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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes CC - 10/13/2014 - MINS 10 13 14 WS (Migrated from Optiview)----------~--------~-~- Work Session of the Milton Cit y Council Monday , October 13 , 2014 at 4 :00 pm Page I of 11 This summary is provided as a convenience and service to the public, media, and staff It is not the intent to transcribe proceedings verbatim. Any reproduction ofthis summary must include this notice. Public comments are noted and heard by Council, but not quoted. This document include s limited presentation by Council and invited speakers in summary form. This is an official record of the Milton City Council Meeting proceedings. Official Meetings are audio and video recorded. The Work Session of the Mayor and Council of the City of Milton was held on October 13,2014 at 4:00 PM. Councilmembers Present: Councilmember Karen Thurman , Councilmember Matt Kunz, Councilmember Bill Lusk, and Councilmember Burt Hewitt. Councilmembers Absent: Councilmember Longoria and Councilmember Moluig. Mayor Joe Lockwood: • Work Sessions are an informal setting to update Council on business items. • No votes will be taken during these sessions . • There are four (4) items on our Agenda tonight. • Public comment is allowed that is germane to an Agenda Item. • If you wish to speak you are required to fill out a comment card and turn it into the City Clerk staff. • Public comment will be allowed for a total of 10 minutes per agenda item and no more than 2 minutes per person. • Public comment will be heard at the beginning of each Item. • Once the item is called, no other comment cards will be accepted. Agenda Item #1 was read. l. Discussion of Rural Milton Overlay District as it relates to Single Family Residential Uses. (Kathleen Field, Community Development Director) Kathleen Field, Community Development Director The first item to discuss is the Rural Milton Overlay District as it relates to Single Family Residential uses. As you may remember we redid and created a Rural Milton Overlay not too long ago and we have a map here showing the green area which is the Rural Milton Overlay. There are a lot of regulations in it that apply to all zoning districts . We are going to be talking about a new RR (Rural Residential) zoning district. The regulations that are in this overlay are going to apply to that zoning district. I want to re -review some of those regulations because they have come up as part of our discussions over the last couple of months and I want to make sure you are comfortable with them or if you would like to direct us to make changes to them. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13,2014 at 4 :00 pm Page 2 of II To start the discussion, I am going to the memo that relates to RZ14-08 R-2-Text Amendment because there is a chart in there that I am going to use to talk from and it is a comparison chart. If you will look at the chart, you will see the last column deals with Rural Milton Overlay (RM). These are issues that are in the Rural Milton Overlay. I just want to go through to make sure that you are aware that they are there. The first one deals with Height. The height restriction is two stories or 28 feet. I want to make you aware that is in the Rural Milton Overlay and will affect all zoning districts. Mayor Lockwood Does anybody think of an issue where that is going to come into place? Kathleen Field It is 28 feet up to the eaves now. Bob, can you tell us what the average is? Robert Buscemi, City Architect Average fade around the building and basements do not count currently to story, so it does not include the basement. So you can have a basement and a two story, you can even have a third story retreat. The only difference is you would have to set it back a little bit so the grade is more like a dormer. Councilmember Kunz So is 28 ft. the typical height of an eave? Robert Buscemi It is the average. On a typical house where you have a two story front and three story back (with a basement), it generally averages out to 34 ft. allowable and there has not been anybody who has not met that as of yet. It does allow for greater roof pitches and heights which everybody has been taking advantage of that. Kathleen Field The next standard to discuss is rural view shed . Rural view shed includes a 40 ft. undisturbed and 20 ft. no improvement setback along "exterior roads". This is now part of the Rural Milton Overlay. Councilmember Thurman I have a little bit of a problem with that one. Sometimes an undisturbed buffer is not real pretty. There are times we are much better off with something that is a little bit undisturbed as long as it keeps the rural character than with something that is undisturbed , especially if that undisturbed happens to be a kudzu field or something like that. I am not sure why we say undisturbed rather than something like a rural character buffer? Undisturbed can look pretty bad. Mayor Lockwood I agree with that. Maybe we have some lead way in there. Councilmember Thurman Can we say a natural setback rather than an undisturbed setback? I know we don't want it to be a formal landscape type setback, but like I said , an undisturbed setback can be an unpleasant thing. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13, 2014 at4:00 pm Page 3 of II Kathleen Field Let me go to the language that is in the Rural Overlay specifically to give you a little more detail. Provide 40 ft. undisturbed buffer and an additional 20 ft. no improvement setback for single family lots. Where sparsely vegetated, replant the underscore buffer in a natural fashion per the approval of the City Arborist, submit landscape plan to arborist for the preservation of the rural view shed. Robert Buscemi So, the way we have been treating that is if it is natural but looks unsightly the arborist would say this needs to be replanted and they would work together on a planting plan but it would be planted in such a way it would be more organic and natural, keeping it more rural looking? Something the applicant and arborist would work hand and hand on. Councilmember Thurman How is that exactly worded? Kathleen Field It says: "Where sparsely vegetated, replant the underscore buffer in a natural fashion per the approval of the City Arborist, submit landscape plan to arborist for the preservation of the rural view shed." Councilmember Thurman Where it says sparsely vegetated, could we add on "or undesirably vegetated" so it covers those things we find unsightly. Kathleen Field Maybe we could say, "Submit a landscape plan regardless for review and approval by City Arborist". That way on a case-by-case basis he could look at them, just like we do with the architectural review for the end-houses maybe we need to build that in there more. Councilmember Thurman And this is only for the site adjacent to the exterior street? Kathleen Field Correct. Councilmember Lusk I have a question as to what the definition of the natural fashion is, so I can dispense with that and just have them submit a landscaping plan ... Kathleen Field For review and approval? Councilmember Lusk Right. Kathleen Field Yes that would be cleaner. Then we would not be trying to figure out what is a natural fashion or where it is sparsely vegetated. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13,2014 at 4:00 pm Page 4 of 11 Councilmember Lusk Like Karen said, it may need to be cleaned up where there is kudzu. Mayor Lockwood We need to look at some of these retention ponds that have grown up with a bunch of scrub trees as well. Maybe to have less landscape might be better. Kathleen Field Any other comments on that one? Architectural Review The Milton Rural Overlay speaks to requirement that there will be review again for only those lots that are adjacent to exterior streets, we put that in. We also put in that the mandate for equestrian style fencing adjacent to exterior streets; this is now a condition of the Overlay. Councilmember Lusk What do we call an exterior street? Kathleen Field An exterior street is a non-subdivision street. Councilmember Lusk Streets like main arteries and collector roads? Kathleen Field Yes. The last issue I want to go back to is the Lot coverage. Councilmember Thurman What happens if you are building a single family house on a main street? How does that work for like the equestrian style fencing and everything else? I understand it if you are in a subdivision but what about if you are doing one, two, three houses, how does that work? Does everybody have to put a fence in their yard? Mayor Lockwood If they are going to put in a fence it has to be an equestrian style. Councilmember Thurman So they do not have to put in a fence but if they do it has to be an equestrian style Kathleen Field Correct. It cannot be a privacy wall or a privacy fence. Anymore questions on that? Lot Coverage There has been a lot of discussion about this 20% and as you know we did have an issue with coverage as it related to some of the lots in the Manor. Our definition for calculating lot coverage includes that total lot area should be the area of the lot reduced by the area of all the following: golf courses, bodies of water and streets. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13 ,2014 at4:00 pm Page 5 of II Golf course was the big issue. When we took that out of calculating the size of the lot, then the house coverage percentage went up which caused an issue. There was one lot on the golf course in the Manor that could not meet the 20% definition of the coverage and as a result that one lot is filing for a variance. We feel, yes, there is an issue when you include golf courses and or bodies of water. One way we thought of correcting that issue would be to just subtract that out of the definition, so that would not be part of the definition of reduction of lot coverage. We would not reduce lot coverage for areas that have golf courses and or bodies of water. They would just be included in lot size. We did look at other city's ordinances to see how they handled it and most have the same 20% some have 25% but that was the highest we saw. We thought that we would be dealing with this issue again of subtracting out the reduction of golf course land and bodies of water. Councilmember Lusk Remind me, what is the coverage we are talking about, the actual building? Kathleen Field It is the impervious. It includes the footprint of the main building, regardless of size, total footprints of any accessory buildings larger than 150 sq. ft., swinuning pools, hot tubs and associated decks and parking pads and driveways. Councilmember Thurman I think if I started to put a pool in my backyard I would be really close to that 20% by the time you add my driveway in and I put in a decent size pool, especially since I have a creek in my backyard I would be well over the 20% at my house. Robyn MacDonald, Principal Planner I think when we speak of bodies of water; we are looking at lakes more not streams, because a stream is not too much coverage. Some lots, especially in the Manor, include a lake because the center line goes to the center line of the lake so that actually making the net of that lot very little same with a golf course easement that goes to the center line of the golf course. Kathleen Field So that is where it is and I just wanted some feedback from you. If you want, we can subtract out the golf course and the bodies of water. But the other issue is, speaking to Karen's conunents; did you want to up that percent of coverage from 20% to 25%? We think having some percentage is a good thing. It limits the amount of impervious elements and you do not want the whole lot paved but we do not want to be so restrictive that we offend a development as it comes through. There is a fine line when it comes to balance here, so we are looking for some guidance from you all. Councilmember Kunz When you were looking at other cities, that 20% -25% range is mostly what you saw? Kathleen Field Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13,2014 at 4:00 pm Page 6 of II Yes. No more than 25. Most had 20 but some had 25. Councilmember Kunz Did you have any less than 20? Robyn MacDonald I do not remember any at 15. And this is comparing one acre lots to one acre lots. So we are comparing apples to apples. Mayor Lockwood So you are talking about a 9,000 sq. ft . of area for an acre lot. Kathleen Field Yes. That is right. We are talking about the footprint. Councilmember Thurman It's the driveways where the problem is. Kathleen Field Robyn has looked at this and it hasn't been an issue, has it? Robyn MacDonald We have pretty large properties coming in for permitting and then again I think not every single lot is one acre so as you go up in acreage it helps the percentage. If we are just looking strictly at one acre, it has not been an issue. These are pretty large, eight to ten thousand sq . ft. houses with three car garages and big pad and it's really not as obtrusive as you would think. Mayor Lockwood What would happen if someone did have an issue? What process would they go through? Would they go for a variance? Kathleen Field They could do a Board of Zoning appeals or if they wanted to do portions of their driveway in pea gravel instead of full on cement. Councilmember Thurman Subdivisions are never going to allow that, so that is not going to be an option. Mayor Lockwood Do we have an option? Do we feel like we need to up the percentage or have a clause for the driveway or do you guys want to leave it like it is? Councilmember Hewitt It is one of those things if we leave it like it is and if things start recurring then we can always look at it agam. Kathleen Field ~-----~--- Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October J 3,2014 at 4 :00 pm Page 7 of II We can change the definitions to exclude the golf course and the bodies of water from the reduction of the Lot Coverage size, so that should go a long way with helping this problem . If issues come up we can bring it back to your attention. Councilmember Kunz Right now, you think we might only have one variance in effect with what we got if you remove the golf course and the bodies of water from the definition? Kathleen Field Correct. Councilmember Kunz Then that is fine with me. Robyn MacDonald And that particular lot we did not have that rule with the golf course, it would not have been an issue. Councilmember Lusk The way the code reads then is the impervious areas of no lot should exceed 20%? Robyn MacDonald Correct. That is already in the definition. You have a sheet with the definition. You can just strike out the Part B. Councilmember Thurman Personally, I still feel like 20% is too restrictive. Kathleen Field One other item related is the whole issue of the Manor's Covenants. There was a request to look at using the Covenants of an HOA to replace the Overlay Requirements and Zoning Requirements, and especially as it relates to gated communities, rather than using our requirements. We did an analysis of that as it relates to the Manor and we thought that the only two issues that would affect this would be: 1) The fence requirement for those parcels on an exterior road 2) The rural view shed for those parcels on an exterior road There were three in the Manor Subdivision (located on Hamby Road) that have not been developed and would fall W1der our regulations but would not fall under the HOA Covenants. But then you have the issue if you do it for one gated subdivision then would you have to set a precedent to do for others and how would we administer it. From our analysis, we thought we were dealing with just three lots that we could work with the developer on and other than that we did not see an issue. It is certainly something that came up for discussion and we wanted to bring it up again to get your feelings on whether or not you wanted to exclude gated communities from our Overlay Requirements. Councilmember Thurman Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13, 20) 4 at 4:00 pm Page 8 of 11 For consistency purposes, it seems to make sense not to change the rules for the last three lots for an already existing subdivision. So, maybe if you applied this rule to gated communities that have already been platted and any coming forward would have to adhere to the new rules. City Manager Lagerbloom Would you be comfortable having the code say 20% but also add that the Community Development Director has the authority to administratively consider up to a 5% increase in lot coverage based upon a certain set of criteria? The City Council was in agreement to the direction suggested by the City Manager. PUBLIC COMMENT Walter Rekuc, 615 Scarlet Oak Trail, Milton, Georgia 30004 When developers try to sell a lot that backs up to a main street they encounter two problems with that customer; the biggest problem is noise and the other problem is visual. So, typically you should build a berm to diminish some of the road noise. In order for the entrance to be aesthetically appealing, the developer tries to use the most appealing trees and shrubbery; however, in my experience, I have been told that I couldn't use a certain type of plant or tree because I had exhausted by allotted amount of a certain specimen within the subdivision. I was also told I had to keep them in the natural setting which tends to create gaps between shrubberies and gives a haphazard look instead of a planned approach to an appealing entrance. In addition, I have a problem with our code that states the distance is from the ground to the middle of the eave. I don't want to create two different codes that state two different measurements and then be told that one code overrides the other. We need to be consistent. I think it needs to be measured from the floor joist of the first floor. I think you will have problems stating that the measurement needs to be from the ground level. I disagree with the 20% maximum lot coverage. I think we are hurting ourselves. The whole reason for CUP is for creativity and a 20% lot coverage limits that concept. I do agree with grand fathering the gated communities that already exist. In Georgia, covenants have a lifetime of 20 years . They do not go on forever if a community does not renew them. Relying on covenants is a false sense of security. Agenda Item #2 was read. 2. Discussion of R-2 (Single Family Residential) District (Proposed RR Zoning District). (Kathleen Field, Community Development Director) Kathleen Field, Community Development Director This district will be a compromise between the proposed CUP, which we are going to recommend we delete, and the AG-l district. It gives a little flexibility, not as much as the CUP had, but a little more than the existing AG-l. One of the biggest differences is that this district requires square footage for open space, which the AG-l does not require, and requires more square footage than the CUP. Councilmember Thurman I have a problem with us changing an entire zoning category based on perception and especially when perception is not reality. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13,2014 at 4:00 pm Page 9 of II City Manager Lagerbloom One of the issues that brought this discussion to the surface was the difference between plans to build "on paper" and the actual ability to build on the land based on the topography; septic systems, perk issues, soil, rocks, trees, etc. We wanted to give a little more room for real world issues once the "paper plans" were brought to fruition on the actual land. This was an exercise to see if the CUP was allowing for more density than the AG-l and it appears that is not the case. What are your thoughts on proceeding with this proposed change? Councilmember Kunz Is there a way to determine the number of lots that would be possible to build based on buildable area for AG-l then CUP, accordingly? City Manager Lagerbloom Yes, it is not that difficult to show a site plan developed to AG-l and also a site plan developed to CUP. However, there is a cost issue involved in asking a builder/developer to produce both of these plans and we may get some negative reactions to requesting both plans. And, the cost of producing both plans will ultimately get passed on to the citizen. Council member Thurman I think we need to educate the developer and explain that the CUP is not a way to get more density but an ability to layout the plans so that they fit with the topography of the land. Mayor Lockwood So, is the general consensus to keep the CUP instead of going forward with a new RR district? City Manager Lagerbloom Do we see a need for a NUP and CUP when the only difference is that one is 10 acres or more and the other is less than 10 acres? So, we will bring forward a recommendation to merge NUP and CUP together and keep the flexibility of the CUP. Councilmember Thurman I think open/green space and a recreational facility should be a requirement of all new subdivisions. Councilmember Kunz I would like to require the fencing as well. PUBLIC COMMENT Walter Rekuc, 615 Scarlet Oak Trail, Milton, Georgia 30004 The problem that I see with the CUP is that developers are having a difficult time deciding whether to build CUP or AG-l. The criteria that I believe is important for builders to understand to build CUP are that they can prevent private roads. In addition, most developers today want to move the house closer to the street and under AG-l it is not possible to do that. Also, the front and side yard setback reductions are different. By reducing the front and side setbacks, particularly in cul-de-sacs, it helps a developer from the standpoint of septic tank issues. Also, I do not think that open/green space should be a requirement. Some communities will use it; others will not. I have seen open space that has not been maintained and it is not aesthetically appealing. You could possibly collect fees for developers who do not want to keep an open space. Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13,2014 at4:00 pm Page ]0 of II In addition, I believe there is too much review of plans by the city. The developers and builders are in the business and they know what is best. Most developers are looking at 20-23 acres for a development. For a one acre septic tank lot, it takes 1.3 to 1.5 acres to develop. I think we should keep the CUP district but tweak it a little to remove the impression that the public has that a developer who choses CUP is looking for more density. That is just not the case in most instances. Paul Moore, 15290 White Columns Drive, Milton, Georgia 30004 I appreciate the moratorium that you put into effect; however, I would like to see the NUP and CUP districts be removed altogether and just have AG-l zoning. However, if you choose to keep those districts, I believe Karen is on the right track in preserving open/green space. Once the moratorium is lifted, I would hope that the time you have had to work through these zoning issues will have been worth it in determining how to preserve green space. And, not that you just allowed more time to elapse and then continue with the same high density developments that were occurring prior to the moratorium. Councilmember Thurman Is there a way we can add to our zoning ordinance, such as we did for tree recompense , that if a developer does not want to add/preserve green space then they can put money into a green space fund that we can use to preserve green space? That will give the developer the option of either preserving green space in their development or paying to have green space preserved somewhere eLse in Milton. City Attorney Jarrard I do not know if that is possible but I will look into that possibility. It was agreed upon that the following Agenda Item #3 was discussed/incorporated in the above discussion with Agenda Item #2 . Agenda Item #3 was read. 3. Discussion of the CUP (Community Unit Plan) District and NUP (Neighborhood Unit Plan) District. (Kathleen Field, Community Development Director) The Work Session moved to City Council Chambers to participate in Item #4, a Workshop on Conservation Subdivisions led by Randal Arendt. Date Approved: November 17, 2014 Work Session of the Milton City Council Monday, October 13,2014 at 4:00 pm Page 11 of 11