The Harrisonburg Planning Commission held its regular meeting on Wednesday, September 11, 2024, at 6:00 PM in City Council Chambers. The commission considered three rezoning requests, including two infill housing proposals and a master plan amendment from Eastern Mennonite University, and discussed revisions to the Public Schools section of staff memoranda. All three public hearing items were recommended for approval to City Council.
All in favor of approving the minutes say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone abstaining? Okay. The minutes are approved. We have three at them, three items of new business. The first item in 4A is a request to rezone 439 and 445 Myrtle Street. Good evening. So our first request that we are seeing hearing tonight is a rezoning request for two parcels addressed at 439 and 445 Myrtle Street. They're requesting rezone from the R2 district, the residential district to R8C small lot residential district with condition conditional with some proffers. So as you can see here on the property is zoned, R2 on the map on the screen, and is surrounded by other R2 zoned properties. It is located in the neighborhood residential district and is additionally also surrounded by neighborhood residential in on this block and surrounding blocks. And then here is an aerial image of the site. But they are for the first proffer, they are proffering that the new homes along Effringer Street will have a 25-foot setback for the front of the buildings. And then they're additionally proffering that there will be easements dedicated upon subdivision of the future subdivision of the site. On the screen here, where you can see the red high the red line that is drawn on there, it's a representation, it's not exact or to scale my drawing on there. Representing the variable with public sidewalk easement that will extend seven and a half feet from the existing back of curb into the property. The variable meaning that some portions may have from that back of curb already dedicated right away, that is within that seven and a half feet. And so just additionally they would go from there to add to a total of seven and a half feet from that curve. And then this blue line, which is a little hard to see, that is being pointed to right there, is for the temporary construction easement. So the R8 district is intended for a medium to high density residential development and that typically includes which includes single family and do duplex dwellings. When compared to the neighborhood surrounding, if you see the stars here, uh within a about a 300 foot radius of the site, there is a number of lots that are similarly sized to this proposed request. And with this, um staff believes that this rezoning could provide opportunities for some infill development as well as establish and is an establish and a well-established neighborhood. And it's consistent with the comprehensive plan designation of neighborhood residential in this area. Um then staff also with these lots sorry. Staff believes that rezoning these properties or rezoning these properties could provide a proper opportunity for infill development and is in line with comprehensive plan. Um with the conceptual layout that is given, um, it is showing that similar lot sizes could be created with this rezoning. Um with this staff recommends approval of the request. Thank you. Do we have any questions for staff before we open the public hearing about this request? Um my question is about could you go back to that slide? This one? Uh yeah, I guess that yeah, that one uh showing the setback. Can you just go over the 25-foot setback? Does that include that does not include the sidewalk? So it would be from the property line. Um with the easement being dedicated in the as an easement, not as right away. It would be from that existing property line. Okay. I got does my question make sense. Does the sidewalk count as part of the 25 foot setback? A portion of the sidewalk might. So the way you see on the image, and I don't have a scale here, but behind the back of curb, there's several feet of white space before you get to the thick black line that is represented. Can you remove the where what represents the property line? And then there is an orange line. If you look at your packet, the orange line is the proposed public sidewalk easement. So the setback is going to be measured. And so imagine that the sidewalk would be six inches, half a foot in front of so close closer to the street. So the setback would not be measured from the public sidewalk easement, but would be measured from the black solid line where the property line is illustrated.