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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPlanning Commission Minutes 09-07-2011Approved Minutes City of Plymouth Planning Commission Meeting September 7, 2011 MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair James Davis, Commissioners Gordon Petrash, Marc Anderson and Bryan Oakley MEMBERS ABSENT: Commissioners Nathan Robinson, Dick Kobussen and Scott Nelson STAFF PRESENT: Senior Planner Shawn Drill and Office Support Specialist Laurie Lokken 1. CALL TO ORDER - 7:00 P.M. 2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE 3. PUBLIC FORUM 4. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION by Anderson, seconded by Commissioner Petrash, to approve the September 7, 2011 Planning Commission Agenda. Vote. 4 Ayes. MOTION approved. 5. CONSENT AGENDA A. APPROVAL OF THE AUGUST 17, 2011 PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING MINUTES MOTION by Commissioner Oakley, seconded by Commissioner Anderson, to approve the August 17, 2011 Planning Commission Meeting Minutes as amended. Vote. 4 Ayes. MOTION approved. 6. PUBLIC HEARINGS A. CROSSFIT SISU, JASON MASSIE (2011061) Chair Davis introduced the request by CrossFit SISU and Jason Massie for a conditional use permit to allow a sports and fitness club within an existing industrial building for property located at 2060 East Center Circle, Suite 2072. Senior Planner Drill gave an overview of the staff report. Commissioner Petrash asked if each tenant has designated parking spaces. Senior Planner Drill responded that there may be a few parking spaces that are reserved but the majority of the parking spaces on the site are available for any of the tenants within the building. Approved Planning Commission Minutes September 7, 2011 Page 2 Commissioner Petrash asked if the city has any responsibility for designating parking spaces. Senior Planner Drill replied the city does not designate private parking spaces to individual tenants. Chair Davis asked if all the other tenants in the building are industrial. Senior Planner Drill responded that there are a variety of uses in the building. He said there is some office and warehousing that is more industrial related. He said that it could be argued that Camp Bow Wow, also in the building, is not an industrial use. However, dog boarding facilities are only allowed in the I-2 district, so in that sense, it is an allowable industrial use. Chair Davis asked if available parking is being used by employees or customers coming in to the building. Senior Planner Drill replied that, except for Camp Bow Wow, most of the parking is for employee daytime parking. He said that there is not expected to be a lot of conflict with the parking spaces. Commissioner Anderson stated that many industrial buildings have a truck court or dock door. He said that this particular building does not appear to be set up for large trucks. He said that he wanted to make sure that there is not a conflict between the trucks, the truck court and the parking in the front of the building where customers will be coming in and out. Senior Planner Drill responded that this is a multi -tenant building and some of the lease spaces are fairly small. He said there is not a traditional truck court with loading docks but rather most of the spaces have an overhead, drive-thru door for deliveries. He said that in this type of setting, there are mainly smaller trucks that do the deliveries. Chair Davis introduced the applicant, Pat Crosby, representing CrossFit SISU. Mr. Crosby stated that they are very excited to be moving from Wayzata to Plymouth. He said that this would be a big change for them for their business. He said that they are confident that the space and the location will help their business grow. Chair Davis opened the public hearing. Chair Davis introduced Dan Parks, 2630 Zanzibar Lane North. Mr. Parks stated that he is a member of CrossFit and that he supports their application for their business in Plymouth. He said that they offer excellent service and would be a great addition to our city. Mr. Parks stated that this is a pretty simple conditional use permit application and the only real issues for review has to do with parking and hours of operation. He asked if the city would consider streamlining the process for future applications that are simple like this one. He said there are no exterior improvements to this building and asked that if staff is entirely supportive of a project and it doesn't include any big changes, if there is a way that city staff could simply be allowed to approve this type of project. He said that in this case, he questioned whether or not the approval and hearing processes really have a benefit to the community. He said that this process seems somewhat onerous based upon the size of the project and perhaps there is an easier, quicker way to have this type of project be approved in the future. Approved Planning Commission Minutes September 7, 2011 Page 3 Chair Davis closed the public hearing. Senior Planner Drill stated that, with respect to Mr. Parks' comment, the zoning ordinance requires a public process rather than administrative approval. He said that to change the review process would require amending the zoning ordinance to make this a permitted use in the industrial zoning district. He said that although this particular case was not problematic, there could be situations where the setting and context is different and there may be more issues. He said if the Planning Commission feels a change is needed, they could direct staff to provide a report on the matter for future consideration. However, he said that at this point, he did not know that staff would be able to support such a change. Chair Davis stated that City Council should make that direction. Commissioner Petrash stated that the public process provides a forum for people in the neighborhoods, or surrounding areas, to come and raise concerns. He said that it is not just the Planning Commission, as there could be people who object or have other issues that we are not thinking of and this is the forum for that. Commissioner Anderson stated that if we change the rules to say that a conditional use permit for a sports and fitness facility is not required, the city would not have the opportunity to address potential issues and problems. He said that the required hearing process is set up to catch situations where a particular use is not going to work in a particular area. Commissioner Petrash stated that allowing staff to approve such applications would need to include benchmarks for size, etc. and where do you draw the line? He said he didn't support such a change because it would eliminate the public forum for residents and business owners. MOTION by Commissioner Anderson, seconded by Commissioner Petrash, to approve the request by CrossFit SISU and Jason Massie for a conditional use permit to allow a sports and fitness club within an existing industrial building for property located at 2060 East Center Circle, Suite 2072. Vote. 4 Ayes. MOTION approved. 7. NEW BUSINESS 8. ADJOURNMENT MOTION by Chair Davis, with no objection to adjourn the meeting at 7:20 p.m.