Minutes - Council Work Session - 10/17/2023 - Special

Home

Planning Manager Larson stated that there are plenty of businesses that do not have bike racks; however, this requirement would be for any new businesses moving forward. Councilmember Howell shared that she thinks this is overreaching. Councilmember Specht asked if a lack of bike racks is a big problem that is being seen and if they are getting complaints. Planning Manager Larson explained that this could go along with the addition of trails. He noted that people who would be using these trails may be riding their bikes into town to go to businesses and may not just be using the trails to ride their bike and go home. He stated that this would allow people not to worry about where they will put their bike if they do go into any of the businesses in town. Mayor Kuzma asked the Council if they were in favor of keeping this requirement or removing it. The Council was in support of removing the bike rack requirement. Councilmember Musgrove asked about the requirements for removing the abandoned or unused wind energy conversion systems (WECS) being 12 months and suggested that they be required to remove them after six months of being abandoned. Planning Manager Larson explained what is currently in code for this. He noted that they took out parts of this that dealt with what deems the system as being abandoned. He stated that he is not sure if they would need a demolition permit for this. Councilmember Musgrove stated that 12 months is a long time to leave something like this abandoned. She thinks that six months is more of a reasonable timeframe. Planning Manager Larson noted that they will not know if solar panels are operational or not so this is something that would be hard to enforce. He added that the other way that they would be able to notice that it was not operational is if it were broken which would then fall under nuisance code. City Administrator Hagen explained that if there is a home that has solar panels on the roof and they unplug them and stop using them, Staff would not know whether or not the solar panels were in use or not. Councilmember Musgrove stated that she is not sure if this even needs to be in the code if this issue could be resolved with the nuisance code. Councilmember Riley shared that he was more concerned about this from a different perspective as these can turn into toxic waste rather than being removed. He noted that there is a cost to removing these and abandoning them could be dangerous. He stated that if it has not been used for City Council Special Work Session/ October 17, 2023 Page 11 of 16