Agenda - Council - 11/26/2024 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The consensus of the Council was to make the last committed payment to Youth First for 2024 and only make non-profit contributions to Alexandra House moving forward. 2.06: Discuss Restricting Non-Owner Applicants on Residential Variance Requests City Administrator Hagen reviewed the Staff report concerning restricting non-owner applicants from residential variance requests. He shared this item was requested by Councilmembers Howell and Musgrove. He shared the recommendation of Staff and City Attorney Knaak to not implement this change. Councilmember Howell shared that she had concerns with a Ramsey resident having someone else applying for a variance request on their property. City Administrator Hagen explained that the property owner is required to sign off on all land use applications for both residential and commercial uses. Councilmember Howell said her idea behind this was to have the property owner who wants the variance to be the one who actually applies for it. Councilmember Specht asked how they would enforce this and know who is actually filling out the application. Councilmember Howell stated she is not concerned with someone getting assistance with filling out the form; however, she would not want the applicant to be someone who does not live at the residence. Mayor Kuzma asked if this would prohibit someone from having their attorney work on their application. Councilmember Musgrove asked if the attorney would be the one filling out the paperwork or if they would just be assisting the resident in filling this out. City Attorney Knaak shared that there is such a wide variety of applications, and the property owner is required to sign the application. He noted that absentee property owners can be an issue in these cases if someone else is living at the property and they are the interested party. He said the key is that they cannot have someone who is pretending to be the property owner signing off on the application when the property owner does not have full knowledge of what is going on. He noted that the burden is on the property,and they would not want to do anything that would impede the property owner's right to represent themselves. He added that this could also restrict the options the property owner has to advance their interest. Councilmember Howell asked if there is enough responsibility with the way this is currently set up that the liability falls on the property owner and not the applicant. City Attorney Knaak said yes and added that this ordinance requires more disclosure than some other cities. City Council Work Session / October 22, 2024 Page 12 of 15