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Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes June 29, 2010 Page 1 of 5 MISSOULA CONSOLIDATED PLANNING BOARD MINUTES June 29, 2010–7:00 p.m. Missoula City Council Chambers, 140 West Pine MEMBERS PRESENT Heidi Kendall, Vice Chair John DiBari Kelley Durbin Jonathan Haber Don MacArthur Jerry Petasek ALTERNATES PRESENT Carol Evans MEMBERS ABSENT Jennifer Clary, Chair Tim Ibey Jerry O’Connell ALTERNATES ABSENT Tim Skufca STAFF PRESENT Tim Worley Sharon E. Reed OTHERS PRESENT Jerry Ballas Please Note: Written comment and meeting handouts received at this meeting are available for review at the Office of Planning and Grants. Planning Board, City Council and County Commissioners have received copies of the comments for consideration. Photocopies may be obtained from OPG. An administrative fee is required for photocopies. I. CALL TO ORDER Heidi Kendall: All right, I’m going to call Missoula Consolidated Planning Board meeting of June 29th to order. [7:02 p.m.] II. ROLL CALL Heidi Kendall: Can we gave a roll call, please. Roll call indicated that 6 members and 1 alternate were present. Sharon Reed: Madame Chair, you have 6 regular members and 1 alternate present. Can the alternate fill in for the missing members? Heidi Kendall: Yes. Sharon Reed: Thank you. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Heidi Kendall: All right, we have a set of minutes to approve from June 15th. We are now just getting these electronically and not paper anymore, I hope that’s working for everybody, I think it’s a big improvement. Can I get a motion for approval? Kelley Durbin: So moved. Heidi Kendall: Kelley Durbin moved approval of the minutes. Is there a second? John DiBari: Second. Heidi Kendall: John DiBari seconded the motion. Any discussion? ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes June 29, 2010 Page 2 of 5 All in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.” ] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: All right, the minutes are approved unanimously. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT Heidi Kendall: Public comment. Mr. Ballas, do you have anything to publicly comment on besides our agenda this evening. No. Thank you. V. STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS VI. PUBLIC HEARINGS A. Rezoning Request – University of Montana - A city initiated rezoning request to rezone property from R-8 Residential, (8,000 Sq. Ft. per dwelling unit) to OP-3 Public Lands and Institutional located south of the Clark Fork River and the former Milwaukee Railroad right-of-way in the vicinity of Jacobs Island. The property is legally described as Plat H, a tract in the SE ¼ SE ¼ of Section 22, Township 13 North, Range 19 West. Heidi Kendall: All right then. We will move to our only public hearing tonight, which is a rezoning request affecting some of the property of the University of Montana. Tim, do you want to give us the Staff Report? Tim Worley: Yes, for the record, I’m Tim Worley with OPG; and this is a proposal to rezone a parcel on the U of M campus from R8 Residential to OP3. R8 Residential is a single-dwelling residential district with an 8,000 square foot minimum lot size, while as OP3 encourages public and civic uses, including colleges, hospitals, libraries, parks and schools. Most of the UM campus is in this OP3 zoning category. This is less than 10 acres. This parcel, it’s separated by Campus Drive, it’s on the northeastern portion of the campus. It was one of the last parts of the U of M campus to annex into the City in the early 70s and has had a residential designation ever since. There’s just a couple basic issues with this rezoning, why it was requested. Fundamentally, construction projects inconsistent with R8 standards have to go before the Board of Adjustment for a Public Forum and rezoning to OP3 simply cleans up the zoning in this part of campus and allows it to be zoned the same as the remainder of the U of M Campus. These are a couple photos showing Campus Drive and some of the facilities on either side. The photo on the left-hand side is looking east at the campus facilities, north of the physical plant; and of course, to the west, you have a view of a portion of Washington Grizzly Stadium. The Comprehensive Plan designates this location under the category of public and quasi-public lands and facilities, which include uses that have a uniquely public nature, and also lands containing a public facility such as a school. The proposed OP3 zoning we found consistent with the Comprehensive Plan’s recommendation for this location. I do have just one additional agency comment that didn’t make it into the Staff Report and that’s from Philip Maechling. He didn’t see any problem with this rezoning, especially considering that there’s no construction project that goes along with this particular request. Once a construction project does go forward, under this or any other zoning, it’s reviewed by himself, Historic Preservation, and the State Historic Preservation Office as mandated by the Board of Regents. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes June 29, 2010 Page 3 of 5 Staff’s conclusion was that the OP3 proposal is the most appropriate in accommodating uses and facilities with a uniquely public nature on this property, that this zoning district is supported by the comp plan, and, therefore staff recommends approval of this rezoning request. This ends my report. Heidi Kendall: Thank you, Tim. Mr. Ballas. Jerry Ballas: I’m Jerry Ballas, I work for the University of Montana Planning and Construction, and this issue was before you today primarily because of my insistence that we ought to bring what’s on the ground in compliance with zoning; and it’s very clear out there that what is on the ground does not begin to represent R8 zoning, and I can’t believe for the life of me why anybody would want to zone that area R8—it’s never seemed appropriate. So I think it’s one of these quirks in the planning document that I don’t know why staff and other people haven’t noted over the years, but should have been corrected a long, long time ago. I started back in ’85. I did the first stadium addition in several original plans and we had to go through a planning…a Board of Adjustment meeting. Back then, it was merely a formality, I think you paid $50 or something and you went to have a hearing and people have a hearing and the Board doesn’t take any action and if the citizens want to speak against it, they can’t…nobody can really listen to them. So it makes absolutely no sense to have inappropriate zoning on this. And what most people don’t realize when they look at this map up here is that the western border actually runs right through the middle of Washington Grizzly stadium and the southern border runs right down through the middle of our facilities compound, which is basically a maintenance compound, where we service the rest of the campus. There’s another quirk to this that I’m trying to get at, and that is on the south of this is actually County zoning. So, half of that compound is in the City and half is in the County; and we need to clear that up, too. So this is the first step and I would ask you to support it. The University does, it will certainly help us facilitate some of our projects that we need to do in that area. Thank you for your support and for being here tonight on a nice, warm, sunny day. Heidi Kendall: Thank you, Mr. Ballas. There is no public here this evening, so I will not ask for public comment. Is there any comment or are there any questions from members of the Board? Would anyone like to make a motion? Don MacArthur: I move that the request to rezoned property legally described as Plat H, a tract in the SE quarter section…quarter of Section 22, Township 13 North, Range 19 West, P.M.M. from R8, Residential 8,000 square foot per dwelling unit to OP3, Public Lands and Institutional, be approved based on the Findings of Fact in the Staff Report. Heidi Kendall: Okay, we have motion by Don MacArthur, is there a second? John DiBari: Second. Heidi Kendall: Seconded by John DiBari. Jon Haber. Jon Haber: Well there ought to be at least one question. I was wondering if this zoning, Tim, permits dormitories, proposed zoning. Tim Worley: I believe it does. Let me check here. I’m not seeing dormitories as a permitted use, but college and university is one of the permitted uses in OP3. And all the remainder of the UM campus, Main North Campus, is OP3, so there’s existing…all the existing residence halls that I know of are already OP3. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes June 29, 2010 Page 4 of 5 Jon Haber: Okay. And then, I guess one other question on Item 15 on the right, it says this property is floodplain; but I think it’s referring to adjacent property, but I wasn’t sure. On page 3 of the report, No. 15. Tim Worley: Yeah. I think that refers to the property directly to the north. Jon Haber: Okay, thanks. Heidi Kendall: John DiBari. John DiBari: Maybe we could take this opportunity to learn a little bit more, too, could you further expand on what the relationship is between the University and whatever construction projects it might want to do and City Zoning just for our benefit? Tim Worley: I think what happened is this parcel got annexed into the City in 1971; and at that time, an equivalent zoning was applied, which happened to be RR1. Beyond that, I don’t really know why this got zoned residential. John DiBari: I guess maybe my question was more like independent of zoning, I was under the impression that because it was state land that the University could essentially do whatever it wanted to do regardless of what the underlying zoning was and that’s more my question. Tim Worley: Okay. John DiBari: Is that true or is that not true? Heidi Kendall: Mr. Ballas. Jerry Ballas: Yeah, if I could, that is basically true; however, you know, the University would like to really build on property that is zoned appropriately. But state law does say that one governmental entity can’t tell another agency…governmental entity what to do. But, it does set a policy, a procedure, that you have to go through to do that; and that is you have to go through the Board of Adjustments, and they have to hold a hearing which they can’t even take any action on. So it’s really, to me, it’s a meaningless hearing when you have to have a public hearing that nobody can really respond to anything. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Don MacArthur: Just a comment. Seems like a very straightforward and good idea to bring this into appropriate dovetailing with the University use and ownership, and the R8 that is on there right now doesn’t make any sense; so I’m fully in support of it, and I’m thinking it just makes good sense, and I’m glad the University has brought it forward. Heidi Kendall: Thank you. Any other comments? Questions? Let’s vote, then. All in favor, please say “aye.” [All Board members answered “aye.”] Any opposed? [All Board members were silent.] Heidi Kendall: All right. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Ballas and Mr. Worley. We have a few more items on our agenda. VII. COMMUNICATIONS AND SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS Heidi Kendall: Communications and Special Presentations? I’m not aware of any. ---PAGE BREAK--- Missoula Consolidated Planning Board Minutes June 29, 2010 Page 5 of 5 VIII. COMMITTEE REPORTS Heidi Kendall: Committee Reports? Anything? Nope. IX. OLD BUSINESS Heidi Kendall: Old Business? X. NEW BUSINESS AND REFERRALS Heidi Kendall: New Business and Referrals? XI. COMMENTS FROM BOARD MEMBERS Heidi Kendall: Any comments from any of us on any matter? John, yeah. John DiBari: When is our next meeting because this was supposed to be for next week, correct? So… Sharon Reed: Yes. This was supposed to be the July 6th meeting. Your next meeting is July 20th. Heidi Kendall: So there is no July 6th meeting? Sharon Reed: There is no July 6th meeting. Heidi Kendall: I’m glad you asked that question. John DiBari: And do we have an agenda item for the July 20th meeting, or is that… Sharon Reed: I think there are…there’s one item for sure and one that’s tentative, and I think it’s, like, wind energy conservation, you’re going to look at that again; and it escapes me what the second one was, but… Heidi Kendall: Great. Any other comments? XII. ADJOURNMENT Heidi Kendall: All right, folks, it’s 7:17 and we’re adjourned. Yes. The meeting adjourned at 7:17 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Recording Secretary: Transcribed by: Sharon E. Reed Deni Forestek Administrative Secretary Administrative Aide Missoula Office of Planning and Grants Missoula Office of Planning and Grants