Agenda - Planning Commission - 07/27/2023

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Regular Planning Commission 6. 1. Meeting Date: 07/27/2023 By: Todd Larson, Community Development Information Title: PUBLIC HEARING - Zoning Code Update Purpose/Background: Every ten years, every municipality and county in the Twin Cities metropolitan region is required to update its Comprehensive Plan. After the Comprehensive Plans are reviewed by the Metropolitan Council and adopted by each city, they go into effect. Cities are required to update their regulations to be in line with the Comprehensive Plan. Essentially, the Zoning Code is the toolbox used to implement the Comprehensive Plan. The current Zoning Code has been updated for various issues and topics over the years, but has not had a major overhaul in decades, if ever. The existing Code is hard to navigate, has many inconsistent and undefined terms, has some burdensome regulations, while lacking other needed regulations. Behind the scenes, staff has had near -weekly meetings for several hours each discussing various aspects of the existing Code and what should be kept, deleted, or rearranged in the proposed Code. These meetings centered around what has been working well, what has been problematic, and what the vision for the community is. Over the past nine months, the Planning Commission has had several meetings discussing various topics and sections of the Zoning Code too. Feedback has been incorporated into the draft. Staff also met with the City Council at two work sessions --once for an overview of the process and some high-level questions and another time to gain clarity on home occupations. Also included in the review is the Department of Natural Resources for several of the overlay districts and their comments have been added to the draft. The attached draft is color -coded to show where the language came from for transparency. Much of the language is retained from the existing Code and then arranged better. Several parts were consolidated and condensed. There is also a lot of new language in Code. These sections were found in other communities' Codes and some were crafted by staff. There are several portions that are proposed for deletion. The current draft has several parts shown in red only for transparency that staff did not propose to keep entire sections in some places. The final ordinance that will be presented to the Council will be in black type with all of those deleted portions removed. Included in this work is a new Zoning Map. With most of the zoning districts changing in name, a City-wide rezoning is necessary. Most properties will not experience any negative impacts as dimensional standards will remain essentially the same or become slightly less restrictive. Some properties, mostly businesses, will experience use changes that will result in the property being considered "legal nonconforming." This designation allows a use to continue operations as -is, but it cannot expand or intensify. Notification: Public hearing notifications were provided in the May 26 and June 16 Anoka Union Herald Newspaper. The City's website has had a page devoted to the Zoning Code Update since spring 2023. Various social media blasts were posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Three Ramsey Resident articles since Fall 2022 have discussed the Zoning Code Update project with the most recent one (May/June) noting the public hearing date. An email was sent to all of the business emails on the Economic Development distribution list. After the June 22 Planning Commission meeting was canceled due to lack of quorum, a Union Herald legal notice was placed and social media posts were created.