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STAFF ORIGINATOR: CC MEETING DATE: TOPIC: BACKGROUND AGENDA ITEM 6.A. Paul Bengtson October 11, 2010 Second Reading of Ordinance Number 11-10 — Amending Section 3 of the Zoning Ordinance to revise the permit requirements for swimming pools and the construction requirements for fences and walls. The city's Building Official has identified a couple of minor changes that should be made to the Zoning Ordinance to better reflect the Building Code and Property Maintenance Codes. First, the Swimming Pool section requirement for permit does not match the building code. It currently requires a permit for a pool with a 5,000 gallon capacity OR depth potential of 30 inches. The Building Code only requires a permit if both thresholds are met, staff is proposing the following change to the text within Section 3.Subdivision 4.D.3.a.1: 1) A building permit shall be required for any swimming pool with a capacity of over five thousand (5,000) gallons or -and with a depth potential of thirty (30") inches. Next, the Zoning Ordinance currently requires all fences and walls to be 10% open. This is believed to have been added to the ordinance in an attempt to inform residents of potential property maintenance (airflow) and building code (wind loads) issues. Neither the Building Code, nor the city's property maintenance codes have any opening requirements for fences anymore. The current issue with the opening requirement is that residents cannot purchase preassembled solid six foot fence panels sold in home improvement stores. They are forced to choose alternating board panels, or panels with lattice sections. This eliminates some of the privacy that these fences offer. Additionally, at the September 8, 2010 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Board recommended that the ordinance's current prohibition of the use of 'used materials' be removed to allow the re -use of materials so long as the wall is constructed in a professional and substantial manner as required earlier in the same paragraph of the ordinance. Staff agrees that the reuse of materials is important to allow, but would the Building Official would like to still include some sort of limitation on the materials used for fence construction. As such, staff is including a revised sentence about materials allowed.