The Elizabethtown Planning Commission held its regular meeting on July 28, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. at the Pritcher Community Center. The meeting included three public hearings: a withdrawn area-wide zone change for downtown, a cell tower application with three waivers, and a zoning text amendment to regulate data centers as accessory uses. The commission also discussed enforcement of a previously denied VA clinic access. All votes were unanimous (3-0).
Meeting for July twenty-eighth. My name is Steve Rice. I'm the chairman of the planning commission. Appreciate all of you showing up. Sorry, there's not enough chairs for you this evening. Before we get into the agenda, I'll introduce the folks that are in front of you so you know who's who. First, if you'll look up here at the panel to your far left, is Aaron Hawkins, he's the head of our planning commission for the city. Next is Matt Hess, our legal counsel. Then you have Corey Blunt, myself, and Kyle Silarep, who are all voting members for the Planning Commission. The other two are not here this evening. And then lastly, we have Marty Fulkerson, our representative from the city council. He is a non-voting member. Also down at this table down here, uh short table down there to your left. Um the one with the darker hair is Nikki Fox and also Madeline Drake, their planners. And I think you mess met Ashley Smallwood down when you came in. So again, welcome this evening. We do have an agenda to follow. Uh the first order of a business is approval of minutes for July 14th, 2026. Commissioners, you've had a chance to get those in advance. I'll entertain a motion for any corrections or approval therein. I move we approve as presented. I hear a motion to hear second. Second. We have a motion made in a second. There's any question on the motion. Seeing none, I'll now call for the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed. Let the record show the vote was 3-0. The next item of business is public hearing number 2026 PC 12 for area wide zone change compromise of R4, R5, C1, I1 to C5, Downtown District Area Wide Zone Change. And I'm going to turn that over to Mr. Hawkins, the head of our planning area. He's going to make an announcement. Yeah, so that um so I do not have a formal presentation tonight because that application has been withdrawn. Um I know we've had a um we attended a public meeting at the revival uh bar in Helm Street with uh quite a few residents that were concerned. Um and um, you know, I just wanted to point out that there's often a lot of talk um specifically about this body, but you know, uh planning and development and then Elizabeth Town, Elizabeth Town government in general, that there's a lot of preconceived or preconceived determinations and decisions, and we don't listen to what the public wants. But uh I just I I want to say this on behalf of the planning commission that this is a prime example of how we do listen and and the process is you have these public meetings and you have these public hearings, and we we consider that input, and then they make decisions um before they make a decision. Staff does an analysis on whatever the application is, and staff makes a recommendation. But um when we started the master plan process about a year and a half ago, um our consultants did a public meeting, they had uh an online survey trying to get as much input as possible from the public. Um and you know, with the input that we did receive during those during that process, they formulated the downtown master plan, which was um in April this year adopted as an addendum to the comprehensive plan. Um so that is what staff used to create this application to do the area wide zone change to bring the downtown zoning in compliance and conformance with the recommended core downtown boundaries of downtown of the downtown master plan. Um so when we filed that application, the intention of that is to get public input, which is why we scheduled this public hearing tonight. Um it just so happens that we received a lot of input prior to tonight, and like I said earlier, we did have uh or there was a neighborhood meeting that we attended, and we got a lot of good information, we got a lot of good feedback. Um so clearly there was a need for more input and more public um information from this process. So we we decided um instead of trying to force the only tool that we have, which is our downtown zoning district and classification, uh, we were gonna withdraw and cancel this application so we could hold two additional public meetings, uh, one in August, one in September, to give people as much opportunity as possible to come and give us the input that we need to give us a direction on how downtown will go over the next 20 plus years. So I just I just wanted to say that, and that um, you know, we're the the process obviously it worked because um we knew that the the recommendation that we were making is not what's in the best interest of not not just the city but the residents in this area as a total um because they have a lot of valid concerns. So um the hope is that throughout the public input process in August, September, and whatever happens after that point, um, we'll have a clear direction of not only what the downtown master plan says we should do, but also what the residents in the area say we should do. So um we really do obviously we would like every single person in the city to come to these public meetings. That's not how this works.