the storage as a primary use in an accessory (detached) structure, which is under consideration here. Mr. DeLeo asked if Staff has information about how other cities handle this kind of situation. Ms. Worthington said that she is not well acquainted with what might be the case in other cities, but stressed that citizen participation in the Falcon Heights comprehensive plan and in the careful crafting of the zones were meant to guide future use. She is concerned about "mission creep" distorting that carefully worked out comprehensive plan. In response to a question from Commissioner Harris, Ms. Worthington said continuing enforcement of restrictions on storage would be a major burden on the city. The City does not have the staff resources to carry out the inspections and enforcement that would be necessary to address the security concerns that would have to be addressed in the permit. In response to a question from Mr. DeLeo, the attorney reminded the Commission of the 60-day limit on consideration of this matter. Mr. DeLeo, sympathizing with the plight of the business person offered a motion to table the matter and call a special meeting in about a week to work on a passable solution. Ms. Jones pointed out that the application was dated May 7; it was received 24 hours too late to be included on the May agenda.3 The motion was withdrawn for lack of a second. • Commissioner Ryan expressed sympathy for TIES and acknowledged they are a good neighbor, but said he agrees with the City Administrator that this does not harmonize with the comprehensive plan. He does not think we should go in that direction and change the code just to accommodate what one City of Falcon Heights -Planning Commission Meeting of June 22, 2004 -Page 5 of 7