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Planning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes October 15, 2019 Page 2 III. PUBLIC HEARING. 1 2 A. Review Proposed Ordinance Amendments Regarding Walkways, Sidewalks, and 3 Patios. 4 5 Chairperson Papatola reviewed how the public hearing will proceed this evening. This item 6 will come before Council on November 12, 2019. 7 8 Chairperson Papatola opened the public hearing at 7:04 p.m. 9 10 City Planner Grittman summarized the discussions on this item from both Planning 11 Commission and City Council workshops. The proposed ordinance represents the focus of 12 those discussions, as the issues arose from recent zoning applications. Staff is recommending 13 approval of the Ordinance amendment as presented. 14 15 Chairperson Papatola indicated he did not see anyone present who wanted to make a comment 16 on this item. 17 18 Chairperson Papatola closed the public hearing at 7:10 p.m. 19 20 Commissioner Rude asked for clarification on the one-foot setback which is not in the 21 language of walkway but mentioned only side yards and wondered what the setback would be 22 for a rear yard. He indicated another issue is in the current statute it mentions stoops and 23 porches cannot extend so far and never talks about putting in a sidewalk from the front door to 24 the street because of the setback. It is now going to be firmer that a sidewalk cannot be within 25 one foot. He wondered how the new language will impact that. City Planner Grittman 26 explained the idea was to limit the construction of walkways next to the neighbor’s side 27 property line but not to restrict it out to the front. The same would be for going out to the 28 back to the alleyway. What was included in the proposal was the setback requirement to the 29 sidelines assuming there are many times where a setback requirement could not be imposed 30 for that walkway front or rear. City Planner Grittman noted this is an area that allows 31 encroachments into the required yards that would otherwise have a setback applied to them. 32 33 Commissioner Socha asked with corner lots is there a circumstance where someone would 34 want to have a walkway from their house to a side lot when on a corner, then the one foot 35 would not make sense for that corner lot. Should an exception be drafted for corner lots or 36 could there be some sort of language about running perpendicular and not solely for access 37 purposes or is it getting unnecessarily complicated. City Planner Grittman admitted he did not 38 take corner lots into consideration. 39 40 Chairperson Papatola asked if this was a definitional question for Commission Socha in terms 41 of amending the definition of walkway. Commissioner Socha indicated it becomes an issue 42 with the amendment to the setbacks because that is where the side lot line is mentioned in 43 paragraph K. She believed the Commission as a whole, believed it was appropriate to address 44 some sort of wording such as “One foot to any side lotline” and adding some sort of language 45