When I was driving down Hwy 117 the other day I noticed that Mystic Hills has added a couple of new buildings that I’m guessing are rental cabins. I’m glad they are doing well, but I was a bit surprised to see them as I hadn’t remembered any discussion regarding a site plan revision at the Culver Plan Commission. I wasn’t sure how the mixed use had been approved. Then I remembered… Mystic Hills is outside Culver’s Zoning Boundary.
It’s unfortunate, but the Plan Commission members (and me!) were fairly disheartened by the Town Council’s decision to overrule them on the wind turbine ordinance. Rightly so, they believe that this probably killed any chances of extending our territorial authority.
As the song goes, “I’m Living in a Box”. Maybe this is an answer to Culver’s Affordable Housing Crisis? I ran across this on the Viralands site. I’ve seen several different versions of Shipping Container Construction, many of them designed as affordable housing, including some that are multi-story which I showed here before. I think this is one of the more attractive ones though. There are more pictures at the site here.
Currently this would not fly under Culver’s Zoning Ordinance without a variance since the square footage would be too small. It would probably also spark a spirited discussion with the County Building Inspector since it wouldn’t fit neatly into current building codes. It is an interesting concept though and at the stated $2,000 for a used shipping container, it would be hard to beat that price for the shell of your new home. This would have to be some of the ultimate recycling as well, so it’s definitely green!
Picture Source: Viralands
Tired. Just tired. At the August 19th Plan Commission Meeting there was more discussion and a vote on revisions to the Zoning Ordinance regarding Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS). Type in “WECS” in the search box to the right to see past posts on this subject including the definition per the Culver Zoning Ordinance. It was obvious that the Plan Commission members were whipped on this issue, as was I. This is one that I really wish they had employed an outside consultant on. I feel that they got bogged down on details as they focused on specific WECS’s rather than making general rules that could be applied to all systems. So be it.
The main concession they made to the crowd was broadening the “protected” area, i.e., no vertical WECS’s within 2,500 feet of the L1, P1, R1, R2, C1 or C2 Zoning Districts. This extends the ban well outside the annexed area of town and effectively bans them from our current Extended Territorial Authority in several directions. I understand why they did this considering the vocal minority and their influence on the Town Council, but I’m afraid that this will kill our chances of achieving an expansion of our Extended Territorial Authority. I will beat this poor dead horse one more time here with another example:
Wherever this new restriction extends past our current Extended Territorial Authority it has no effect, i.e., if our Extended Territorial Authority is only 1,500 feet from one of the “protected” zoning districts, the additional 1,000 feet has no effect because it is in land governed by the County’s Zoning Ordinance, not Culver’s. My feeling is that anything like this… things that add restrictions that currently do not affect land within the County’s jurisdiction… will make it difficult if not impossible to extend our authority to include that area. Many outside the jurisdiction will fight any attempt to extend Culver’s jurisdiction just on principle. Why give them ammunition for the battle?
What many in the audience fail to understand about the above scenario is that there are other issues that will affect them. While we tried to mimic the County’s A-1 district when we created Culver’s, there are things there that are allowed by Special Use Permit. This means that they have to come before the BZA for approval. If those requests are under Culver’s Extended Territorial Authority, they come to Culver’s BZA. If they are under the County’s jurisdiction, they go to the County. The property owners within Culver’s jurisdiction may not even be notified, let alone have local representation.
I don’t know if I will speak to this further at the public hearing. I respect the Plan Commission and their attempts to accommodate all inspite of themselves. And we’re all tired… Just tired…
Picture source: LolSnaps.Org
In the discussion regarding WECS’s at the Culver Plan Commission last night, Plan Commission member, Ron Cole, made a very salient comment. “Just think about satellite dishes. They used to be huge at 6 and 8 foot in diameter. Look at them now. Who knows what WECS’s will look like in the future…”
Look for another post regarding this meeting coming out this coming Friday.
Picture Source: Ron Cole’s Facebook page
Representatives from the Concerned Property Owners of Marshall County requested that Culver change their zoning ordinance regarding WECS’s and as a result, the Culver Plan Commission held a Public Hearing on an ordinance change at their August 2013 meeting. (WECS is the acronym for Wind Energy Conversion Systems and applies to any device that takes wind energy and converts it to usable forms of energy.) The initial request was for Culver to match the County’s zoning requirements which currently bans commercial WECS’s and allows residential systems with a Special Use Permit in selective zoning districts. Unfortunately audience members requested that the ordinance be tweaked to further restrict residential systems as well. At that time I spoke up and reminded the Plan Commission that they had recently created an A1 – Agricultural District with the intention of mirroring Marshall County’s A1 district. This was done to eliminate discrepancy protests to extending our Territorial Authority. The Commission agreed with my argument but still had some reservation so they decided to table the issue.
At the September Culver Plan Commission meeting the topic came up again. Russ Mason, Building Commissioner, had conversations with some farmers and had made some minor tweaks to the height restrictions for WECS’s. Audience members also spoke up and protested the allowance of WECS’s in residential areas even under the special use requirements. I again spoke up with two points: