City Planning Commission Meet -- June 19, 2008 -- Collinsville, OK -- www.cvilleok.com

The Collinsville City Planning Commission met Thursday June 19th (at the City Hall Community Room, 106 N 12th Street) for a regular meeting.

Planning Commission members are: Ellis Holly, Larry Uhl, Jim Price, Ellis Holly, Brad Francis and Kathy Bradley (& INCOG's Diane Fernandez).

Ted Wright comments: I don't receive electronic agendas for the Planning Commission and won't bother retyping it all here as it is mostly legal descriptions of properties anyway. I rarely attend the planning commission meetings as the major topics usually end up being rehashed at the city commission meeting later. I attended this one to try and get some sense of what is planned for "prohibiting all outdoor advertising signs" which has cryptically been on various agenda for months now since a moritorium was put on signs back in Feb. 2008. I learned nothing new on that topic as it was tabled again and likely will be for some time with changes in the city planner position on-going.

The rest of the meeting proved very interesting with rejection of several requests for metal buildings and a lot offset boundry dimension reductions.

CSP-64: Kyle Smalygo Industrial Building - Northeast corner of 156th ST. North and the SKO Railroad. -- the application for a metal building at the site was denied by the planning commission. Smalygo had proposed a 200x40 foot metal building for storage of his property only ... not to be a business site. Apparently the main reason for rejection of the application was the lack of three "required" site plan elements: a paving plan, a landscaping plan and a hydrology report/plan. Smalygo countered that the city's animal shelter (the only other nearby building & also a metal building with gravel parking) did not have any of the three stated "required" plans when it was approved (Jan. 2008 opening). City Manager Pam Polk was present and said she did "not know why" the animal shelter did not have the required plans. Kyle's building request (and others later) was clouded by the pending ordinance / just extended (June 16th) moritorium on ribbed metal buildings.

CZ-171/PUD-4: DG&S Properties request for supplemental zoning for Ashbury Park - Single Family housing (north of the South Fork(s)) -- the request was denied. One concern given was the request to reduce the building offset requirements on the side down to 5 ft. Minimum lot width was also being requested to change to 55ft from the original (2005) zoing of 60 feet. The public hearing portion of the discussion was primarily focused on the drainage problems at Southfork which drains into Ashbury Park. Other public concerns were the total number of units (302) and potential reduction in their (South Fork) property values with smaller lots nearby. Jeff Tuttle (the project engineer) represented DG&S at the meeting (see photo above).

CSP-55: Mr. Finney's amended request for Metal Building - Northwest corner of 9th & Broadway. -- the site plan change request was denied. The primary issues being the age of the building permit which was started by Kyle Smalygo years ago and not paid for before the property sold to Finney -and- the ever cloudy state of new metal buildings in Collinsville with moritoriums and pending ordinances. This one might be further considered by the City Manager and INCOG planner? The plan called for brick on the side of the metal building facing 9th Street (but not the alley side) and only sight screening on the residential side. Indications were that Mr. Finney would build in Vera instead with his furniture manufacturing facility. His builder had been waiting for go-ahead at the beginning of June.

CSP-66: Eddie James Metal Warehouse Building - Behind the new car wash by the new Main Street bridge (near several other industrial sites). -- the site plan was approved with a flood plain stipulation as the flood maps are currently being revised. The building is just outside the east gateway appearance district. I won't speculate how the application will fare in the metal building moritorium issue. -- Ted

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Ted Wright Editorial: All of this begs for comment and public input (which is rare at these type of "public hearings") but I don't know enough about the protocol and history of any of the specific cases above to comment on them. But in general I would like the city to provide real/meaningful information to the public in a timely fashion before any so-called "public hearings". I have been trying for months to determine just what is proposed for both the sign restrictions and metal building issues. The legal notices and agendas (so far) offer little clue to what could have been approved at numerous meetings with no real opportunity for the majority of citizens to even comment on. I agree with having some restrictions on signs and buildings but they need to be well considered and public feedback encouraged & fostered. Based on the typical "public" turnout at most city meetings ... maybe no one cares? I have had my nose rubbed in the comment before that "we had public hearings and there was no real objection" (i.e closing 12th street) and just hate to see that happen again. Also, this meeting "seemed" very un-business-friendly -vs- a potential goal of brick only buildings, but again there may have been other protocols and issues that I'm not up-to-speed on. -- Ted June 21, 2008

P.S. I do want to commend the city staff for the slides projected at the June 16th budget public hearing ... which was a step in the right direction (although a bit too small to read easily) for the audience which typically has no knowledge of the figures which commissioner are discussing.

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