City of Aurora Planning Commission met June 7.
Here is the minutes provided by the Commission:
Call to Order:
Chairman Truax called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
Roll Call:
The following Commission members were present: Chairman Truax, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Bergeron, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Chambers, Mrs. Cole, Mr. Divine, Mrs. Duncan, Mr. Garcia and Mr. Reynolds. Mrs. Owusu-Safo and Mr. Pilmer called in and excused themselves from the meeting. Mrs. Head was absent.
Others Present:
The following staff members were present: Mr. Sieben, Mrs. Morgan and Mrs. Jackson.
Others Present: Michael Bader (700 Cottage Road, Batavia, Illinois).
Approval of Minutes:
17-00465 Approval of the Minutes for the Planning Commission meeting of May 17, 2017.
A motion was made by Mr. Bergeron, seconded by Mrs. Duncan, that the minutes be approved and filed. The motion carried.
Agenda:
17-00384 An Ordinance Amending Ordinance Number 3100, being the Aurora Zoning Ordinance and the Zoning Map attached thereto, by Rezoning Property located at 538 S. Broadway being the southeast corner of S. Broadway and Seminary Avenue from R-3 One Family Dwelling to NC Neighborhood Commercial (Michael Bader - 17-00384 / AU28/2-17.041-Rz - JM - Ward 4) (Public Hearing).
Mrs. Morgan said this is a Rezoning Petition from R-3 to NC Neighborhood Commercial District. The property currently has a vacant building on the site. The rezoning would allow commercial on the first story with residential above. The site plan, as you can see, shows basically the restriping that will be done to the exterior, including 1 handicapped space and 9 regular spaces. If you know the history, there was commercial on this property on the first story. It was a legal non-conforming. It lost that back in about 2013 when the commercial property left and it sat vacant for more than 6 month. The owner, who just recently bought the property and has already done some updates and cleaning up the property, would ask to be rezoned to Neighborhood Commercial allowing that commercial use. It kind of just helps the immediate surrounding neighborhood. It is like a local retail commercial use. He currently has someone interested in using the property for an ice cream shop.
The Petitioner was sworn in.
My name is Michael Bader. I live at 700 Cottage Road in Batavia, Illinois. I purchased the property out of foreclosure. It used to be a laundromat. The building was just in disarray. The laundromat hadn’t been opened in some time, at least like Jill said, since 2013. The owner of the laundromat and the building that was foreclosed on lived upstairs in the apartment. When I bought it, I bought it at the end of 2015, late December, like December 28 and allowed him to stay until April of 2016 until he found a new place to go. I then just slowly started to clean it up. It is a good improvement to the neighborhood. We really cleaned up the building, a lot of tuck pointing, power washing, and windows. It is cleaned up and fresh. The ice cream shop, the owner is here. They are ready to invest quite a bit of money, so I think it will be there for a long time.
Mrs. Cole said I have a couple of questions. Staff said that you were restriping the parking lot.
Mr. Bader said that’s correct.
Mrs. Cole said there is a large pothole, I don’t whether you’d even call it a pothole, a large.
Mr. Bader said there are 2.
Mrs. Cole said in the parking lot off of Seminary. Are those going to be repaired?
Mr. Bader said yes. There are 2 large ones. There is a valley as you pull in from Broadway that needs to be increased too to make a level surface and then there is a section at the corner off of Seminary that seems to be missing, but both of those have been addressed with the quotes I’ve got.
Mrs. Cole said they are going to be addresses right?
Mr. Bader said I’ve gotten 3 quotes from asphalt people and I’ve addressed all of it for each quote. It is included. I want a smooth surface so there is no liability.
Mr. Sieben said but it is not done yet.
Mr. Bader said no it is not done. I needed to wait for approval to do it.
Mrs. Cole said there is the mention of lead pipes in the building. Was that a problem?
Mr. Bader said I’m not aware of anything.
Mrs. Cole said my other question is have you thought about installing a bike rack?
Mr. Bader said that’s come up.
Mrs. Cole said I would think that if they are going to have an ice cream store there that a lot of the customers might be foot traffic and there is a lot of kids in that neighborhood and almost all of them ride bikes. You are also only about 21⁄2 blocks off the bike path.
Mr. Bader said that is a valid point.
Mrs. Cole said and bike racks aren’t that expensive.
Mr. Bader said no not at all. There are plenty of spaces around the building we can do that.
Mrs. Cole said and I’ll see if I can find that about the pipes. I think it was in the Legistar History Report. I think that’s where it’s at.
Mr. Cameron said page 2.
Mrs. Cole said I’m still looking for it. Did you find the paragraph?
Mr. Cameron said yes.
Chairman Truax said Ken is it handy for you to read it?
Mr. Cameron said just that “Mr. Feltman said I’m from Engineering and the only other thing I could think of would be your service lines. I don’t know if they are adequate or if they are lead. If they are lead, typically with remodels we want to try to see that gets converted to copper. I don’t know the history behind the building. Herman said it was a laundromat.” I don’t think it was resolved, but my guess is before they would allow a hookup to it they would inspect that.
Mr. Bader said we are following the Building Department. We are pulling a building permit, so I imagine that would be part of their gamut of things they look.
Mrs. Cole said I’m not sure that that would be a real issue if it were a laundromat, but if you were serving food and maybe people are going to ingest the water, that could be an issue.
Mrs. Morgan said I’m not sure if it referring to water or other services like sanitary.
Mr. Cameron said the only services that would be lead would be water.
Mr. Bader said all the pipes exposed in the basement were copper when I got there. As far as the extensions leading into the building I don’t know. We did get a new service put in or new connection put in that’s brand new, but that’s all I know about.
Mrs. Cole said the exterior of the building looks much improved.
Mr. Bader said thank you. The grass was the hardest part. There is no more weeds. It is all grass.
The public input portion of the public hearing was opened. No witnesses came forward. The public input portion of the public hearing was closed.
Mrs. Morgan said staff would recommend approval of the Ordinance amending
Ordinance Number 3100, being the Aurora Zoning Ordinance and the Zoning Map attached thereto, by rezoning property located at 538 S. Broadway, being the southeast corner of S. Broadway and Seminary Avenue, from R-3 One Family Dwelling to NC Neighborhood Commercial.
Motion Of Approval Was Made By: Mrs. Cole
Motion Seconded By: Mrs. Anderson
Ayes: Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Bergeron, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Chambers, Mrs. Cole, Mr. Divine, Mrs. Duncan, Mr. Garcia, Mr. Reynolds
Nays: None
Findings Of Fact:
1. Is the proposal in accordance with all applicable official physical development policies and other related official plans and policies of the City of Aurora?
Mrs. Cole said these are listed in the staff report.
2. Does the proposal represent the logical establishment and/or consistent extension of the requested classification in consideration of the existing land uses, existing zoning classifications, and essential character of the general area of the property in question?
Mrs. Cole said this property for many years was a business. I think it was a laundromat and it went out of business a few years ago and lost its zoning, so it needs to be rezoned in order to be a business again.
3. Is the proposal consistent with a desirable trend of development in the general area of the property in question, occurring since the property in question was placed in its present zoning classification, desirability being defined as the trend’s consistency with applicable official physical development policies and other related official plans and policies of the City of Aurora?
Mr. Reynolds said the proposed use represents the highest and best use of the property.
4. Will the proposal maintain a compatible relationship with the traffic pattern and traffic volume of adjacent streets and not have an adverse effect upon traffic or pedestrian movement and safety in the general area of the property in question?
Mr. Chambers said with the property previously being a laundromat, it should not have any adverse effect on that.
5. Will the proposal allow for the provision of adequate public services and facilities to the property in question and have no adverse effect upon existing public services and facilities?
Chairman Truax said I believe they are all in place.
6. Does the proposal take adequate measures or will they be taken to provide ingress and egress so designed as to maximize pedestrian and vehicular circulation ease and safety, minimize traffic congestion, and not substantially increase the congestion in the public streets?
Mrs. Cole said they have full access from both Broadway and Seminary, so one would hope that this would not be a problem.
7a. Is the rezoning a consistent extension of the existing land uses, existing zoning classifications, and essential character of the general area?
Mrs. Anderson said yes it is.
7b. Is the rezoning consistent with the desirable trend of development in the general area of the property in question, occurring since the property in question was placed in its present zoning classification, desirability being defined as the trend’s consistency with applicable official physical development policies and other related official plans and policies of the City of Aurora?
Mrs. Duncan said it will be a significantly positive development addition to that neighborhood.
7c. Will the rezoning permit uses which are more suitable than uses permitted under the existing zoning classification?
Chairman Truax said I would think that a Neighborhood Commercial zoning would be the most appropriate zoning to be there.
Mrs. Morgan said this will next be heard at the Planning and Development Committee on Thursday, June 15, 2017, at 4:00 p.m. on the fifth floor of this building.
A motion was made by Mrs. Cole, seconded by Mrs. Anderson, that this agenda item be Forwarded to the Planning & Development Committee, on the agenda for 6/15/2017. The motion carried.
Pending
Committee Reports:
A) Amendments
B) Grant and Award Research
C) Comprehensive Plan
Announcements:
Mr. Sieben said the next meeting will be the regular meeting on June 21st. I believe we will also have the July 5th, which is the next one. I really don’t think we are going to have any open dates from here on out. It is going to get pretty full, which is good.
Chairman Truax said but we are meeting on July 5th?
Mr. Sieben said yes. There is a lot that’s going to be coming up, so the June 21st, and just to let you guys know, the anticipation is July 5th will also be a meeting.
Adjournment:
A motion was made by Mr. Chambers, seconded by Mrs. Duncan, that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried by voice vote. Chairman Truax adjourned the meeting at 7:20 p.m.
https://www.aurora-il.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_06072017-1045
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