CC_Minutes_2023_0306 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Regular City Council Meeting Monday, March 6, 2023 Page 18 Mr. Freihammer explained that on existing properties, the way it was handled in the past was if an addition was added then something else would be removed. So there was a trade off of one for another but there cannot be any expansion. The owner could swap impervious. Councilmember Etten thought this was going to lock a lot of properties with this change. Mayor Roe thought it made sense that if there cannot be a swap made, then the property cannot be added on to. Ms. Gundlach explained this was the single biggest issue that the Planning Com- mission talked about in moving to the model ordinance. This is the most impactful change that people will have to deal with. The Planning Commission talked with staff at their meeting and the variance option is always available to somebody if they want to exceed the twenty-five percent requirement. If the owner is far outside the lake and exceeding that requirement and it is not impactful to the lake,there are some practical difficulties that can be utilized to try and achieve a variance approval to exceed twenty-five percent. The unfortunate part is the DNR has statutory au- thority over the City's shoreland ordinance and the City cannot pick and choose what requirements to adopt without going through the DNR process. Staff ques- tions the DNR on whether or not the DNR would hold the City to the twenty-five percent and the DNR said the City would have to apply the twenty-five percent and would not allow the City to go to thirty percent, even though the DNR would allow the City to make changes to other requirements to align with the City's underlying zoning district but not the twenty-five percent impervious surface limitation. The City does not have to do this. The City does not have to adopt the current model ordinance. Councilmember Etten asked Ms. Gundlach if she could speak to the variance op- tions. Ms. Gundlach reviewed the options with the City Council. Councilmember Etten explained he would love some part of the City's variance procedure to outline how the City could meet the spirit of this but allow something over twenty-five percent. Ms. Gundlach indicated you still can; the variance process will allow the ability to look at every single case specific to the character of six of that case and make it a determination on what requirements the City wants to impose to exceed twenty- five percent. But again,the DNR does get to weigh in on that. Her gut is telling her that based on how the DNR works, the DNR will not give them more than twenty- five percent on the wholesale model adoption ordinance. But on the specific case