The City Plan Commission met 08/23/2023. Most of the meeting was taken up with a review of proposed text amendments to Chapter 23 of the Municipal Code’s Zoning Ordinance. These changes were aimed at updating the rules to respond to current types of development and to, in some cases, bring the ordinances into compliance with current state law.
The changes pertained to 4 main categories (A) cell phone towers, (B) dumpster enclosures, (C) drive-through facilities, and (D) Off-Street parking and loading.
The commission seemed generally supportive of the changes. Staff was planning to bring the changes back before the Plan Commission as an action item for a formal public hearing and vote on 09/13/2023.
I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
A. MOBILE SERVICE SUPPORT STRUCTURES AND FACILITIES
The changes would repeal the city’s current regulations and update them with rules that were compliant with state statute.
Currently, telecommunication towers were listed as a “special use” for different zoning districts, but these changes would list them as a “permitted use” in all districts which would allow applications to be reviewed and processed administratively rather than have to undergo a public hearing and be approved by a committee. The reason for the change is that, under state law, the city has very limited discretion to deny a cell phone tower based on location so it did not make sense to ask a committee and the Common Council to vote on permits when they did not actually have the statutory authority to deny them.
The changes in this section would also increase the cell phone tower review fee to $3,000 from $2,700.
Finally, changes in this section would create the same landscaping and fencing requirements for cell phone towers as for the other electronic towers (such as radio towers) in the city.
B. REFUSE CONTAINERS AND DUMPSTER ENCLOSURES STANDARDS
The city’s current trash enclosure and dumpster regulations were written at a time when the city picked up dumpsters and trash on commercial properties and were crafted with city-specific needs in mind regarding garbage collection. Since the city no longer collects trash on commercial properties, they wanted to update the rules to make them more relevant to today’s current development patterns. They changed the location standards to hopefully reduce the number of variance requests that were going to the Board of Zoning Appeals. However, they did still have screening and aesthetic requirements.
C. DRIVE-THROUGH FACILITIES
As with dumpster enclosures, the city was seeing several variance requests come through each year related to drive-through regulations. The regulations currently on the book had been crafted a long time ago and mainly pertained to bank drive-throughs. Now, however, there were drive-throughs for fast food restaurants (including double drive-throughs), pharmacies, and carwashes. Additionally, the existing language was wishy washy and could be interpreted multiple ways, so they added some definitions while also offering more flexibility.
They reviewed existing drive-throughs and tried to make the updated code reflect what they were actually seeing being constructed and tried to separate out the different uses and create different stacking expectations for those uses.
Finally, although drive-throughs were still allowed in the C-2 General Commercial District, they would no longer be allowed on properties zoned CBD Central Business District which was in the downtown area. The few drive-throughs that were permitted would be grandfathered in, but no drive-throughs would be allowed moving forward. This was because the Central Business District zoning was intended to be pedestrian oriented and they wanted to get away from car-centric designs.
Commissioner Sabrina Robins asked what the general boundaries of the Central Business District were and was told it went, roughly, from Badger Avenue to Drew Street and Packard Street down to the Fox River.
Commissioner Adrienne Palm verified with staff that not only would the existing drive-throughs in the Central Business District be allowed to still operate, but that that non-conforming use would transfer to one owner to the next in the event of a sale.
Of the removal of drive-throughs as an allowable CBD use, Mayor Woodford said, “[I]n addition to supporting our goals around being a more walkable community, it’s also a strategic decision on the part of the city to try and maximize our use of that highest density and most productive space within the community from a tax base perspective. So, there are multiple benefits to this.”
D. OFF-STREET PARKING AND LOADING
Staff wanted to change the minimum off-street parking requirements for schools, personal storage facilities, and veterinarian clinics.
SCHOOLS – The changes for the off-street parking requirements for schools were prompted by the plans that had been brought forward for the recent additions to Appleton Area School District middle schools. City staff found that several of the middle schools do not comply with current standards. [I would presume they did conform to the standards in place at the time of construction.] Current standards are based on the idea that a school’s gymnasium, auditorium, and classrooms will all be occupied at the same time, and complying with that current standard would require the addition of excessive amounts of parking. City staff researched what sort of parking requirements were in place in surrounding communities. Additionally, they thought that, typically, a school’s gymnasium and auditorium would only be occupied at the same time during the school day. They were now recommending reducing the off-street parking requirements in the City Code.
For elementary and middle schools, they wanted to base the off-street parking minimums on only the number of employees on-site.
For high schools, the new standard factored in not only on-site staff but also the fact that a number of students would be driving to school.
Alderperson Denise Fenton (District 6) asked if there were any concerns that lowering the parking requirements was going to affect the traffic flow at pick-up and drop-off time, especially at the elementary and middle school levels. Community and Economic Development Deputy
Director David Kress recognized that schools areas were busy at those times of the day. The city was doing its best to encourage and facilitate walking and bicycling to school, and he believed many of the neighborhood schools had adequate on-street parking for the limited pick-up and drop-off times. City staff felt that it was overkill to require schools, public or private, to overbuild their parking simply for those limited times. Additionally, Mayor Woodford noted that too much hardscape development could trigger a cascading effect that negatively impacted stormwater management.
PERSONAL STORAGE – Current standards require one parking space for every five storage units, which staff felt was excessive. They were now recommending that required parking spaces be based on the on-site office space for the storage unit facility. If the facility did not have an on-site office, then there would be no parking space requirements.
VETERINARIAN CLINICS – Current standards require a parking space for each exam room and based on the square footage of the facility of a veterinarian clinic. That was a stricter limit than what is required for a medical facility, so staff was recommending making the requirements the same for veterinarian clinics as for medical clinics. This change was prompted by a recent situation in which a medical facility was changing into a veterinarian clinic, and it was discovered that they had enough parking for a medical clinic but not for a veterinarian clinic.
The commission seemed supportive of the changes, and Deputy Director Kress said that staff hoped to bring the amendments back as an action item for a public hearing and vote on 09/13/2023.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1107159&GUID=120625F0-0618-4586-979A-D174B9880375
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