Laserfiche WebLink
MINUTES OF THE <br /> ORONO PLANNING COMMISSION <br /> Monday,November 16,2020 <br /> 6:00 o'clock p.m. <br /> to the Council if they want it to center in there. He does not think the sellers will care,but the buyer <br /> would probably be amenable to that and that would help everyone. <br /> Chair Ressler asked for a motion one way or the other based on what is applied. <br /> Libby moved,Erickson seconded, to approve LA20-000071, 15 Stubbs Bay Road North,Variance <br /> as recommended by Staff.Ayes 4 (Bollis,Erickson,Libby,Ressler).Nays,3 (Gettman,Kirchner, <br /> McCutcheon). <br /> 4. LA20-000061 CITY OF ORONO TEXT AMENDMENT RELATED TO EXPANSION <br /> PERMITS. STAFF: JEREMY BARNHART <br /> Barnhart does not have a text amendment for the Commission to react to; it is more of a fact-finding <br /> mission in terms of what they would like to see and gives him an opportunity to introduce this concept. <br /> The Commissioners review a lot of variances from month to month and in all of those applications,the <br /> applicant has to prove a practical difficulty and other standards that are imposed by City ordinance and by <br /> State statute. In the City,in terms of reacting to a variance,it cannot really lessen those standards, it must <br /> be as strict as the State in terms of variance standards. He noted one area community has established <br /> what they call an expansion permit; if a project fits their criteria for an expansion permit, even though it <br /> may not conform to the setback requirements,the City Staff can approve it. If it can be considered an <br /> expansion permit but is perhaps above the level of what the City Staff can approve,the Planning <br /> Commission and/or City Council can approve that permit using its own standards that the City <br /> establishes. The City of Mound uses this,with relatively small improvements to non-conforming <br /> structures or small improvements that are non-conforming to the applicable code, City Staff or Council <br /> can approve and then apply its own quote-unquote"hardship."Not practical difficulties,per say, <br /> established by the State,but by its own criteria that the City can impose. This is an interesting way to <br /> avoid the prolonged process of a variance; as the Commissioners know, a variance takes at least 6 weeks <br /> if not longer to get through the public hearing process and that is from the date they make an application. <br /> Often, Staff works with applicants for months in advance on advising an application that would meet the <br /> requirements of the City Council and the Planning Commission. An expansion permit has an opportunity <br /> to change that process,where the Council or Commission establishes what they see as reasonable <br /> improvements that kind of skip that formal process. They can also establish what the criteria would be to <br /> evaluate those; he does not think Mound uses a public hearing process, it is a public meeting, so that takes <br /> out a lot of time involved in the review of an application. Of the 6 week process,about 4 of those weeks <br /> is waiting for the public hearing; the City needs to post a postcard,post a notice in the paper a week <br /> before it goes into the paper, and then it is a 3 week window until the meeting is held and Council usually <br /> sees the Planning Commission's recommendations about 3 weeks after that. Barnhart wants to talk about <br /> the framework in mind, and what does the Planning Commission think is a reasonable amount of <br /> improvement that could be handled this way. Obviously projects that do not meet the criteria established <br /> would require a variance and they'd go through that process again, so this will not get rid of all variances, <br /> but the idea is to try to chop off some of the easier ones,perhaps,that may not have a huge impact. He <br /> says that with a bit of a caveat—any project has a potential to have impacts on a neighboring property <br /> and/or capture the attention of the neighborhood,regardless of how big or how small. The Commission <br /> has seen that,where a relatively small project has filled the room with a number of folks that are <br /> interested in it. Conversely,they have seen huge projects that generate no public input. That is the <br /> challenge in devising this draft;to design what kind of box is the Commission willing to put a project in <br /> so they can try to capture or reduce as many variances as necessary. Barnhart noted in his memo,he <br /> provided the Commission with what the City of Mound does as that is the only one he could find in the <br /> Page 18 of 23 <br />