Comprehensive Plan

Accessory Dwelling Units

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451 North State Street Aerial Photo from GIS

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.)
  4. 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.
  5. 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?

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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

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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.”

Culver Garden Court

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.

Image from the last (2014)
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

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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.

Thoughts on Zoning Hierarchy

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So, in the past few months, the Culver Plan Commission has rezoned several properties in what they would have considered spot zoning in the past. Two of these were on the main commercial corridors of Main Street and Lake Shore Drive. The first was at 303 North Main Street. This as the former Easterday Dental Office. The Plan Commission rezoned the property from C-2 to R-1 allowing the former residence turned dental office addition returned to residence to receive a permit for remodeling. The second was at 114 Lake Shore Drive. This was a older house used as a triplex. The Plan Commission rezoned the property from R-1 to R-2 allowing the current use to be legal. (They also rezoned 217 South Ohio Street and 810 South Main Street from R-1 to R-2.) I don’t particularly have an issue with any of these uses, but I think they could have been handled better.

303 North Main Street highlighted in the lower left

The property on North Main Street is probably the most problematic to me. The Main Street corridor from the current Main Street business district north to Lake Shore Drive has been designated “Commercial” in the last two Comprehensive Plans. This has been followed up with a zoning district designation of C-2 in the Culver Zoning Ordinance. This has allowed the existing homes to remain, “grandfathered” in their current use; thus allowing the house at 303 North Main Street to be used as a dentist office, the house at 307 North Main Street to be used as a residence & art gallery, the house at 313 North Main Street to be used as a beauty parlor with second floor apartments, and the house at 212 North Main Street to be used as a law office with second floor apartment. This also allowed the expansion of Good-To-Go into the adjacent lot to the north without issue a few years ago.

Culver Comprehensive Plan – Future Land Use & Development Plan, Page 45

In the case of 307 North Main Street, there was no issue when the owners of the art gallery sold the property and the new owners returned the use to residential only. The problem occurred with 303 North Main Street when the new owners wanted to use the property as a home (allowed), but also wanted to remodel. Remodeling required a building permit and residential use is not allowed in a C-2 district. The solution proposed by the then Building Commissioner and accepted by the Plan Commission was to rezone the property as R-1. When it was brought up that this violated the direction of the Comp Plan, the Comp Plan’s recommendations for this area were questioned. I felt the rezoning was a mistake and that considering rezoning that corridor would just compound that mistake. For one quick example, the Rezoning of 303 North Main Street to R-1 placed a buffer restriction that will be imposed if anything is done with 307 North Main Street: “Any property line abutting said residential district shall be required to be effectively screened in one of the following ways, or a combination thereof: buffering by a dense strip of natural plantings or by a solid of opaque fence.” – Culver Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 3, page 32. This buffer requirement doesn’t exist between commercial properties.

I have paraphrased something Jim Dicke II told me several times in this blog: “Communities are growing or dying. The Status quo cannot remain.” I think this is salient because I know of only two commercial properties that are currently for sale, i.e. 107 & 109 South Main Street and I would not say they are priced to sell. If we want Culver to grow and grow in a controlled manner, we need to provide areas for this to happen. It makes sense to expand our commercial corridor and move towards tying the two commercial districts together. The first step is the corridor from downtown Main Street to Lake Shore Drive.

Culver Comprehensive Plan – Commercial & Employment Areas Framework Plan Page 69

Within the Culver Zoning Ordinance there is some existing hierarchy of uses. While not a 100% applicable rule, for the most part The I-2 district acceptable uses are allowed in the more restrictive I-1 district. The C-2 district acceptable uses are allowed in the more restrictive C-1 district. The R-1 district uses are allowed in the R-2 district. I think this would be worth considering across zoning districts as well. If this were the case, it would not have been necessary to rezone 303 North Main Street since the residential, R-1, use would have been a lesser use than the C-2 District allows. My rational is that this would have allowed the existing house to continue to be used and remodeled without losing the Town’s long-term goal of expanding the commercial corridor. It would have also kept it abundantly obvious to the land owners that the goal is commercial and not leave them thinking that their future neighbors will automatically be residential. That said, when a cross use is made, it would be easy enough to require any of the more restrictive requirements to be followed, whether it’s the lower use or the higher use, i.e. if a property owner wants to put a house in a C-1 district, this would be allowed, but the R-1 setbacks, impervious surface requirements, etc. of the R-1 district would apply as the more restrictive land use. This idea would require further examination and consideration, but it might be a good first step into some of the more mixed uses being considered in the upcoming Comprehensive Plan.

Personally, I would not only keep this corridor commercial, but would expand the Main Street Commercial Corridor on down to Davis Street and expand the Lake Shore Drive Commercial Corridor west to Main Street. On the south end, there is already commercial property at the corner of Main & Davis. There is already commercial property on both sides of the street on all corners of the Main and Lake Shore Drive intersection. Linking these together makes planning sense. It opens the opportunity for more mixed use little shops and businesses such as the former art gallery at 307 North Main Street and the law office at 212 North Main Street. This would promote more foot traffic between the two commercial areas of town. I am not sure I would find fault in making this C-1 while we’re at it…

Sometimes the desire to be helpful overcomes the mission of long term planning and the vision that involves. It was helpful to the new owners of 303 North Main Street to rezone the property, but there were other options. Sending them to the BZA for a “Variance of Use” would have made more sense. Rezoning is the more radical choice.

This also applies to the other three rezonings that were completed, changing R-1 zoned properties to R-2. This is undoubtedly spot zoning creating a future problem where a problem didn’t exist. All of these properties were grandfathered in their current non-conforming use, but now they are allowed to remodel, upgrade or even tear down and build something that solidifies the use, that doesn’t fit the long range plan, for the foreseeable future. While these property owners believe this “fixed” their problem, in reality, all of these properties would require variance for any changes they want to make as they don’t meet the R-2 requirements either!

Before this escalates from commentary to rant, I’ll leave it at here. It will be interesting to bring these things up as the Comprehensive Plan proceeds.