Planning Commission Workshop on Development Review Team Process and Staff Updates - July 19, 2024
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Planning Commission Workshop on Development Review Team Process and Staff Updates - July 19, 2024
On July 19, 2024, at 9:00 AM, the Kearney Planning Commission held a workshop meeting in City Council Chambers at 18 East 22nd Street. The meeting was called to order with a quorum present. No official business or public hearings were conducted. The agenda focused on three informational items: updates to the Planning Commission Handbook and New Commissioner Quick Reference, an in-depth explanation of the Development Review Team (DRT) process, and an overview of planning staff activities and future educational outreach. The meeting adjourned by motion around 9:45 AM.
Consent Calendar
- None.
Public Comments & Testimony
- None.
Discussion Items
- Planning Commission Handbook & New Commissioner Quick Reference Update: Staff reported that the Planning Commission Handbook, last updated in 2019, is being revised. The update is pending completion of the Nebraska Planning Handbook by the Nebraska Planning and Zoning Administration (NPZA), which is being updated after many years. A new one-page "New Commissioner Quick Reference" sheet was created and presented; it covers meeting procedures, motion-making, preparation tips, and points of contact. Recent updates include adding notification mailings for neighboring properties and correcting typos. The target completion for the Handbook is end of 2024.
- Development Review Team (DRT) Process: Staff provided a comprehensive overview of the DRT process. DRT is a confidential meeting between applicants and city staff held every Thursday at 9:00 AM, typically lasting 30 minutes. Attending departments include fire inspection, public utilities, public works, development services, the city manager, and occasionally a KPD officer certified in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. The process allows applicants to discuss ideas, receive feedback, and identify potential issues before submitting a formal planning commission application. Staff emphasized that DRT reduces the need for multiple continuances and enables building permits to be processed in as few as 10 business days—faster than in Lincoln or Omaha (2-3 months). Discussion also covered public notification methods: newspaper publication (statutory requirement), mailers, signs on property, and city website/social media. Staff noted that state statutes are being evaluated to allow additional notification methods due to declining newspaper readership. Commissioners asked about the percentage of households subscribing to the Kearney Hub (unknown) and the frequency of off-topic questions at public outreach events (about 5% for housing, often adjacent issues like tiny homes or code compliance).
- Planning Staff Updates: Staff outlined daily responsibilities: answering phones and in-person inquiries (especially on Mondays), processing open records requests (e.g., zoning verification letters), and conducting research for code updates. Specific projects include: monitoring state statutes (e.g., ADU legislation), researching ADU implementation in other communities (noting that tracking ADU construction is difficult due to software classification issues), preparing for a comprehensive plan update (RFP expected end of 2024/early 2025, with a 1-1.5 year process), and producing a semi-annual newsletter sent to about 800 recipients. Staff also described planned educational outreach: creating informational videos, flyers, social media posts, school presentations (elementary through college), and potentially a city planning activity table at the Children's Museum. Commissioners suggested speaking at local service clubs, which staff expressed openness to.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes or decisions were made.
- The meeting adjourned by motion and second, with all in favor.
- Staff will continue work on the Planning Commission Handbook (target completion end of 2024), ADU research and outreach, and development of public education materials.
Meeting Transcript
Just in time. I'm gonna call this meeting of the planning commission to order. And in accordance to section 84, 14, 12 of Nebraska Wallet Revised Statutes. Current copy of the Open Meeting Act is available for review and is posted in the meeting room. Do we have a rule call, please? Dart. Here. Daikan. Here. Scott Pandor. Here. Cochrane. Rickard. Y'all. Here. Here. We have a quorum. We have three items on the agenda today. And I don't know if we treat these as hearings or not, but we'll find out quickly. Alrighty. We don't have any public hearings today. We aren't doing any typical agenda business, so there's nothing for you to look on today. This is really just an opportunity where we didn't have any planning commission applications come in. We've kind of always reserved this time on our calendars, so I figured this would be a great time for us to still meet. We have to do some of the formal things like a roll call, and we'll have to do a roll call at adjournment because we do have a quorum. So we still publish that we were meeting, and that's part of the open meetings act, but there's no official business on the agenda today. We do have the laptop set up because we have some PDFs that you can look at that I'll be referencing. We also have the agenda there. Okay. Yeah. And so I will try and remember. I will try and remember once we're to that section to reference the PDF in which I'm talking about. This is an opportunity for you guys to ask questions about kind of what we're doing. The agenda is pretty light. So one of the first things we're going to kind of talk about is give you an update on the planning commission handbook and the new commissioner quick reference. We have some updates to those. Then I thought we would take a step back and talk about development review team and how that works. We'll do a little bit of a deep dive of what that meeting kind of looks like. And then we'll kind of talk about that how it relates to as planning commissioners. And then Malia and I thought it would be interesting to kind of go over and give you guys a little behind the scenes, maybe is the way to put it of you know what we do as planning staff and some of the updates and things that we are doing. We just don't run planning commission. There's a lot of other things that we do, and so we thought we could give you guys a little insight on that. Um at any time, of course, during this presentation. If you have questions or want me to stop, please just let me know. We I anticipate we'll run till about 9 45. Of course, if you guys have questions and you want to run longer, we still have the time reserved for as long as you want to be here. So all righty. So we brought to you maybe like a year ago now that we were in the process of updating the planning commissioner's handbook. Um that really hasn't been updated since 2019, and it was a project that really got pushed to the back of our list of things to do down in the office. Um just with staff changes that occurred and other things that we were doing.
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