Tag:Comprehensive Plan
Accessory Dwelling Units
At the September meeting of the Culver Plan Commission there was a rezoning request for the parcel at 451 North State Street. The request was for a rezoning from R-1 to R-2. The property was originally two lots. Due to one of the Culver Zoning Ordinance restrictions (a lot must have a primary structure before an accessory structure can be built) the lots were combined so that the house on the north lot could have a garage on the south lot. The current owner wanted to add an apartment over the garage for when they had family there. The comments from the board, as well as comments from the neighbors, indicated the use desired wasn’t the problem, but the spot zoning to R-2 and the implications of what could be allowed in the future was at issue. R-2 would allow much denser development including many forms of multi-family residential. Unfortunately for the owner, this was the recommendation from the Building Commissioner and they weren’t given much encouragement to seek a variance as there wasn’t a hardship. Subdividing back to the original two lots would be an option, but there was a concern about the two existing buildings meeting setback requirements. The spot zoning was less of an issue since the Plan Commission spot zoned three different homes that contained 2-3 units to R-2 so they met zoning requirements earlier this year. (See previous post here.)
There was considerable discussion about the issue and it was noted that the current Comprehensive Plan added language that Accessory Dwelling Units should be considered. A work session of the Plan Commission was scheduled and held October 8th to address this issue.
At the work session, the Building Commissioner put forth a proposal to create a new zoning district, R-1.5, to add areas that could have have accessory dwelling units. The counter proposal was, that these should be allowed throughout R-1. What follows are some of the discussion points and my thoughts on them:
- Addressing the Comprehensive Plan directive – The Comp Plan makes recommendations from the consensus of public meetings. It is passed by the Plan Commission and the Town Council. In this case, the latest Comp Plan passed both groups unanimously, so the question is more about how to address the issue rather than whether to address the issue. The Comp Plan isn’t binding, but it does give direction. This is just one of many suggestions in the latest plan that contemplates the Plan Commission reexamining the Zoning Ordinance to reflect the Comp Plan recommendations.
- New District vs Subdistrict vs allowable with restrictions – Both the New District and Subdistrict options suggest that the Plan Commission would have to go through some kind of rezoning process to either recategorize an area of R-1 District to the new standards or effectively spot zone each request as it came up. This would be burdensome for the Plan Commission and property owners and create a spot zoning situation every time it came up. The allowable restrictions should be definable and something the Building Commissioner could handle.
- Need for separate water and sewer – This was suggested by the Street Superintendent in case of future lot subdivision. This really should be a moot point though, since this is an accessory use, not a new primary use and most of the lots these would go on would be too small to subdivide. The Comp Plan contemplated this as a way to achieve additional workforce housing on existing infrastructure. This would go against that purpose. (Though I could see requiring a covenant against future subdivision of the lot if an accessory dwelling structure is allowed.)
- Garage Renovations – There was quite a bit of discussion regarding renovating a garage to be an Accessory Dwelling Unit. There were concerns about garages that were too close to property lines and whether a second floor for a dwelling unit would increase non-conformity. While some garages could be renovated this way, the building code overrides zoning, so many older garages would not meet those requirements and those too close to a property line could not be converted and meet the building code setbacks which override zoning setbacks for some conditions. Aside from those building code violations, most of the other concerns could be address through the allowable restrictions. There is also a separate garage height restriction that would have to be addressed.
- Some R-1 Lots are too small – There were concerns about shoe-horning these in on smaller lots. This could easily be handled with a lot size restriction and actually makes the case for making them allowable throughout R-1, but with restrictions. Lots like 451 North State Street would meet the size requirements, but the adjacent lot to the south wouldn’t. Also, this would not eliminate the impervious surface requirements. The need for off-street parking would have to be discussed too.
There were a myriad of other things that were not discussed or were just briefly touched on. Most of these could be handled with a matrix or a Chinese Menu approach. Square Footage of the building could have a minimum and then an increase based on lot size, but still controlled by the base impervious surface requirements. Additional parking requirements could be determined by the number of bedrooms, but still controlled by impervious surface requirements. There could be a requirement that it be smaller than the primary structure. There could be a lesser height allowable than the 35 foot currently allowed in R-1 or even required to be a certain percentage shorter than the primary structure. All of these and others could be check-off items determined by the Building Commissioner rather than having each one appear before the Plan Commission.
A few additional things that should be address:
- Can these be three season dwellings that are shut down and winterized at the end of the season or must they be available for year-round occupancy?
- Can a mobile home or a motor home fit the criteria?
- Must it have a kitchen/cooking facilities or just bathroom facilities?
- Must it be detached?
- The discussion centered around detached units, but that wouldn’t address the R-2 spot zoning discussed previously.
- It would also preclude uses like mother-in-law suites which are currently a gray area.
- It would also preclude larger homes subdivided into apartments, i.e. multi-family use of existing single family structures.
- Is an Accessory Dwelling Unit different from other, possibly existing, accessory structures, i.e. if there is a house and a detached garage, does that mean the detached garage has to be eliminated in favor of the Accessory Dwelling Unit? I don’t think that’s in the spirit of the Comp Plan goal, but it should be defined one way or another. It is another item that might be determined by lot size in the matrix.
There was a lot of concern about spot zoning or even using the idea of allowing it within R-1 with restrictions, because of these things happen without neighbor input. This is one of those things where the Plan Commission will have to be open to thinking outside the box a bit. The Comp Plan goal for this was to provide additional workforce housing by making the best use of existing infrastructure. Based on this, they need to work on making this easy and inexpensive rather than hard and costly. Some will no doubt be full blown vacation spaces like contemplated in the State Street rezoning. But others will be studio and one bedroom spaces suitable for wait staff, teachers and other workers just starting out. Those are the ones we need to encourage as those spaces are in demand and those workers are in demand.
I’m glad to see the Plan Commission taking this up. If you want to follow along, the Building Commissioner has committed to posting updates and additional information here. I know this was pushed by a rezoning request, but it is just one of many Comp Plan recommendations they should be considering. As per a previous post, they are way behind where they were after the 2014 Comp Plan was created. Fingers crossed they build momentum from this start.
Culver Plan Commission September MIA?
Just a mini rant… I was a bit upset to find out that the September Plan Commission meeting was cancelled because there wasn’t anything on the agenda. (Per the Building Commissioner) I know it’s a mostly thankless job and that the pay is poor. ($0: They’re volunteers) I was still disappointed that the commission didn’t take the opportunity to catch up on some of the things that they don’t have time for because their meetings are usually busy. Here’s a short list off the top of my head:
- The Comprehensive Plan – Most of the Plan Commission has not been involved in the production of the new comp plan, having delegated it to Culver Crossroads. Only one Plan Commission member has been an active Culver Crossroads participant. While the production has been delegated, passing of the plan will still fall on them and this would have been a good time to familiarize themselves with the current draft before the required public meetings. As it stands, they are going to have trouble answering public input questions, since they are not familiar with the new document or the decision making process that went into it.
- The Solar Ordinance – They have discussed the need to move this forward quickly as the moratorium passed by the Town Council has left property owners in limbo. This would have been a good time to start assembling names of potential subcommittee members.
- The Zoning Ordinance – We have been talking about cleaning up the mistakes from the last go around for several years. Just taking a section at a time in slow meetings would move this forward.
- The Dunes – This too will be coming before the Plan Commission as a subdivision request. The planning for this is an important function of the commission.
- Related to The Dunes, we are about to start the process of establishing the biggest subdivision (that I know of) since Culver established zoning in the 50’s. I don’t know when the last time the Subdivision Ordinance was updated, but it has been more than 20 years. It references old standards and doesn’t include things like the Complete Streets Ordinance, which was passed 4 or 5 years ago.
- Beste Property – The Planned Unit Development zoning district for these parcels has been undone and the property has gone back to its previous zoning designation, S-1. There has been discussion that there should be a change to this, since the property has been annexed. The property is on the market, so giving some guidance to future buyers would be appropriate.
That’s my short list… With a little thought, I’m sure I could double it, but there are hours and hours that could be spent related to the five thing above.
I give volunteers a lot of respect. I’m not going to come down hard on them for taking a breather. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t important things to do.
Best Laid Plans… Culver Addition
The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men… No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still go wrong with it. The saying is adapted from a line in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”
We were involved with finding a site for Culver Garden Court. It was challenging and we were pleased when Wade McGee stepped up to work with us. Those discussions began around 2010 with Culver Garden Court being completed in 2012. The picture to the right is from the “As-Built” survey of the Culver Garden Court property, dated 2-13-12.
One of the things included in the negotiation was a provision for ongoing and future access to the remainder of Mr. McGee’s property. The quality of PDFs 12 years ago wasn’t what it is now, so this may be a little hard to see. Squint and imagine… I’ll fill in the gaps.
From North to South, Culver Garden Court is across from Tampa Street, an improved alley and Batabano Street. Since we were carving out a new lot and creating a 2 lot subdivision, we set the north property line of Culver Garden Court in line with the centerline of Tampa Street. Then we provided a 50′ wide ingress/egress easement along the north property line. There were extensive discussions with the Plan Commission and Town Council about this. Even though this put the drive of Culver Garden Court off center from Tampa Street, it would be low traffic and not an issues. It was more important to give Mr. McGee the ability to line up with Tampa Street with any future development. The ingress/egress easement would effectively allow Right-of-Way for a future street extension. Until that time, we extended the Culver Garden Court drive to the west property line for Mr. McGee to use for property access.
Given the above, I was a bit surprised to see the plans for The Dunes showing “West Tampa Street” adjacent to the Culver Garden Court Drive. This seems to be the WORST of both worlds. Now we’ll have a misaligned Street right next to a driveway. On those odd occasions where someone is sitting at the West Tampa Street stop sign and someone is sitting waiting to come out of Culver Garden Court… who has the right of way? If they’re turning, they won’t be able to see the signal when it’s on the opposite side of the car. So many issues…
I am not looped in on these things. All I’ve seen is what’s presented in public meetings. The plan to the right is not the current plan, but the most recent plan I saw, presented at the Town Council meeting on August 22nd, still shows the misalignment of Tampa Street.
Culver Comprehensive Plan
As I’ve stated here before, I don’t particularly have any issues with this project; Towns are either growing or dying, so better to grow. But it is a bit frustrating when the planning of the past is ignored. I don’t fault the developer of The Dunes for this. This is clearly a Town of Culver issue. The extension of Tampa Street needs to be re-evaluated and correct alignment should be pursued. And as stated here, a fix for the South Main Street/Davis Street intersection should be considered. It’s particularly frustrating to be serving on the current comprehensive plan steering committee and see the previous comprehensive plan ignored. (Ignored may be a strong word, since as previously stated, I’m not looped in, but it seems that way.)
Plans are just plans. Plans can and often have to change. That doesn’t mean the time and effort put into past plans should be disregarded without proper consideration.
Comprehensive Plan Vision
I am currently serving on committees in Plymouth and Culver working on new Comprehensive Plans (or Com Plans). These documents are governed by State statute, but leave some flexibility to the communities. Sometimes the term “dream” is used with these documents, as in, “What would be your dream use for this area.” or “Dream Big!”. That leans much more towards fantasy for my liking. My preferred term is “Vision”. The heart of the Comp Plan are the land use maps… the “plan” part of the Comp Plan. It’s a visual tool detailing what the community would like to see and where that is.
There are several stumbling blocks for most people in this process. The first is that Comp Plans usually have a life of 5-10 years. (Plymouth’s last Comp Plan was completed in 2013 and Culver’s was completed in 2014.) People can become fixated on that short time horizon. While the Comp Plan should be revisited and updated every 5-10 years, the plan should be for 25-50 years, as theoretically the community continues on in perpetuity. This makes the 5-10 year update more of a tweak, removing things from the previous to-do list that have been completed and to adjust the overall plan for new trends that have developed. The Vision should be longer.
The second hang-up is a struggle to look past what’s there now and who owns that property. Most people look at a parcel of land and say, “I know that landowner and they would never go for that.” But… this is where they need to be thinking farther into the future than the 5-10 year life of the Comp Plan. The municipality will be here 25, 50 & 100 years from now. Will that landowner? Will that building still be viable? Will that street be there? The Vision should be longer.
The third major hang-up is separating the Comp Plan from the Zoning Ordinance. The Comp Plan lays out what the community would like to see. The Zoning Ordinance lays out what is allowed. There can and should be a difference. This is where a zoning hierarchy would be useful. In a discussion in a Culver meeting last week, we discussed the current Comp Plan’s direction for Main Street between Washington Street and Lake Shore Drive to be future Commercial. We discussed extending that to Lake Shore Drive between Main Street and State Street. This brought up discussion of the recent rezoning of a house on Main Street from Commercial to Residential. (Rezoning of 303 North Main Street discussed here.) The rezoning of 415 Lake Shore Drive was discussed as well. I look at these differently. While I have no problem with the reversion of 303 back to a home, there should have been a way to make that accommodation under the commercial zoning, leaving the long term vision in place. I would say the same accommodation should have been made for 415. While the new construction at 415 will theoretically be there longer, the townhouses planned are denser development and a reasonable intermediate step between single family residential and commercial. The strict district designations need to be softened to allow more mixed development. Furthermore, townhouses mixed in with commercial spaces are a reasonable long term plan in a walkable community.
For my Lurkers, this is not the first time I’ve pushed the Vision idea. I really thought Culver missed the boat not redoing their Comp Plan in 2020 and calling it 20/20 Vision. The whole pesky pandemic thing kind of got in the way, not to mention the Town Manager at that time had Stellar Fatigue and despite the Stellar Communities SAP accomplishing much of what was in the 2014 Comp Plan, he didn’t want to create new goals that he would be charged with achieving. Ha!
As with most of these things, there will be more to come. I’m pleased with Culver and Plymouth putting forth the effort and while I was hesitant about them at first, I’m pleased with MACOG‘s administration of the planning. (Thanks Donny!) Everybody work on their Vision. Do your best to envision what’s over the horizon, not just what can be seen today.
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Ronald W Liechty - President, Garden Court, Inc.
More thoughts on Culver Lights
December 2, 2024
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver
Charrette, Community, Complete Streets, Comprehensive Plan, Culver, government, Trends
This post tangentially, convolutedly, connects to the recent Hello Darkness post on sign lights. At least it connects for me, the way my mind works…
The Culver Charrette that was done in 1998 promoted the idea of continuing themes in Culver. One of them was the use of field stone. The Culver Chamber of Commerce embraced this with the field stone and limestone Welcome to Culver sign at the intersection of 10 & 17 as well as covering the wall at the Lake Shore Drive curve across from The Original Root Beer Stand with field stone. Some development in Culver has embraced this and some hasn’t, but it’s nice when it happens. Sand Hill Farm used this in the entrance sign at Jefferson Street and The Paddocks embraced it as an accent on the townhouses in that project.
Another theme that the Charrette suggested was “Utilize a uniform decorative lighting standard throughout the linkages in Town.” This was done along Lake Shore Drive and Main Street. It was continued part of the way out on Jefferson Street with the trail. It was also recommended as part of the Complete Streets discussion. (I couldn’t find the Complete Streets Ordinance on the Town of Culver website, but Kevin Danti, Town Manager, was kind enough to share a copy with me.)
While the lights were installed to follow the bike and walking trail out Jefferson Street to Sand Hill Blvd, neither the lights or complete streets designs were used in the last street Culver put in, Cavalier Drive. The lights were not used along the trail as it goes south from the downtown area of Main Street out to the Masonic Cemetery. I assume per these standards, Resolution 2018-007, Sec. 3(b), will be applied in The Dunes subdivision, though I am not privy to the negotiations on that project infrastructure. They could well have been waived as they were for Cavalier Drive.
I think the consistent themes suggested by the charrette, add to Culver’s character and contribute to Culver being a memorable destination. The lights are not inexpensive, but their ability to be functional and add charm should not be ignored. As with the lighted signs at the edges of town, it would be good to consider a phased spending plan that adds these fixtures to all the main entrance streets. I would also suggest that they be included along the new trails as they go through town as well, since the trails are part of Culver’s destination marketing. They would make the trails more accessible, safe, and using these lights create a more walkable scale than where there are the taller utility pole mounted fixtures.
The lights contribute to the character of Culver that sets us apart. What we locally take for granted, makes us standout to visitors…
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