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Planning Commission Regular Meeting Minutes May 21, 2024 Page 2 1 that are designed to ensure that such licensees are thoroughly trained to responsibly keep and 2 maintain bees on their residential property. 3 4 The existing City Code provisions relevant to “farm animals” prohibit them in the City, with 5 the allowance that the City Council may approve specific requests, waiving the usual 6 prohibition. This waiver has been primarily utilized for chickens in the past. There is no 7 specific requirements for the keeping of chickens, however, staff and the Council routinely 8 add requirements to ensure that chicken facilities are installed and managed to minimize 9 neighborhood concerns. 10 11 For bees, the waiver process would still exist, however, extensive requirements for bees are 12 proposed. Beekeeping operations can be difficult for potential beekeepers to successfully and 13 safely implement in residential environments and the requirements in the ordinance are 14 intended to address those issues. 15 16 The PEC reviewed the ordinance contents with Code Staff at their March, 2024 meeting. A 17 copy of the staff report was provided for Planning Commission background. The updated 18 ordinance reflects staff’s updates based on the PEC’s comments and questioning, as well as 19 three additional modifications related to (F) License Term; (G) Allergy issues; and (I) 20 Location. 21 22 Mr. Grittman summarized the proposed changes as follows: 23 24 (F)Staff added to the license section to create an administrative renewal for licenses on an 25 annual basis, unless the City Manager finds that the request requires City Council 26 review. 27 28 (G)License Limitations for Allergies. The ordinance creates a requirement for potential 29 applicants to survey neighboring property owners as to “medically documented” 30 allergies. The original language in the PEC version required documentation for all 31 property owners within “100 feet” of the subject parcel. Administration of this 32 requirement may prove complicated, and as such, the standard is proposed to be 33 limited to “abutting property”. 34 (I)35 (3) – Location – planning staff modified the original draft language that required a 36 200-foot separation between hive placements and any property zoned other than R-1, 37 Single Family. Instead, planning staff proposes that on any property “abutting” non-R- 38 1 property, the hive shall be located as far as practical from the non-R-1 boundary. It is 39 believed that the 200-foot buffer distance would be difficult to manage and would 40 exempt many R-1 parcels from eligibility. 41 42 If acceptable to the Planning Commission, staff asks that the Commission consider 43 recommendation of the proposed ordinance to the City Council for adoption. This may 44 include recommended modifications to the proposed draft as deemed appropriate to the 45 Commission. 46