DALLAS COUNTY PLANNING & ZONING COMMISSION MINUTES The Dallas County Planning and Zoning Commission was called to order on January 20th, 2015, at 5:00 P.M., in the Dallas County Board Conference Room at 902 Court Street in Adel, Iowa, by Chairman, Craig Walter. Members present were Craig Walter, Vickie Klein, Richard Beechum, Randy Tennison, Jennifer Welch, and Lowell Smith. Member absent was Gail Smith. Samuel Larson, Planner II and GIS Technician, was also present. Approve Agenda: Motion by R. Beechum to approve the agenda as presented. Seconded by J. Welch. Ayes unanimous. Motion carried. Approve Minutes of the last meeting of October 21st, 2014: Motion by V. Klein to dispense with the reading of the Minutes of the last meeting of October 21 st, 2014, and approve them as written. Seconded By R. Beechum. Ayes unanimous. Motion carried. Old Business: (None) New Business: Item 1: A Petition to consider approval of a Conditional Use Permit to construct a building and outdoor venue to host social events such as weddings, receptions, meetings and business events on Parcel #08-10-100-006 zoned A-1 (Agricultural District) located in the NW1/4 of the NW1/4 of Section 10, T80N, R26W (Grant Township) for Matt & Kristen Miner. Adam Doll speaking: I am an attorney from Hopkins & Huebner Law Firm. I represent Matt Miner and Kristen Miner. Kristen is going to give a short presentation on their visions of what they would like to do with a wedding/event barn out towards Granger, Iowa, out on 190 th and V Avenue. They are from Granger, and if you have any questions we would be glad to answer them after their presentation. Kristen Miner speaking: Thank you for coming tonight and giving us this opportunity to hear our proposal for the Conditional Use Permit for our business Dallas Chic. (Gave Power Point Presentation. See attached.) Questions from the Board: (None) Others to speak: Frank Drobnich speaking: I own a farm right north of this proposed property and I am not real keen on it, because that means there is going to be more traffic on that road. That means if they are having a wedding they won t want me spraying, or hauling manure, or doing anything out there. I don t think they really want my tractor running when they are trying to give their vows. This is ag land. This is not in town. What are you going to do about the sheriff? Are you going to have a sheriff there? You are going to have all these other things, and you are going to have more traffic on that road. This is ag land, and I am a farmer. I mean I don t want this out there. I absolutely do not. It is ag land. I farm for a living. I want to stay being a farmer. I mean that is why I live out in the country. I have lived there since 1978, and I don t want it there. Gene Jennings speaking: I own the land directly around this. I don t live out there, so I am not too concerned about some of that, but I do have a sod field there that has been there for several years. My
Page 2 P&Z Min. 1/20/2015 concern is that my property be protected so that all the traffic you know is not on it, as a sod field is pretty inviting to drive across. I just want to make sure that it is protected and that there is ample parking. K. Miner responded. That is completely understandable, and that is something that we thought of and knowing we don t want something to happen on your sod farm, so we are wanting to really use that whole perimeter to make sure that it is built up and will be very inclusive, and not even connect at all to your area. Matt Miner speaking: Along with that there will be a fence along Gene s property by the parking, so people would not drive out. K. Miner stated: Yes, there would be a fence, so no one could go on it even by accident. G. Jennings responded: Ok. T. Manning speaking: I ve got a farm up the road from it, and I ve got a cow and calf operation. They are worth a lot of money today. To have a crowd there for a wedding of 400, they will have to come out of Chicago, or St. Louis, or Kansas City to have that number, and Granger has four places that are well suited for weddings and receptions. I see no purpose of adding another one to the selection. They re having trouble renting some of them out now, Because of the fact that it just doesn t happen in that area. So, I am definitely not for it. Jeanne Lubans speaking: I am part of Carroll Ventures, and my brother farms that farm there. We already have about 30 houses in the middle of our operation, and we have got conflicts every month. It is not easy to get your farm operation done if you are spraying, or fertilizing, and whatever. What are these people going to do in the middle of a wedding? How is that going to work out? We would like to vote negative on this, also, as we already have headaches up the street. F. Drobnich stated: If I am running my combine and we have a north wind and all the dust goes on them they are going to start growling at me all the time. What am I supposed to do then? If I am spraying, and they can smell the spray, it is going to be in the air. What are they going to do? Then everybody is going to start complaining. It is just not --------. It is ag land. There are plenty of places in Granger. They have a place out on 141. Go over there and put it on 141. C. Walter stated: Thank you for your input. I hope you as the petitioners are listening to these folks, so you understand what they are saying. K. Miner answered: Yes. Adam Doll speaking: I would just like to say one thing. My clients have done a lot of homework on this. They know the demand that is out there for a wedding like this. There was a comment about there s places already in place for weddings and we don t need another place. This place is going to be completely different. These people have an amazing vision. Some of the pictures you see here there is nothing like this around. The capacity that they are going to have! A wedding of 300! Coming from a small town myself, Osage, Iowa, I would have loved to have had a place like this. One had to go to a Holiday Inn, which is fine, but it doesn t have the charm. It doesn t have the elegance that a place like this would. I think the demand is going to be there. It is going to be a huge tax benefit to the county, like Kristen said. It is on a paved road. The dust will be, and I just talked with Samuel about it this afternoon, and if there are any issues with them causing dust they will certainly dust control the road. The perimeter is going to be trees and fence. I guess I don t know if it is going to be all fenced, but for sure the side where it is sod farmed will be fenced. They have thought about these things to make the disruption to the neighboring landowners as minimal as possible. I can sure understand people don t want something like this there. It is a development that is going to be a gem to the county. The benefits will far outweigh the burdens. Thank you.
Page 3 P&Z Min. 1/20/2015 F. Drobnich stated: So, I am not a burden then? My life is worthless? You guys can do whatever you want and then if I am sitting out here with my tractor running and somebody is trying to have wedding vows I have to shut everything down, because of these people? What about the taxes that I have been paying for the last 30 or 40 years? I mean this doesn t make any sense that you are coming out here. There are places in Granger. I mean it is just not sitting well with all of us in the area. K. Miner responded: I think that we would put the ceremony farther from your field, so that we are on the opposite end, so your field is on the opposite side. F. Drobnich asked: So, he is cutting sod all the time. Is he going to have to stop each time, because you have a wedding going on? Absolutely not. K. Miner stated: But I think our tree barrier would really help, and we are talking lots of evergreens, not just deciduous trees that are not going to stop blockage. Adam Doll speaking: My clients come in fully aware of the setting that they are coming into, and they know that this is primarily agricultural land and they know that they have no right to make you stop your business, and they respect that and appreciate that. Being an Iowa farmer and an Iowa citizen they know that agriculture is the primary revenue source and employs so many people in the state. J. Lubans asked: So, if someone gets sick from some spray or something, is that covered then? Adam Doll answered: Well I don t know all the EPA rules on things like that, but if you are farming within legitimate farming practices, they will not ask you to stop doing that. J. Lubans responded: No, but if somebody gets sick from the spray, how does that work? If somebody at your wedding gets sick from the chemicals? K. Miner answered: That would have to be contractual. Just like I chose to live right next to a farm field. J. Lubans stated: Just like I said, I have twenty of them already. K. Miner responded: Yes, that would have to be contractual that the bride would have to sign off of. F. Drobnich stated: They will want everything shut down at 8 o clock at night. Well, sometimes we have to keep working later than that, plus I found out about this from a letter from you people. They never did come and ask me anything about this ahead of time. Why didn t they tell us about it before hand? C. Walter speaking: Well, we can t worry about that. We just have to go by the rules here. Samuel, would you give your commentary on this? Samuel Larson speaking: Sure. Murray is not here tonight, obviously, and I talked about it with him today, and there are a few points that are spelled out here for you in the review. If anyone wants a copy, I can provide a copy for you. (See attached.) It is a fairly large venue, so parking is one of the bigger issues. The county engineer had some concerns and I ve expressed those to them (the petitioners). One of those is ample parking and to make sure that in the conditions on this that there be no parking along the road. We want to make sure there is one parking space for every 2½ attendees. That is just kind of the rule of thumb. Their proposal probably isn t quite enough, but, as they said, with some parking engineering they can get that figured out. They have the space there to accommodate it. J. Lubans asked: Where is the other driveway going to be? S. Larson answered: The county engineer has discussed that and they want to see two entrances and they need to have them ---
Page 4 P&Z Min. 1/20/2015 J. Lubans asked: On which street? S. Larson responded: On V Avenue, and they will have proper spacing as determined by the road superintendent for spacing, and sight distances, and distance from the stop sign, and things like that. J. Lubans speaking: So, if we are going to try to get equipment up and down the road, how does that work if they are having a wedding? S. Larson answered: I imagine the same way you do it now, by driving up and down the road. F. Drobnich speaking: Well, if you are going to have that much traffic, and I am driving up and down the road with my tractor and sprayer, you are making it more hazardous for me, because some of these people out here drive and have no clue about us people out on farm equipment. I don t farm just right there. I farm all around the area. S. Larson stated: And I can appreciate that, but it is a public road and anyone has the right to use the road at any time, so the same way you have the right to do it, they have the right to do it, as well. F. Drobnich responded: I understand that, but you are adding that many people for agricultural land. S. Larson speaking: Another thing to be spelled out is agreeing to dust control if it is necessary for a portion of V Avenue are part of the points Murray wanted to call out, so if you want to recommend approval those are conditions you need to put on. Board Questions: J. Welch asked: So, both entrances would be on V Avenue? S. Larson answered: Correct. Mike Schroeder asked: Could I ask a question? How many other venues are in farm areas in Dallas County on ag land? I ve heard the term ag come up, so is the precedence being set because it is ag, because if that is the case has there been any other buildings allowed in Ag? S. Larson answered: We currently have two that we have done conditional uses for. M. Schroeder asked: So has a precedence been set on that? S. Larson answered: There is precedence in that this is not new. They are all determined on a case by case basis. R. Beechum speaking: You know I live out in the country and have farms all around me, and I am an organic farmer. My neighbors spray all the time, but I just have a buffer zone. I have a buffer tree zone, so that my bushes don t get any of that anhydrous and all that stuff on them. I mean you can do something like that. You being a landscape guy can do a buffer zone. It would even chop some of the noise down and it will keep the anhydrous and all of that spray from coming into that area, so I mean, there are ways to do this. M. Miner responded: We plan on buffering the whole property, as well. K. Miner stated: Well, and my father-in-law is a tree mover of some of the largest trees in the state, so like we aren t going to plant baby trees. We plan on bringing large trees in from the start. Questions: None
Page 5 P&Z Min. 1/20/2015 C. Walter asked: So, how do you board members wish to proceed? Do you want to make a motion to proceed with the additional requirements put on? S. Larson speaking: May I just remind the board and the public that you are simply making a recommendation at this time to the Board of Adjustment. The Board of Adjustment will make a final decision at a later meeting. We will notify the same way for that meeting, as we did for this meeting. C. Walter added: This is just the first step. Motion by R. Beechum to recommend approval to proceed with the Conditional Use Permit to construct a building and outdoor venue to host social events such as weddings, receptions, meetings and business events with the county staff recommended conditions on Parcel #08-10-100-006 zoned A- 1 located in the NW1/4 of the NW1/4 of Section 10, Grant Township for Matt & Kristen Miner. Seconded by L. Smith. Ayes unanimous. Motion carried. Item 2: A Petition to consider approval of a Conditional Use Permit to renovate an existing barn to be rented out for weddings, receptions, reunions, and parties on Parcel #12-07-400-004 zoned A-1 (Agricultural District) located in the SE1/4 of the SE1/4 of Section 7, T79N, R26W (Walnut Township) for James Keller. James Keller speaking: I didn t prepare a nice presentation like this lady did, but I will try to tell you about it so you have a little better understanding. This is on 160 acres. It is my grandfather s farm. He built it in 1930. It is a brick barn, and I started milking cows in it with my dad when I was 12, and later on we had a hog confinement in it. I spent many years literally in this building, and when we quit using it for ag uses I wanted to save it. That was my first priority to save the building. That started off fifty years ago, so as we progressed I just kept on doing what I felt like and got it all cleaned out. Things had to be torn out from the hog confinement, and it was a hobby of mine. Each year it would get better and better. All of a sudden I thought this would make a pretty nice wedding place, and my work just kind of started adding up, and I thought maybe we should just try to do something with this. So, this past year we have really made some strides on it, and we had the electrician come out. He applied for a permit, and Murray informed us that we were going about this all backward, and we certainly were. But, I am not sorry about anything that we have done, and whether we get to do it, or not. We would very much like to do it, but if not I ve got my barn and it is a good place to hang out in. That is what it will be should you not let us proceed. The upstairs is, or the whole barn is about 30 x 60, so about 180 square feet. It is a brick barn and it had all kinds of holes knocked in it for the purposes of fans and doorways to make it functional for livestock. We have had that all repaired. We have put new doors on it. I asked a gentleman to come down and do it, and I guess I wasn t supervising it, and this was many years ago when I was just wanting to get some doors on it. He brought down 2 black locust doors. I could hardly carry them. The barn doors are made out of black locust, and they are hinged very well. What I have done now, as it takes quite an expense to get a barn ready, so on the lower level I have taken about 25% of it and made that as our entrance room. It is also a place for if people want to have a caterer come in and put their food there. That area is 15 x 30. It is paved very nicely. I had a gentleman come in from Dexter and do it. He did an excellent job. It is red cement. My son-in-law has helped me a lot. We have got 4 stringers for stairsteps. It comes down to a platform, and then four more down. He knew the codes, so he had it all figured out by codes. It is 5 wide and the treads are 4 thick. It is to look rustic. When you go up there I originally planned to use the original hay mow floor, but when I got to looking at it I could see that it would not work, as people would have ended up in the lower level. I have just finished putting in 2 x 8 planks over the whole thing, and am now in the process of sanding it down. For lighting we have chandeliers that we got from the re-store and have painted so they look rustic. The atmosphere we are trying to create is somewhere between rustic and very, very nice. We want to meet in the middle, so we can be clean, slick and nice, and not be some kind of crummy old barn with some old pictures and old bags hanging around.
Page 6 P&Z Min. 1/20/2015 C. Walter asked: How many did you say you would accommodate? J. Keller answered: I am thinking 150, and I m thinking, like I said, I ve kind of backed into this, and I assumed that someone from the county would come out and tell me, or the fire people, but I think 150 would do it, and be accommodated quite nicely upstairs. We plan to have tables and chairs. As far as bathroom facilities, we are going to have a company called King s Throne. They have running water, running toilets, and you can wash your hands. They will bring those out each time you have a wedding. We ultimately plan to have permanent bathrooms put in. This is a way we can get started, and see how it is going to go. We are cleaning it up and it just looks like a construction site now, as far as cleanliness now there is dust, and there is a carpenter working there tonight. As far as parking, we have quite a bit of parking in our barnyard, and we can always make more parking. I own 80 acres there, and we can always facilitate more parking if necessary. So, we are kind of just playing it by ear, but I think it has the potential to be something that is very, very nice, and be relatively small compared to some of the other buildings, but that is just what we have to offer. C. Walter asked: What is your time frame? J. Keller answered: We are hoping to start July 1 st, or as soon as we are approved. No sooner than July 1 st, but if you approve us sooner we have a lot of work to do. The only house we have near there is my son-inlaw and daughter, and they have been very helpful in answering questions, and are happy to have it there. As far as dust, I don t think that will make any problems. They can come off of R-22 and it will be 1 mile and there is nothing but the Waukee Bus Barns across that section if they want to come from Waukee from the east, north, or south. I don t anticipate a lot of loud music, or noise. There may be some music booming over the country, I don t know, but I guess that is all I have to say. If any questions, I ll be glad to answer. Questions: S. Larson speaking: This is fairly similar to the other one we just looked at, but on a smaller scale. We have some of the same concerns of not wanting any parking along the county roads, and making sure there is adequate parking. He has ample space there, so we are not as concerned on this one, but want to make sure that is a condition. As he was just discussing, it is more than a mile to the nearest paved road, so we just want to make sure that he is agreeing to notify the facility users to come the route with the fewest number of houses to have the least amount of impact. If they come straight over from Waukee there are no houses along that section of road. It is just a little over a mile of gravel road. R. Tennison asked: So, it looks like there is only one entrance coming into this property, right? S. Larson answered: Yes R. Tennison asked: So, parking is just generally going to be in the field, or in the yard for the most part? S. Larson replied: Yes. J. Keller stated: Until we figure out what we need. S. Larson speaking: Since this is a smaller scale and he s got ample room there we don t have as many concerns there as long as they are not going out on the road, which they don t have plans to do. We just want to make that a condition that they are not allowed to do that. J. Welch asked: It doesn t require two entrances because of its size? S. Larson responded: Because of its size, and the smaller number of patrons that would use it.
Page 7 P&Z Min. 1/20/2015 J. Welch asked: Are restroom facilities part of the conditional use agreement, or is it sufficient to deliver the restrooms? S. Larson answered: That would be sufficient. I mean we could have the environmental health department review it, but there are other seasonal venues that have used port-a-potty type things. If we wanted to make it a condition we could add that as a condition that they would have to do that if the board wanted to pursue that. We can be more restrictive if we choose to. It is just harder to enforce the more restrictive we get. Motion by R. Beechum to recommend approval for them to proceed with the Conditional Use Permit to renovate an existing barn to be rented out for weddings, receptions, reunions, and parties with the county staff recommendations on Parcel #12-07-400-004 zoned A-1 located in the SE1/4 of the SE1/4 of Section 7, Walnut Township for James Keller. Seconded by V. Klein. Ayes unanimous. Motion carried. Item 3: Approval of Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Dates for 2015. Motion by R. Beechum. Seconded by J. Welch. Ayes unanimous. Motion carried. Motion by R. Beechum. to adjourn the meeting. Seconded by J. Welch. Ayes unanimous. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned. Pat Penn Planner I Chrmn. P&Z Date STATE OF IOWA ) ) COUNTY OF DALLAS ) Signed or attested before me on. 20 by NOTARY PUBLIC (SEAL) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - STATE OF IOWA ) ) COUNTY OF DALLAS ) Dir. of Plan. & Dev. Date Signed or attested before me on. 20 by NOTARY PUBLIC (SEAL)