Okay, we're gonna resume moving to our consent item, starting with item number one, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment, and or postponement of the minutes that follows.

Planning commission meeting minutes of june eleventh, twenty twenty-six.

Does any member of the commission wish to remove any item from the consent docket?

Does any member of the audience wish to remove any item from the consent docket?

Seeing none, I would take a motion for our consent items.

Move to approve.

Second.

And a vote.

You may vote.

Maybe it shows that all votes have been cast.

Motion passes five to zero.

Moving on to our non-consent item, starting with item number three, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment, and or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-44, an ordinance at the council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the code of the City of Norman so as to remove a part of the north half of section 26 Township 9 North Range 2 West of the Indian Meridian, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from a PUD planned unit development and place the same in A2 rural agricultural district of said city and providing for the severability thereof.

3766 East Robinson Street, Ward 5.

This item was postponed from June 11th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting.

And I would take the staff presentation.

Hello, Laura Hoggett with the planning department.

So we have an application for rezoning from PUD to A2 from Jeffrey R.

C on Robinson Street.

So the property is currently a PUD, which allows for um vehicle repair and sales.

Mostly surrounded by A2 with RE to the north.

So kind of split half in half.

And then surrounding is uh mostly residential uses.

There is an eating disorder treatment facility to the east.

And then it's kind of a zoomed out area to show or aerial to show the rest of the area.

Um so well the um it's kind of hard to explain.

But um essentially, we are recommending a repeal of ordinance uh O 212210, which is the current PUD and a reinstatement of the property's previous A2 zoning to take the property back to uh kind of match the surrounding properties.

And the applicant is here with the presentation.

Um he had a handout for you guys at your seat as well.

Thank you.

Does any member of commission have any questions for staff?

Okay, and I apologize for not announcing this, but like to where welcome Laura to being on the uh dais with us going forward in lieu of Jane Hudson.

So today will be her first meeting that she will actually be up here representing with planning commission, and this item she also presented, but she will be joining us back up after these questions so that we don't have her have to come up and down any questions possibly for staff that we may have.

Okay, seeing none, I would take the applicant presentation.

All right.

Sorry, I have too much stuff.

Can I just click right?

Yeah.

Apologies for walking in late.

There's some traffic I wasn't expecting.

Um so uh this is like she said, it's complicated.

Uh this is a five-year struggle is what it's turned into, because uh there's been some decisions made that um you know I obviously don't agree with quite frankly tonight.

You're voting on uh are we is this now a revocation?

Do we need to touch on that?

Or are we still going to call it a rezon to A2?

Because my understanding is this is a repeal of the PUD rather than a rezoning back.

Because there was in the last meeting, it was said that there's no process for that, and there certainly is in the code.

So I'm glad we're following code on that.

So yeah, you know, I came, I came in front of council as a second in a second rezone in 2024 because that was the path that was led down to be able to build this new shop.

And we had issues with uh engineering regarding two driveways.

I don't know if y'all remember that.

Um that was yeah, the uh basically it spiral it was a very long uh email chain of you know uh we want this requirement, blah blah blah, and and long story short, they were not going to approve the uh the PUD because I was I decided not only do I want to put the building here, but we want to keep the driveways the way they are because there were safety issues, and so that's what they said.

Well, no, uh according to traffic engineer, you know, um the driveways uh are our plan is better.

And um, so anyways, uh we ended up.

Let's see, it's uh it's a long story.

Um I just want to show you for now.

Um this is the site plan.

Uh this is what was approved.

Actually, this will help me explain the driveways a lot better.

So you see, there's a concrete approach there in the middle.

That was the original site plan.

Um we uh we we got this approved, we started the business, we quickly realized we need another building.

Um so I call in and and Jane had said something along the lines of well, you gotta, you know, you have to you can't build anything else on the site plan.

It's like I specifically remember her uh making that clear to me.

So I call in, I'm like, hey, we got a deviation I want to do.

Uh what do I do?

I was told by whatever staff member I talked at planning that well, you just need to submit the permit and find out.

There's no criteria.

Okay, well, uh so I started my I took out a $70,000 loan, uh, put a $5,000 deposit down on the building I planned to build so that I could get the blueprints that I could submit a correct permit.

Submitted that, and uh actually it's on it's not on here, but it's the first page of y'all's packet uh is the permit denial.

Uh it was denied because it did not match site plan.

Okay, fine.

I guess we got to rezone the whole thing to amend a uh to amend this site plan.

That's that's that was my thoughts at the time.

So that's that's when we got put into this whole rezone.

Well, we came before you, we didn't get your approval ultimately because of the driveway situation.

Um I think yeah, I I remember I actually watched earlier today.

Um that's that's pretty much was the only merit and and reason that y'all couldn't get behind it.

Um and so from from what I saw.

Um so we uh just like fine, well, we'll get you know city council to overrule it and we'll we'll continue on without the approval.

We did that, and then it was um it was kicked back.

We went we we went to the city council meeting, we presented the situation.

Nash at this time had been out, was on our side, and was like, you just need to leave the driveways alone.

There's no reason that um you know they shouldn't let you do that.

So that's what he said um at that meeting, and uh he was the only one that voted against a motion that is not compliant with open meetings act at all because it was the item was to reject approve or postpone um you know this this PUD that was before you, this rezone, and a motion was put not before you guys, this was city council.

The motion that was put out there was to kick it back to city council to you need to work with it more.

Basically, they were not willing to vote on something without uh or vote for something without the planning commission, the planning department's support, which was hinged on the engineering department's support.

Um there's a lot of things, there's a lot of things and uh that indicate um that they never wanted it to go through.

Um I I've got lots of emails, lots of evidence.

I don't want to really go down the road of of conspiracy that will take a long time.

But ultimately, you know, the whole driveway situation became, you know, it never it became it was a dead end for us, and it was a dead end and pretty much the only option to get a shop building.

And you know, this is years, years gone by since I put this deposit down on the building.

And so we I think it was I think it was when it was denied uh when it was kicked back to planning commission.

My attorney at the time uh told me he said that is absolutely ridiculous, just start building, which is corroborated by come to my something that comes to mind is a customer of mine is a Norman police officer.

You know, his uh he told me his story about uh trying to get a permit to expand his house, and he said, at a certain point I just said to help it, I'm not doing it, and built it anyways, and that's probably what a lot of citizens deal with.

Um, and and everybody knows that about Norman.

That's that is a reputation, and I actually paid for Facebook ads to put out a vote or a uh a survey of the worst cities to deal with in the state.

And Norman came in second per capita, and um so that is it's not just me who's had a problem with the planning department.

Um I'll show you kind of a situation.

My situation just happens to be a epitome of what happens.

So this is my shop.

Uh this is the plat, by the way.

It's lot 18, I believe.

It's kind of hard to see it.

I got it from the county uh clerk this morning.

Um I believe it's in y'all's packet, too.

So this is our shop.

Right.

I took these pictures today.

I did not clean up a dang thing, um, except I fixed my sign in the front yard.

Um this is that is an 800 square foot barn that you know we start was already built.

That's what we started the operation in.

That's it, the inside right there.

Um you can see we've got cars around.

This is a pole barn that was built as an alternative to getting that building denied.

Um, you know, just a temporary resolution.

You can see inside there, there's uh it's gravel.

You know, I was under the impression that uh we can have a a wooden this, you know, three sides, no, no concrete foundation.

Um so this was built, and and this is this is you know, they gave me a stop work order, they've they cited me with with building without permit.

Um none of my building without permit, I've not been convicted on any of that yet, just FYI.

Um yeah, the uh this was a building that I know a lot of you probably have some question were were questioning.

Uh it's not the building that was originally applied for.

So when I got the stop work order, I immediately called and uh you know, we I talked to the guy in uh whoever it was, you know, who you put permits in through.

We I got him some designs for it.

Everything got cleared, it's uh it's a barn uh permit, it was put in, I paid for the permit.

Um, and uh, you know, the code there's different departments that approve it, code approved it.

So it's a safe struct sound structure.

Um however, of course, that permit was denied because it didn't match site plan.

So uh y'all were kind of looking at the property um in the last meeting and a year ago.

This is you had you had talked about you know a dirt park and and everything.

This is what's left of that dirt.

We've been trying to get grass to grow.

Um this is the top, uh, what you see from the road where it was, I think you were also referencing it as a dirt park.

Um as you can see, that's that's grown back.

We just you know did the landscaping.

We we did a lot of dirt work to get uh a solid spot to put the shop.

Um and then you know, in the in your meeting uh a month ago or so um this was referenced as a foundation or slab, I believe it is not, it is a pile of gravel that had footing dug.

It was set up for a monolith monolithic pour, but there's no structures other than some stub outs, which at this point are just trash.

I mean, every everything about this is trash.

That's uh has about 30 grand of my money just down the drain.

Um and so I'm gonna show you this is a site plan of a of a house just down the street.

It's on the corner of Tecumseh and uh 24th, I want to say.

I didn't even realize this till recently, but if you note the driveways, two driveways, totally like the same uh uh design criteria that engineering through a foot about.

Um and this is what's on it currently.

Uh it's kind of hard to see that uh picture up there.

There we go.

Um you can see right here the that big blue building in the back, that's as it is now.

This the shop was built.

But um uh this owner was able to put in a permit to have these buildings.

You can see the the big blue building and in this Google uh image is just a a footing being built.

And but before this, he actually put in a permit and was approved for that building in the top right as well.

As you can see in the site plan, none of those are there.

Um so I went and talked to him, and I uh said, hey, you know, what's up?

How how is this how how did you you know get this approved?

And I didn't.

Well, uh he was told to hire uh a certain firm.

Uh it was David Bet Dave Boick, I believe, who is no longer on this commission, but uh he's architect or or developer, you know, whatever does drawings.

Um and so he's the one who drafted this site plan, put the item through you guys and through council, uh recused themselves, but of course passed flying colors, no problem.

They were adding a house for um you know their their mom dad or whatever.

But then when they put in permits, it it went through for flying.

Well, like I said, flying colors, and I actually went out and he'd gotten two permits at this point.

He said, I actually need to renew that permit uh before you say anything, so let me do that.

So okay, so renewed, just fine.

So three times uh went through that problem.

And that's not the city, you know, in the municipal case, uh before I hired my third attorney.

I went to I went to Rick and I showed him this.

I said, you know, look, this is this is messed up, you know.

What's going on here?

And he's like, Well, send me that.

Okay.

So I go and send it to him.

It gets filed in municipal court as me trying to say, oh, well, he's he didn't get in trouble, so I shouldn't get in trouble.

That's not the case.

Um I've actually read every single site plan that um I could get my hands.

That says 2008, that is a typo it is 2011.

Sorry, I did that today.

Um from 2000, that's as far back as I can access uh the actual site plans.

And um, you know, building a building is that's not on the site plan is not that that's a typical thing.

As you can see, there's uh 17 other ones just just looking at Google Maps.

Um I can see that these they have deviated.

I'm assuming they've got permits.

Um so you know why I mean, and uh it's also one thing to me it's pretty crazy is that none of these, there's not one PUD, unless there's one been one before 2011 or after 2024 that has been submitted as a rezone to amend the site plan.

Um and that's I think that's the end of the slideshow.

Yeah.

Um so you'll see I I included the 36-509.

It is the the code that dictates a PUD.

It's in the back of the packet you have, and there's a clear, there's a 5% deviation.

It's the same, it's the deviation that everyone's been allowed to do.

And by the way, all my shops, no matter if you look at the uh original my site plan.

I actually put when when this got approved, we were like uh by the way, we've shrunk the size of the the footing of the house.

That you can see we said we're gonna build an 8,000 square foot house.

That was obviously that's you know, that wasn't gonna happen.

Anyways, no matter how you cut it, no matter with the the 30 by 70 little building, just like the ones all the a lot of my neighbors have, um, along with the barn I erected, no matter how you do the math, we're in the 5% coverage.

So yeah.

Any questions?

Thank you.

We will move to planning commission uh questions for the applicant.

You might hang on for just a second.

Um thank you so much for the additional context and the the images on here and having the additional items on there.

Um specifically the visibility and the photographs, very helpful.

And uh I did want to clarify one of the questions we had last month and why we did a postponement to make sure you had an opportunity to come to speak to us.

We I don't think that commissioners completely understood the benefits that you were receiving from going to an A2 and maybe some of the why behind it.

So just to clarify the main reason is to no longer be locked into a site plan.

Is that is that correct?

Did we I I could correctly understand the main reason?

The main reason for the PUD to begin with was just to do because that was what I was supposed to do.

That's what I was told was the rules, and I was trying to follow the rules, and I ran into that because I was securing a distribution contract.

So really that the PUD uh was to get about you know 40% margin on some dirt bike helmets and and some dealer licenses.

So uh the business has been destroyed by this.

Amphibious is done.

I want it revoked so that I can either go ahead and build my shop and continue.

I mean, it's already a right now, it is a shade tree mechanic.

Sure, is it just the same as if I was probably my house?

I mean, we've got some customer vehicles still, but um I want it gone so that I can sell the property or you know, whatever the business is over with.

So we don't need the PUD.

The PUD actually devalues the property when it was compared to A2.

So just to restate to make sure I had a good understanding, taking away the site plan locked and possibly adding some value to your property, and you no longer have the use needs that you previously had.

Yeah, that sounds thank you.

That was a big question we had last month, so of understanding, I appreciate that.

Um do any other commissioners have any questions for the applicant?

Wow, okay, thank you.

Um moving on to uh before we go into audience comments.

Um I had a question for legal, just if there was anything additional that um maybe for context on here too of our lead up and going uh on here that you'd like to add from that.

Oh, um okay, um Beth Makala, assistant city attorney.

Uh no, I I think all of the subjects were covered.

I think I I would explain one thing.

When we were here last month, uh there was a question about the comments in the staff report that we had an application going to A2 with only five acres.

And that's because the the uniqueness of this property having been platted and A2 back when A2 allowed five acres.

And so that raised an issue that we've been thinking on since last month.

And um, as Mr.

Arcee stated, he had requested a revocation.

The procedure for revocation set out in the PUD ordinance did not match the situation.

So we didn't have a process that matched a revocation as he had asked for it.

We don't have our a process specific to repealing a zoning ordinance either.

So we had to notice this and did notice this as a rezoning.

And that's how it's gone through the process so far, and that's how it is appearing on the agenda.

What we do recommend, and what was outlined in the staff report was the vehicle that is used to implement that rezoning be a repeal and a reinstatement of that A2 status that was in place just before this PUD from 2021 was granted.

And that will, if granted in that manner by that vehicle, will put this property back in the same position it was prior to the PUD and avoid creating a new nonconformity issue with that five acres.

And as a point of order, is there anything unique we would need to state in a motion or anything addressing that?

Um I believe that the language in the updated staff report should take care of that.

Yeah.

Um if you want, I can point to the page.

I saw the language in the updated staff report.

It's more just having good direction of of anything to make sure we have everything properly noted.

Uh yes, no, and no, I think everything is properly noted.

It would just be recommending that the rezoning be accomplished by a repeal and reinstatement, if that's as you wish it.

Otherwise, it will be a vote on the title as set forth in the agenda, and as it would be in any other case.

So, should our motion then say to approve for a repeal and reinstatement then for the I would recommend that if you wish to, but that's what I needed.

Thank you.

Any other questions for uh one uh this this rezoning from uh PUD to A2?

Uh what's gonna be in the best interest of this gentleman's uh business and use of this uh property?

Um I'm I missed last week's month's meeting, so I'm really coming in the dark.

This really sounds like a real cluster, and it's just it's not setting well with me right now.

So I'd like to know what do we do as a board to move this forward to I he needs help, I think.

So what can we do to do that?

Um well, I do want to be careful to say that I'm not in a position to advise this property owner as to what's in his best benefit here.

He is um uh represented, and it I would say that what we're doing here tonight is upon this property owner's own request that we go back from a PUD with a site plan to a straight rezoning.

Um there is a lot of background, there is a lot of mess, but at the end of the day, what that means is this property is going to be governed by the A2 zoning district the same way as any other property would be.

Um so to the extent that criteria and other things are going to apply when a building permit is submitted, those would apply to him the same as they would any other property owner, and that's not really dictated here.

That just results from the rezoning back to A2.

Um, otherwise, as has been indicated, we have a history with this application where there are several outstanding issues with the PUD that's clear currently in place, and so there would be a lot of stuff that needs to be worked out, worked through with the property owner if the PUD stays in place.

Uh but what happens here is whether or not it goes back to straight rezoning.

And as far as sorry, you you mentioned the commercial business, uh, that would not be permitted under A2 zoning, and it's my understanding that the property owner is aware of that, and that that was the reason we had a PUD application in the first place was to get that commercial use.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um we do have an audience comment that we've received for this item.

I'm gonna call up uh Trey Kirby, Ward 5.

And just as a reminder, please state your name and address into the microphone.

If you would like a 30-second warning, please let me know.

Otherwise, I'll give you the full three minutes.

Trey Kirby Ward 5.

Uh my question would be if this does go back to A2.

Okay, yeah.

Will there like is he gonna have to remove boat trailers or anything like that?

Or is that still considered kind of like a private storage since it would be agriculture?

Um would be one of my be one of my questions.

And then the other thing, being I've been trying to keep up with all this since I've got elected, but my question would be kind of like his is he rezoning because he feels like this is a last chance um, or is he rezoning because he's truly done?

Because if he's rezoning because he has no other option, but he still thinks his business could be moved forward.

I would like to see the success of a business.

Um, but either way, that's just what I was gonna ask.

Thank you.

Um our next audience comment for this one is I'm so sorry, Pan Lawfala Wolf, Paula.

I'm so sorry.

That's okay.

Well, excuse me, but I didn't know he was trying to re go to a different zoning.

I still want him, I'm hoping that he and I think he still wants to.

Do you mind just stating your name and address real quick on the record to get it?

My name is Paula Wolf.

And I've been a resident of Norman for 35 years.

I am Jeffrey Smother.

Um I have a close perspective because I helped him build this business, and I've seen his work ethic and commitment firsthand.

Um although I'm learning that I'm I'm really not I'm kind of confused about zoning and PUDs and all of that.

I'm just here to kind of reference his character and what it's amazing to me that amphibious Power Sports has been operating in Norman now into four years.

He's been he has proven he can successfully run his business.

And he's wanting to expand responsibly by adding another workshop to the property.

Um this request is you know, he's been going on for quite a while, and throughout that time, he's continued to work with the city and follow required processes, and his persistence and willingness to meet the city requirements reflects a commitment to doing things the right way.

So sorry, I have my papers all out of without the ability to expand, the future of this business becomes uncertain because the current space does not allow him to make the improvements needed to continue serving his customers.

I've watched my son take on a lot of responsibility from a young age.

He married at 19, built a family, has worked hard over the years to provide for them while building his business.

And that same dedication and perseverance and sense of responsibility that he brings to his family are the qualities he brings to his customers and his business.

Amphibious Power Sports adds to that community by providing specialized services and gives residents another local option rather than having to go outside of Norman.

I respectfully ask the planning committee to approve his request and allow amphibious Power Sports the opportunity to grow in Norman.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is there any other audience comments for this item before we move on?

Okay.

Seeing none, we would move to planning commission discussion.

Oh, go ahead.

And just make sure to state your name and address, please.

Greg Orcy, uh Jeffrey's father.

Um just simply like to know is there a way forward or is it dead in water?

That's kind.

I mean, he's from what I can tell, he's um used up all the options he can think of to try to get the PUD approved, and he keeps hitting roadblocks for all these years, and so just you know, is there a simple clear path or what steps can he take to get it approved?

Um as I understood, yeah.

The driveway was the problem, and uh, but there's and the reason the driveway was a problem was because of the bill, there was clearance that I guess the had to sit back and anyway.

That's and uh but it seems there that seems to be overkill for dismissing or disapproving his requests to for the PUD, and so he give up at this point on getting the PUD approved, and if not, what does he need to do?

It's that simple.

And uh I guess not gonna get an answer right now.

No, I'm so hang on, so sorry.

Just we're this is audience comments.

Yes.

And I will pause your timer just as a point of clarification.

Audience comments are intended to be your opportunity to tell us things and give information to us, not necessarily the question part on there.

We will at the end of the comments that you provide potentially ask additional questions of applicants and of staff.

But this is your opportunity to voice your comments, and that's what this it's not intended to be a back and forth.

So um I pause this on there because I think you had some confusion.

This is your opportunity to tell us and say what you want to say to us.

Thank you.

I'm so sorry, you're the actually the applicant.

So is there any other audience members?

So wondering.

Okay, seeing none, we're gonna move forward on to planning commission discussion, and planning commission may call for additional questions at that point, but we're gonna move to commission discussion.

Is the mic on?

Yes, okay.

Um so I think one important point of clarification is that I keep hearing from the applicant presentation and those that are here, and I love that you have a village with you.

I can I can tell that you're a person of character because of that.

Um the process for a PUD and the process for permitting are two separate things.

And so I heard a couple of times that the PUD was not approved.

The PUD was approved.

That site plan locked you in.

A PUD locks you into that, and so the PUD was approved.

Um moving forward on a deviated path before pulling permits, um is really why the the driveway change didn't get approved.

And I think there was something lost in translation.

Um I don't recall all of your presentation at that time with the driveways, but um I do remember my takeaway being well, if he's not following the site plan now, then like what are we approving?

It wasn't clear with your presentation what we would actually be approving, if it would be what you had moved forward with or wanting to do something completely different.

And um PUDs really do lock you in, and so um so I just want to make sure everyone realizes that the the PUD as per the site plan was approved, um, but there were issues with permitting, and I I think sometimes um the downside of having all the different departments um keeps you from uh understanding like the fluidity of it, but the upside as a citizen is then there's not one person com blocking you if you're not best friends with the mayor or city council or whatever, if that makes sense.

And so um it gets really convoluted, and and to you it feels like well, the PUD's not being approved when really it's permitting that are deviations to the PUD that was approved, if that makes sense.

Um so I would ask you as the applicant, are you really wanting to go to A2, or are you wanting to present a solid site plan that you would not deviate from to move forward with your business for us to consider because your packet does make it clear that that there was some confusion and the amount of investment that you've had is is of concern to me.

So, yes, could you answer the question as to like which of those you're really wanting to do?

Because those that spoke on your behalf made it sound like they don't have a clue what they're talking about with PUDs.

Okay.

I sorry, um, but I do because I've had to deal with this for five years.

That permit for the shop should have been approved, was the point I was trying to make in the presentation.

So a path forward, if I wanted to do the business, the path forward doesn't require any rezone at all.

It would be to go back and approve that permit because it was denied arbitrarily.

But as far as you know, helping me, it's been five years.

I've I came here I in in council, I told them years ago, if I don't have this building, I'm screwed.

You know, we made investment to get that building.

And and and so they present so okay, fine.

Let's just say that the permit wasn't denied arbitrarily.

Let's say that I did have to have a site plan.

So I I took that path originally, and I I went before you guys didn't vote for it because there was problems.

However, I will note that the per you have three years to develop a site plan, and it we were within that window at the time, or at least at the time I started the application to put anyone.

Um but that got hung up because of engineering and uh because of the driveways.

Now, if you look November 15th, uh there it in the back of your packets, I finally was able to find an engineer that actually looked at the situation because all the engineers who know people won't won't touch wouldn't wouldn't work with me.

So finally found a guy, and he he stated, you know, uh yeah, the your driveways are safer, you know, as they are.

Um and that was sent to engineering.

Uh in a it was in an email, it was attached to like a final development plan email.

It was November 18th, 2025, I believe.

November something, 2025.

Um so the the path of rezoning to amend that was also dead-ended.

So that's that's a problem.

And I haven't received they, you know, they went when the engineers should have reviewed that and said, Oh, well, uh, we either disagree, agree, I mean, just didn't hear anything back.

You know, and it was sent back.

That that second rezon was sent back to to do that.

So they have failed in that capacity, no matter how you put it.

So after the meeting where the driveways were not allowed to be a double driveway instead of a single per site plan.

Um, did you move forward with building things as per the site plan?

That concrete approach, the center concrete approach is illegal.

It is dangerous.

It violates that per city's own code, you have to have 590 foot site distance on each site.

We actually had the last time, last meeting.

I don't know if it was planning or council, uh, my neighbor Barry came, and he there's only two neighbors that showed up.

He his concern was safety.

He said that Bryant, where he pulls out of is dangerous.

And and I agree with him.

That's that's and we actually I've got a site study uh distance pictures and uh a whole site doesn't study in here if you want to see it.

That to construct that would be illegal.

That would put people in harm's way.

And because of whatever I mean, that's what I'm saying.

I'm not getting into the conspiracy side of it, but they didn't they they refuse to see that.

And anyone who walks out to the site can see it.

Okay.

But you you didn't continue, you didn't build the site plan as designed.

The site plan doesn't have any anything else other than that driveway that's different than how it already is.

So none of the buildings that are pictured on the site plan?

Those are all there already.

Okay.

Okay.

The future location of single family dwelling unit, we did not build a new house.

We ended up remodeling the house that's there that's a lot smaller than 8,000 square feet.

Okay, and so the parking spaces in the back, was that just a gravel lot then?

Yeah, that's just overflowing.

And not the loafing shed that I saw in the picture.

No, the that's that's just parking area in the back.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

So back to my question.

Are you wanting so that we understand what your true desire is?

Are you wanting for us to repeal the current PUD and reinstate you at A2, or are you wanting a postponement so you can come with a different site plan that you want to stick with and move forward that way?

I think everyone up here wants to know clearly definitively what path you as the applicant wants to take.

Well, you know, again, it's been five years.

I don't know.

I don't know what I want to do uh as far as I well, let me just say this.

No, I want it done.

I want it revoked and and you know, set back to how it was the business is done.

That is that is what I want to do with the resources I have.

I have invested in this thing for five years.

So sorry, I'm not about to just it is it got a bad taste in my mouth at this point.

You know, I never I I don't know that I could I think we're gonna open up a new location elsewhere.

So what I want is is to for this to be revoked.

Okay, thank you.

Are there any other comments?

Yeah, I had um just because there was some confusion.

I went back and tried my best to make a timeline.

Um so this may not be the most accurate, but just kind of keeping with it.

Um he purchased the property in 2017.

Originally there was a house and there was an existing drive on the west.

Try to get my cardinal directions correct.

So it had one drive.

Pretty soon after that from looking at Google Images, he there there were some tire tracks going off, and this East Drive started.

So that started around 2017, and it looks like that's where the use originally happened.

In 2021, he also built the um berm in the front, which maybe I had previously referred to as a dirt park.

Um sounds like I did.

He watched the video of the past, I didn't, but it does also cover a lot of street view on here too.

And that's I feel like an important note of an improvement that was made around that same time, it looked like um in 2021.

Uh he was originally in that A2 zoning, he came forward two different times.

The first time there wasn't, I think a more complete application came back again in 2021.

That was the PUD that was approved.

And that site plan you're seeing here, I found this matching to his pre-development application.

So this was the original uh the I printed it.

Yes, that was the original site plan.

Then there were the buildings happening at some point, like you know, in between, and then 2024, he came back again for a PUD amendment.

And I believe that passed at Planning Commission, and then what he described was getting sent back at City Council, things that happen after planning commission not following, but um, and so it was uh from what I understand a site plan change that happened before council after planning commission.

So he would have come back with to planning commission, but I don't think we've seen him again.

I understand the frustration of all the process.

I'm not commenting about that, but just in the timeline of what we've seen here.

And then uh we there was also the last meeting and then this one.

So and then we never saw the PUD come back again with that site plan on there.

Um you know, maybe can you tell me what changed on that site plan in 2024 between planning commission and city council?

Could you describe that?

Yeah, it was only the building, the shop that we wanted, uh, and then the driveways.

And the driveways were, I mean, there were probably 20 different site plans submitted with different variations of of the driveway trying to come to uh an agreement.

Yeah, uh, but driveways building.

I did find the site plan from the planning commission in 2024, because that was pretty easy for me to get to, and that one still at Planning Commission had that concrete approach location in there.

It didn't have the West Drive where it currently was.

So was that the change where you move that drive moving to the West?

That was an attempt at at compromise to allow me a turnaround because uh my prime my my original concern with safety was you know, I have a lot of customers come in with a trailer.

So, okay, when when there's two drive when there's a turnaround, it's safer.

I mean, that's I think that's pretty common sense.

Um so I needed some kind of turnaround.

Now on paper, it looks like a turnaround might be easy, but as you can see, I'll show you.

As you can see, there is a very steep berm that is has been there since I got the property.

I'm not sure we're talking about um putting that there.

That has been there.

I actually cut into a little bit to extend my yard, but you can't I mean, you want me to build it like I'd have to build a bridge or something.

I mean, it's it's not practical.

Sure, it could be done with enough time and money.

Um, but yeah, the the driveway situation.

Um to answer your question.

And the berm was pre-existing before you bought the property.

Yeah, that berm was there.

Yeah.

So and that I don't know that that came, I don't recall us if we talked about that in 2024, because what we had in 2024 was a site plan with a street that lined up with Bryant Circle across.

So I don't know that we discussed it.

We we tried to keep that, but then eventually I think that because the site plan changed from the time that I was in front of you to the time that it went to council.

And um because that I literally went out there and had cars parked on the different places in the street and measured.

Um, and that's when we discovered, you know, this is dangerous.

And and I invite anybody if if they disagree with that to come out and just look.

It's pretty obvious.

Um yeah, and while I'm up here, uh I I do also want to point out that uh, you know, what I want um obviously I'm open to what I said, you know, I don't know.

I I'm I there's certainly a possibility that we find a compromise and and way to keep the business there.

Um, you know, I actually have uh a letter from Beta Motorcycles where we were discussing uh there if you heard of Ducati, there's like that, but dirt bikes.

They would not let they wanted they identified this as a great market to sell their products.

They came to me.

Their number one problem was we can't you can't sell you you can't sell our bikes like this.

You have to have a new building.

So I want to address the concerns that this is some junkyard or or something like that.

The the reason it looks junky is because there's no there's no room or because I can't you can't run a business without a building to run run it in.

I mean, I I don't I don't know how else to to explain that.

And and the second thing that I want in doing this, this isn't really for me anymore, other than to just move on with my life, but it it is also to point out the very poor uh process management organization that is going on in in staff of of Norman.

And you know, fiscal year 2026 and 2027, actually back five years, you know, there's no performance metrics other than the performance metrics in the budget book.

I know I hate to trail, but I need to say this.

They have rated themselves a hundred percent.

How is it that we have a reputation for being hard to deal with?

Yet they're one of the only divisions of a department in the entire city that all their performance metrics are 100%.

That's a problem.

So that's most of why I'm up here is to ensure that this crap does not happen to anyone else again.

So an additional um comment I wanted uh to just work not sorry, yeah.

Okay.

Uh maybe this might be a better question for staff.

Thank you for waiting down there.

Um there was some discussion of the five percent change.

I never understood five percent change to be by land mass.

Can you maybe clarify what that five percent change maybe somebody um this might be a Beth question of what kind of changes fall under 5% and if that is by land mass or something else?

Um Beth Mekala, Assistant City Attorney.

Could you uh give me more context for the 5%?

The f there's an allowable administrative approval that does not require PUD amendments so long as the changes are within a 5% range.

Oh uh and doing this from memory, but also the applicant had referred to it.

So the increase in the the floor area shown on the site plan.

Um so increase in size of structure shown.

So if the structure had gotten a one structure got bigger or smaller, that would be within a five percent change, but a new structure, even if it was if okay, five percent of the structure, not of the total of the land.

Yes, clarifying, but it's good good to know.

Thank you.

Um also just I mean, permitting and any any site deviations from site plans that happen after planning commission are not within necessarily our purview here.

Um nothing would stop the applicant also from just as a note.

I mean, I think planning commission would would be interested to see another PUD come forward, but it would be you know, a new application, correct?

They could not change the current application, which is a request for repealing to A2, they would have to submit a PUD anyway if they wanted to change a PUD instead.

That's correct.

Yeah, so he would need to do a new application either way.

So at least at this point, if he would would be allowed to continue forward A2, nothing would also stop him from filing a new PUD that may be changed and put some of these uses back later.

Yes, he does have the ability to start a new application.

Okay, so just saying that there is potentially a path forward answering some of those questions on if it was there, I'd like to honor what the applicant himself has has said that he wanted us to review today, which was to repeal and re the reinstate the A2 zoning, and that is what he has asked for in his words, but addressing some of Commission's comments and some of the other audience comments that there are paths forward that he would still have going forward to do PUDs on this property for that.

Okay.

Yeah, okay.

That was um the items I had.

Well, actually, while you're here, the removing boat trailers came up also in an audience comment.

I am not aware of those aren't really site plan or zoning planning items that I'm aware of.

So there's nothing within a zoning change that would allow or not allow something to be put somewhere.

Is that correct?

Right.

And remember, going back to a straight zoning means we are not going to be governed by a site plan going forward anyway, but personal boat storage is something that someone in A2 would be able to do.

You still can't park in operable vehicles like on grass or anything like that.

It has to be on an improved surface and be worked on.

That would be the same though in any zoning.

So there's nothing about a change in zoning that changes vehicles being allowed to be there or not.

Okay.

I do want to point out one thing that is always applying here, and that's the floodplain.

I believe there were some comments about storage of vehicles in the floodplain that was addressed.

Uh that would be an ongoing point of regulation for anyone in the floodplain.

But not related to the zoning item that's being requested, whether it be a PUD or whether it be A2.

Correct, that's unaffected.

Thank you.

Thanks for those clarifications.

All right, I've jumped in quite a bit.

Are there any other planning commission discussion items?

I have a comment.

Okay, it's on.

Um, first of all, I would like not you.

We're good.

First of all, I would like to say that I think the staff does an outstanding job.

I know none of them, not a single one of the staff people, with the exception of dealing with them in commission.

Had never met them before, never deal with them outside of this room right here, ever.

I think they do a great job, first of all.

That's first.

Second, your comments about conspiracy that was said three or four different times.

And um the gentleman across the street who had built.

You never did say that he had his permits before he built, but yet you absolutely didn't have permits when you built.

Okay.

So I I would be very I was just very really bothered by that.

Okay.

I want you to get whatever you want.

I'm all favor in you having a motorcycle business.

My next door neighbor has four of them.

Don't know why, but he does.

I used to have them as well.

I want you to have what you want, what you have put money into, what you have spent.

But there is no one out to get you that I'm aware of that has to do with um architectural firms, attorney firms, um, any of the other firms.

Okay.

I I just was really bothered by that.

Thank you.

No, I was asked, I was looking for would you like a motion?

Yeah, I would say at this point we've uh I would take a motion, and just as a reminder, the item was a repeal and reinstatement of A2.

So I'd like to make a motion to uh adopt item three requested A2 zoning by accomplishing a repeal of O 2122 and reinstate the property's previous A2 zoning.

I second it.

Any discussion on the motion.

Seeing none, I would take a vote.

You may vote.

There we go.

All votes have been cast.

Motion passes five to zero.

Thank you.

Moving on to item number four and five.

Item number four, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-54, and ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the code of the city of Norman, so as to grant special use for mini warehouse in the C2 General Commercial District for the tract of land being a part of government lot eight and section two, township eight north, range three west of the Indian Meridian, Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, and providing for the separability thereof.

One Van Buren Street Ward 2.

And item number five, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment and or postponement of PP 2627-1, a preliminary plat for Van Buren self-storage.

And I would take the staff presentation.

Planning department.

Oh C1 to the south, uh R1 further to the east as well.

The character area is suburban.

Um to the west, immediately west is uh sensitive protected areas.

Then here's the AIM future land use.

It is uh designated as interchange mixed use again to the west, it is uh open space to the east is uh urban low.

You can see the subject track outlined here in the center.

Um the existing uses to the north, there's uh there's an office building uh to the west and south.

Uh, there's some multifamily residential, uh to the south and east, they're single family residential.

You can see the aerial photography here of the existing site, and then I just wanted to highlight the the site plan that was submitted with with these materials, uh highlighting the subject track.

This is this is the only thing that this uh special use is is really controlling.

This is the only part of the site plan that they would be uh beholden to here.

Is a view of the site from highway nine looking south, and here's kind of an aerial view from the same perspective.

Looking at the preliminary plat, it is a larger portion of the uh subject property outlined there.

And then again, here's the site plan that was presented for the entirety of the preliminary plat.

Staff is available for any questions.

The applicant's representative is with us here tonight as well.

Thank you.

Any questions by commission for staff?

Okay, seeing none, I would take the applicant presentation.

Hi, my name is Brian McDonald.

Sorry.

I'm with uh Barefoot Lanco, uh, and we're the ones that are looking to develop this uh self-storage facility.

We are looking to get a special use permit in the C2 district.

Um the parcel that we're looking to do is 3.5 acres.

Uh the project includes construction of two single story um buildings, totaled 80,002 square feet, and it's providing 610 indoor climate controlled storage units.

So, what's different about this facility rather than other facilities is that it is completely climate controlled, and all of the doors are inside.

You're not gonna see those big drive-up doors that you typically see in uh traditional storage.

Um the unit sizes will vary from five by five to ten by twenty being the largest unit.

Um the development incorporates required parking, landscaping, screening, environmental protections consistent with municipal code.

We are proposing a two-story masonry clad building with articulated facades, primit uh perimeter fencing, and extensive landscaping, including a 20 20-foot landscape street buffer along Fillmore.

No drive-up or overhead doors, as I mentioned, um, and access would be provided from Van Buren Street and Fillmore Avenue.

We are a uh class A self-storage development company.

Um we have uh done projects in other places of the country, and actually we have another one that we're getting uh moving forward in Bixby, Oklahoma, which will be our second facility in the state.

Um the facility will underate under strict regulations to prevent nuisances and impacts and ensure safety.

Features include controlled gates for tenants, staff, and emergency personnel, surveillance cameras, motion detection system for public and tenant safety.

So completely secure, uh 24-7 cameras.

You know, it's gonna be a very safe and secure site for anyone to go into this area.

Uh there will be staff on site between 8 and 5 p.m., but there will be hours of access for uh the users from 6 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

at night.

Uh looking at the market analysis for uh this area for self-storage, it goes by the square foot per person per capita, and in this market, we're doing a three mile uh three for instance a three-mile uh radius in this market.

Um there's only 1.2 square feet uh per storage per person.

In Oklahoma, the the state average is 11.75.

So you can tell for you know where the state average is of what actually is used for climate control to only being 1.2 square feet, it's very low, um, which tells us there's a demand for this.

Um our site plan we show uh you know our access points.

It's gonna be completely lit up throughout the whole uh uh area.

It is two separate buildings.

There is an easement actually going between the two.

There's a uh a uh sanitary easement that goes through there.

That's why we've actually done two separate buildings, but it actually works really well with the layout as well.

So yeah, again, I think the biggest thing is there is a really big demand for this just with the low supply in the market.

Um it's not only good for obviously being secure and not being visible for an eyesore for the street because it is a nice class A facility, but um it also allows people to store different things that they wouldn't typically store in other storage as well.

Uh things that you know can be uh damaged due to the climate adjusting high and low uh throughout the seasonal changes here in Oklahoma.

Um yeah, very low traffic.

Uh it doesn't bring a lot of traffic to the site, so um it's not going to impede on uh the residential around the area.

Um, and then just a little look at the building.

Yeah, and then just a little look at the building.

We do have uh different material that we're using.

Uh we're we followed uh we've hired local engineers from Crafton and Tall that have helped us throughout this project so far, and uh just to make sure that we're following all the building codes and regulations through uh the city.

Um we're gonna have the proper amount of uh brick facade on the fronting streets, and um you know just the the look of the building is gonna not look like a typical storage unit that you would you'd normally see.

So I think this is a great location for it.

Um obviously it does have some visibility, but it is low traffic on the main street there.

I don't think it's gonna impact the community in a bad way.

I think there's a demand for this, and I think this is really gonna be integrate location that's gonna be able to help the uh you know the community it's gonna fill the demand that the community actually has.

Um with that said, I'm open to any questions.

Yep, um two actually.

Um relates to the cost of this.

Uh what's your estimated cost per square foot to build something like this?

It sounds really nice.

Yeah, um I'm not uh I could figure that out for you.

Uh I'd have to get the price per square foot.

Yeah.

I don't want to speak out of um I don't actually do the uh the uh estimates on this project, but um I could get those numbers for you.

Uh the the next question is the the cost per unit.

I I presume is there going to be a per square footage assessment of cost?

Yeah, so for like for the person renting it, you mean?

Yes.

Yeah.

So um, you know, that pretty much goes for what standard you want to keep it competitive with with what other storage units are going in.

It's a little bit higher than a typical drive-up storage is because it is climb controlled.

It costs a little bit more to run, obviously.

Um, but you know, the prices are comparable with what what's kind of going on within the area.

Um, and then obviously the sizes change, you know, it's gonna be um, you know, the the larger unit you get, you're gonna be paying a little less per square foot.

Um, and that's just typically how it works for self-storage.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you.

Any other questions by commissioners for the applicant?

Thank you.

Seeing none, I would move to audience comments.

Are there any audience comments for this item?

Okay, seeing none, I would move to planning commission discussion.

Okay.

Um, if there's no discussion, I would take a motion on this item.

Move to approve.

Second.

And any discussion on the motion.

Seeing none, I would take a vote.

All votes have been cast.

Motion passes five to zero.

Moving to our next item number six, desk and drive.

A consideration of approval acceptance, rejection amendment, and/or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-64.

An ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the code of the city of Norman so as to remove Northridge Industrial Park.

Section 7, lot 8A, aka lots eight and nine, block two to Norman Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from I-1 light industrial district, and place the same in a spUD, simple planned unit development and providing for the severability thereof.

3201 desk and drive ward eight.

Well, again, Logan Gray with the planning department.

Uh as stated, this is a request to rezone from I-1 light industrial district to SPUD simple plan unit development for the purpose of allowing uh a uh multi multi-purpose uh advanced space in addition to uh I-1 use is allowed by Riot.

Then you see the subject track here in the center.

Um is the current zoning as well as a lot of the surrounding zoning.

There's some O1 to the northwest, PUD to the northeast.

Uh corridor gateway.

The future land use designation is job center as well as uh most of the surrounding area.

The existing land use uh this site exists within uh an industrial park, um, and so there's uh very similar um sort of warehouse uh spaces all around the subject track.

You see the site here as it currently is, and then here is a uh very simple site development plan.

Uh the the intent is to use the uh use the site as it is currently developed for that multipurpose event center.

Here's a view from the street on Duskin Drive.

And then here's a view from the south along Double Drive as well, and there's an aerial view here.

Uh staff is available for any questions.

Uh the applicant is also present tonight.

Thank you.

Any questions by commissioners for staff?

Okay.

Seeing none, I would take the applicant's presentation.

Hello, how are you guys tonight?

Um, there's not a whole lot to say about the space, it pretty much speaks for itself.

I've managed about four different venues here in Norman, so I've had a passion for the event industry here in Norman for about 10 years.

Um, it was time Norman is very much in need of good functional event spaces to host family celebrations and corporate celebrations and things that you can just get together and have wonderful celebrations as far as baby showers and bridal showers and wedding receptions and corporate luncheons and things like that.

So that's what we do in our space is we gather together as families and friends, and we meet together and we host uh dinners and luncheons and parties for families and friends.

So in this particular space, uh we meet together in evenings after hours.

Most of the businesses around us are closed down around five o'clock.

Most of the businesses around us are closed.

So when we are in operation, there is nobody around us operating in business.

So that's a really nice thing about the space that we have is that we're not encroaching around, not encroaching upon any of the businesses around us, which I thought was a really special thing about the space when I first found it.

Is I thought, okay, great, we've got some good parking opportunities here, we're not bothering anybody around us.

If there was a party where they might want to bring in some music or maybe have a DJ or have a sim, you know, have a four-string quartet.

There's not going to be any problems with some music going on because nobody can even hear it.

There's no houses around, there's no there's not a community, there's not anybody putting their babies to bed, anything like that around because it is an industrial area.

So that was something that was really appealing to me when I first found the space.

Um, also we operate mostly in the evenings and weekends.

So I felt like that was something that there's there again, all of the places around us on that specific desk and drive are closed on the evenings and weekends.

So it just felt like the perfect space for us to operate what we're doing there.

Do you guys have any questions about what we do in our space?

We do have a little presentation of kind of the families that we have.

I don't know, can I can't control it from up here, can I?

Do I just do this little thing here?

So this is just a little bit of some of the people that we have, some of the families that we have hosted, we've hosted, we host a lot of multicultural events.

We host a lot of uh different um, I just love the different cultural events we have, a lot of different families, a lot of um different um, we have everything from the Hispanic culture to the Asian culture to the African American culture, they all use our space.

We love that.

We love that it's a space that brings all those different diversities together for weddings and quincenes and baby showers.

So this was a specific family that came together.

They were from Arkansas and Texas and Kansas that all came together for this baby shower.

It was a really special.

It was a Lao family and a Korean family that came together.

Um it was three different families that came together from three different states.

We loved celebrating them in our space.

Um, this was a bridal shower where we brought together three families from Texas and Kansas.

Um, and these were different families that came to celebrate in our space, and I just love that we have a space that we can celebrate these different momentous occasions.

Um, that's really what we're all about is a space that we can be safe and and celebrate in Norman.

That's what we're trying to do.

We're not trying to do anything crazy.

It's really a space that speaks for itself.

So this is just praise from the community for the work that we do.

We have five-star ratings.

Um our company has been in performance for quite a few years.

We've managed, uh, like I said, pre-COVID, during COVID.

We stayed in in commission and then post-COVID.

Uh we've managed four different event spaces.

Um, and we finally decided it was time for us to have our own space to to celebrate and bring the community together.

And this was a space we landed on, and we just didn't realize at the time that we didn't have all the exact zoning in place.

Um we landed on a space that was industrial, but we didn't realize it had not the exact quote unquote zoning, correct zoning.

Um, and I don't think that even the owner of the property realized it wasn't exactly the right zoning.

So that's what we're trying to do tonight is just put all of our ducks in a row.

We've done all the paperwork, we've done all the right application process, we've done everything that we can to make sure that we're doing everything legal and right to um apply and um put into place the right proper paperwork and um application that we need to to move forward with the business and make sure that we can do everything we can to continue um doing what we're doing for for the people of Norman and and the families of Norman that want to celebrate in our space.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Uh moving to planning commission questions for the applicant.

Um go ahead.

I do.

Where are the other places that you super that you uh manage centers?

Before COVID, I ran the events at Madison.

Um over next to behind Sherwin Williams.

Okay.

I ran that um for a little while before COVID hit.

After COVID, I was asked to come help um Railhouse uh kind of get back on their feet because they were closing due to all most of their applicants leaving due to the effects of COVID.

After that, I went and helped um the venue at Freedom Farms for a while, and then I also helped two events centers in um Oklahoma City.

So I've I've done what I can to bring, I have an event corporation that works outside of venues.

We do uh photo booths, DJs, catering, bartending.

We do all of the um event uh what do you call it, vendors?

So we operate outside of venues, and we go anywhere that a client calls us to come uh do those services.

So people would call us and say, can you come bring your business to our venue and can you try to come bring business to our venue to try to keep help us keep our doors open?

So that's kind of what we did during COVID and post-COVID to try to help venues stay open that really suffered from the events of COVID because COVID really did a huge number on the event business.

It really shut down a lot of catering companies, event companies, event venues.

It really really did a number on Norman.

It really shut down a lot of Norman's catering companies, Norman's event companies, um, some of the bowling alleys.

I mean, just uh it really, I don't even know if you guys are aware of how many companies in Norman that COVID shut down due to the um just due to uh how the event industry was hit because of COVID, not being able to socialize and celebrate.

How large will your building be?

Um, do you know the exact square footage off your owner is here?

I don't have the square footage in my brain right at this moment.

I'm not making any changes, no, no, ma'am.

I'm not making any do you know the exact square footage off?

I have I have a question about the gravel lot.

I love that because you know, storm water drainage is an issue in Norman.

You're planning on leaving the gravel, correct?

Yep.

There's never ever a water issue whatsoever in this recent storm.

I went there an hour after the storm and there was no water issue whatsoever.

So I'm John Proctor.

I live at 1505 Shade Burke Drive here in Norman.

I'm a developer, a builder, a property owner.

This is 5,000 square feet, about 1,500 square feet or office and meeting rooms and 5,000 square feet, uh 3,500 square feet would be the open area that you saw in the pictures.

The building is just as it was when I bought it five or six years ago.

It's been other things.

Shannon came to me, and neither of us realized that we didn't fit I1 zoning.

I just kind of thought I one caught everything in.

She didn't know either.

So that's why we're here to continue to operate as she is.

It's definitely an advantage for the neighbors around.

In fact, someone she does business with is it's the event the amusement guy.

Oh, um, Allison's Fun House.

Yeah, Allison Funhouse is right out the back door.

And the neighbor to the north, it's just a man cave, and he he's very appreciative of somebody taking care of the property and putting pride into what they do there.

Excellent.

Did you recently house like a high-end fireworks display in this building?

My husband visited one, but I didn't know where it was.

Fireworks, no, we did not have fireworks, no.

No.

I saw pictures of the inside and it looked really fancy.

So we do a lot of fancy stuff in there, but no fireworks now.

I wish that would have been cool.

No, I was gone during the firework days.

Any other questions?

Any other questions by commission?

Okay.

Okay.

Seeing none, I will move to audience comments.

Are there any um audience comments for this item?

Okay.

Seeing none, I would move to planning commission discussion.

Okay.

And if none, I would take a motion on this item.

Move to approve.

Second.

Any discussion on the motion?

Seeing none, I would take a vote.

You move out.

All votes have been cast.

Motion passes five to zero.

Commissioners, are we doing okay for a restroom break?

I was hoping to get maybe another item or two in, but we could pause here.

Good.

Did I hit a break?

No.

Okay, good.

No, just checking in.

Okay.

Moving on to item number seven, consideration of approval acceptance, rejection amendment, and/or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-75 and ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the Code of the City of Norman so as to remove Highland Lots 5 through 13, block 4 to Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma from R3 multifamily dwelling district and place the same in a spUD, simple planned unit development and providing for the separability thereof.

314 East Hayes Street Ward 4.

I take the staff presentation.

Good evening.

Kelly Abel with the planning department.75 acres.

Land use is mixed use.

So this is an aerial.

And this is R3, and then there's commercial on the corner.

Whoop.

And then there is commercial down on this corner also.

We did receive one letter of protest that we could not verify.

And we received one letter in support of the proposal.

The applicant's representatives are here and have a short presentation for you.

Do you have any questions?

Thank you.

Any questions for staff by commission?

Oh man.

I'm just curious across the street.

Do you happen to know they they had torn down the buildings?

Do you know what's going in across the street from this on Hayes that faces this tract?

Not yet.

Okay.

I was just curious.

Okay, thank you.

Uh-huh.

I take the applicant presentation.

Hello, Shannon King.

I'm with the Pinnacle Design Group Architectural Firm here in Norman.

Um we are proposing to build a new facility for the Salvation Army, a new dining facility that could help cater for the homeless people that are around that area.

Currently, the existing shelter actually has a kitchen, but that would be we would be producing a new dining one.

Um I've got a couple of slideshows to show what it would, you know, currently well, what it would become and look next to the existing um areas that is an existing building with a McCallan and then the existing shelter right there.

It would be housed in between there.

Um but it would help with uh they would also have places of worship, uh they'll have restrooms, uh, a full commercial kitchen.

Uh that's pretty much it.

We need to be rezoned to basically an um an A2.

So thank you.

Any questions by commissioners for the applicant?

Okay.

Seeing none, I would move to any audience comments for this item.

Seeing none, I would move to planning commission discussion.

Okay, I do have a couple items since I really gave a hard time about the last shelter and some of the uses and the neighborhood plan.

So I just want to point out that this also is in the silk stocking neighborhood plan area.

However, something that's also unique was the Porter O corridor overlay district.

So this neighborhood has also struggled from the commercial creep and some of these like kind of loss of turf, and you'll see that in their plan too.

Um something that is specific of the intent of that porter corridor district was also to limit how deep that commercial went.

And this is within that border and that buffer.

Um so I I think Salvation Army has been a good neighborhood partner.

I think they will be a continue to be a good neighborhood partner here, but just to put on record that I would not be in favor of further creep of commercial and other types of uses that were not compatible with the residential neighborhood necessarily further past Crawford, outside of that porter overlay district.

So I just wanted to point that out that this one did have a little bit of a difference because it was within that district.

You can see on the aim plan why it was zone mixed use in the same regard up to that border, it's within that boundary, but respecting that boundary not go further, I think is important for that neighborhood too.

So that's all I wanted to say about that.

I also um do own property two blocks away that I bought, knowing that that shelter would be going in there.

So that was a choice I personally made.

Okay.

Uh if there's no other discussion for this item, I would take a motion.

Move to approve.

Second.

Any discussion on the motion?

Seeing none, I would take a vote.

You may vote.

All votes have been cast.

Motion passes five to zero.

And we'll read the next item and then we'll plan for a bathroom break after this next item.

Uh item number eight, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment, and or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-73, an ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the Code of the City of Norman, so as to remove the tract of land being attractive land lying in the southwest quarter of section 35, Township 9 North Range 3 West, and the west half of section two, Township 8 North, range 3 west of the Indian Meridian, and a tract of land lying in the southwest quarter of section 35, Township 9, North Range 3 West, and the northwest quarter of section two, township 8, North Range 3 West of the Indian Meridian, and a tract of land in the northwest quarter of section two, Township 8, North Range 3 West of the Indian Meridian, City of Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from the R1 single family dwelling district, RM6 medium dwell medium density apartment district, and A1 General Agricultural District, and place the same in the A2 rural agricultural district and providing for the severability thereof, west of I-35 and south of West Lindsey Street at 36th Avenue Southwest Ward 3.

We would take the staff presentation.

Hello again, Logan Gray with the planning department.

Uh as stated, this is a request for rezoning from RM6 medium density apartment district, R1 single family dwelling district and A1 General Agricultural District to A2, uh rural agricultural district.

You can see those existing uh zoning designations here.

Uh the aim character area for this area is uh corridor, uh rural and protected and sensitive areas.

And the future land use designation is open space and agricultural residential.

That uh a lot of that open space represents uh uh it overlaps with floodplain as this uh track does border the uh Canadian River to the south, as you can see here.

Uh it is currently vacant.

Here's the aerial photography of the site.

And here is the proposed um staff is available for any questions.

Um the applicant is also here tonight with the presentation.

Thank you.

Any questions by commissioners for staff?

My understanding there were some questions at pre-development meeting regarding where a fence location would be and how close it might be to the road.

Um I understand there's a right-of-way along the street where that fence could not be placed.

So just as a rough estimate, since it may bob and weave as it goes about how far from the road would the fence before the right-of-way.

Yeah, you got it, you got it.

Uh the easement, it's it varies in width.

Uh the largest part of the easement is 130 around kind of on the curve, 130 feet.

The narrowest is 115-ish.

Um but the applicant will kind of they'll have a survey and it won't go within the easement.

So okay, any other questions for staff?

Seeing none, I would take the applicant presentation.

Good evening.

My name is Armando Rosel.

I'm an attorney, and I represent the landowner's Bob Moore Farms LLC for the record.

My office address is 101 North Robinson Avenue, suite 700, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 73102.

Um I had a slide, and I don't know if it is on here.

We submitted.

Yep, there we go.

So as the commissioners know, this is our um the tracks four and five, or I'm sorry, tracks four and six and seven are the uh tracks that we're here today for rezoning uh to agriculture uh A2.

Um also part of that, as the commission mentioned, uh we are uh anticipating putting up a barbed wire fence.

Um, and they the fence generally will be located where the black um dots are along the boundary lines of the property.

Uh as the commission noted um we are still in discussions with the city of Norman as to where the fence is going to go uh as it goes up and down Lindsay Street.

Uh there's a white picket fence there currently.

Um if you've been to the property, there are some really beautiful trees that border um that street.

Um we are not wanting to do anything with those trees.

In other words, we don't want to impact those trees uh with the with the uh installation of the fence, and so that's impacting a little bit about where we're going to put the fence.

The roadway is also a part of that issue.

We don't have any desire to put the fence right on the roadway.

There is an easement.

Um of that fence might be able to fit um within the easement, perhaps not because of the tree uh the tree issue.

So we are just that's the only piece left on you know, as far as what we need to do with the city is to figure out where we're gonna put that fence on on Lindsay uh street.

Um I guess for the city's um, or at least for this purposes of this hearing, you know, the the request for rezoning really is um you know thrusted from the fact that the land sits in a flood zone.

Uh it's currently zoned M6 residential multifamily.

That was done in thinking about 1985, and I don't know that anybody really had any forethought on what was going to happen with the land because it sits in a flood zone.

We can't build any structures.

Um there's uh really no way of developing the land uh with infrastructure at all.

Um and you know having it zoned A2 at least allows us to have some agricultural use and put the land to use uh in a way that's uh positive not just for the landowner but also for the community and the surrounding neighborhoods you know around the land.

I'll answer any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions by commissioners for the applicant?

Uh what's the anticipated use of the land other than just conserving it because it can't be developed?

Sure.

So we're not going to desert it at this point to help uh maintain the vegetation levels.

Um we are proposing to run some livestock on the on the land to help uh you know, obviously keep the vegetation down.

Uh the commission may know we have um we have been out there current uh recently to do some brush hogging.

Um the vegetation was just getting so high that it was creating a fire hazard, and we've got a neighborhood over here and other landowners with structures.

Um so um we've been working very closely with the Norman Fire Department uh and um city attorney's office, the commissioners, some of the commissioners, some of the other planning uh committee members on uh getting the brush hogging and down, you know, together.

Um we've created a 50 foot in some areas a 50 foot zone where we have um taken down the vegetation to the ground.

Um but it's expensive.

And so um, you know, it's not that we don't want to spend the money, it's just that having livestock on the property to help keep that vegetation down will um also cut costs uh in brush hogging.

We're not going away.

I mean the landowner uh fully anticipates maintaining the land with um uh you know brush hogging and other mechanical ways of removing vegetation or trimming vegetation, so but the livestock will help.

Um and so that is um the the that's the thrust behind the A2 uh um designation for rezoning currently um like I said it's RM6 with an A1 um there as well, but A one doesn't allow for livestock, and I don't believe A1 allows for barbed wired fence and so the A2 uh zoning allows for both livestock and barbed wire fence and that um you know so that's motivated us to come to the commission and ask for rezoning.

Thank you what kind of livestock are you planning to put on there?

So a great question.

Uh we are going to place initially some cattle on there and so you know, to help uh we'll just see how that goes.

Um you know, if it works out great.

If it doesn't work out, we may make a change, but that's what we're gonna initially go with.

If you put goats in there and they get out and go to landers, that's gonna be a field day.

Well, I mean, not to make light of the process.

I wanted to put prairie dogs in there.

Um so uh I I think the city of of Lawton would uh uh tell you that they're great grass eaters.

Thank you.

So the grass dies.

Uh any other questions for the applicant by commission?

Oh, I have one actually.

You turned in an audience comment, but as you may have heard, we don't have applicants also do audience comments, so just confirming you were not intending to also have an audience comment.

That's correct, Commissioner Byrd.

I just didn't know if I was supposed to put that in or not.

So I just want to address it.

We appreciate the the effort, yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

If there's no other questions for the applicant, we could move to audience comments if there's any others.

And seeing none, we'll go to Planning Commission discussion.

I just want to say I think it's a very thoughtful and intentional, like keeping in mind of the floodplain and what's surrounding there, and um it does make use of that land in a way that isn't just putting out the money for upkeep.

So um it's it's been a while since I saw a request to go to A2, and we saw two today, so I think this is great.

Thank you.

All right, thanks for keeping the trees.

I think everybody I drive that every day, and I enjoy that drive.

Best drive in Norman.

Um if there's no other planning commission discussion, I would take a motion on this item.

Move to approve.

Second.

And if no discussion on the motion, I would take a vote.

It's 70 miles an hour.

You may vote.

All votes have been cast.

Motion passes five to zero.

Thanks.

We're gonna take just a five-minute recess in case anyone needs to use restrooms and return back here shortly.

Okay, we are gonna cut resume our meeting.

If we can please bring our volume level back down.

We're gonna continue on with item number nine.

So item number nine, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection amendment and or postponement of ordinance O-2526-74, an ordinance at the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section thirty-six dash two oh one of the code of the city of Norman.

So as to remove a tract of land in the west half of section seven, township eight, north range two west of the Indian Meridian, Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, and being a portion of lot one block one of Canadian Trails edition as recorded in book fifteen, pages thirty-nine and forty, Platte records of Cleveland County from the C One local commercial district and place the same in a spud simple planned unit development and providing for the severability thereof.

Eight oh one Canadian Trails Drive Ward Two.

And I take the staff presentation.

So you have the existing zoning here, which is uh C one S an RM six to the south, uh PUD, residential PUD to the west, uh two to the east there.

And then the character area is uh suburban and the future land use designation is Urban Living Center.

Uh you see the existing land use here.

The site uh contains uh an existing vacant commercial building.

There's other some other commercial structures to the east and south.

Uh to the southwest and north you mainly have uh residential uh development.

You see the aerial photography of the site here.

And here is uh some street view looking from I believe highway nine at the site.

And then here it is on Canadian Trails Drive, looking kind of at this at the uh the rear of the property.

And here's a photo of the front of the property.

Here's looking down Canadian Trails Drive.

The subject property would be on the right.

Here is the proposed site plan.

And then yeah, staff is available for any questions.

The applicant's representative is present tonight as well.

Thank you.

Any questions by Commission for staff?

Seeing none, I would take the applicant presentation.

Thank you, Commissioner Sean Rieger for the applicant tonight, and appreciate you tonight.

I do appreciate too the comments from Commissioner McClure earlier about staff.

They do work hard.

Y'all work hard.

We all work hard.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

So I appreciate those comments just for the record.

So Sean Reger for the applicant tonight.

On this one, we're down at highway nine.

We have a full team here tonight.

Rick McKinney, the architect with us, JD Walker, who is the contractor, and Chris Anderson, the civil engineer in the back there.

So let's look at where we are at tonight.

We're at State Highway 9 and Chautauqua, as you see the subject track shown right in the middle there.

You see C1 shown on the subject track.

This is a currently zoned C1 property.

And C1 on the corner where Rudy's is basically RM6, high density residential immediately across the street to the south and to the west is a PUD, which is basically the fiddler's green residential neighborhood.

So we'll take a look here.

You can see it's kind of hard to see on the screen there, but uh hopefully you can see it a little better on your screens.

The uh property is if I don't know how many of them people remember Food Line, but uh I do when Food Line was in that building a long time ago, and Foodline had a little problem with some national media and went out of business after a short time.

And then the building turned into an ATT building, and now it's vacant.

And the building is a large uh empty box building, which we're seeing a few of those around the community more and more.

Uh tonight we have a user, and I think really a pretty remarkable user to go in here.

It's a corporate headquarters.

We don't get a lot of those in Norman, but this one is a corporate headquarters for Linmark Billboards.

That's their product, that's their business.

They are a large uh billboard company that has been very successful, and you'll see them all up and down uh the highways.

So this is a corporate headquarters for Linmark.

You can see on this side plan, OU, of course, is the dominant force in this area.

Just to the northeast is the fields for rugby and soccer, uh, the tennis complex just north there, and of course, Lloyd Noble as well.

And then the post oak complex just to the north.

You see Rudy is just off to the right, and a strip center just immediately adjacent to the right.

This is just a couple of site views I wanted you to see.

So the top view, we are on the street that is not highway nine, but the the street just to the south of this site, and we're looking at the back of the building.

On the upper right is the back of that building.

And the back of that building will largely be unchanged, basically.

Uh there will be a gate put in on the back so that we control movement around this building.

Um right now is uncontrolled.

And then the site on the back, you see there is the brick wall and a bunch of trees of the residential neighborhood to the left.

We're not changing any of that.

Of course, that will stay.

I would note that you really can't even see any of the windows or anything in those houses.

Most of that is single story housing.

And uh lots of trees there as well.

That brick wall is in relatively decent shape and it will stay.

You see the stormwater detention area right there, that will be slightly enlarged to allow for runoff from a new uh impervious area, but really not a very large impervious area.

I'll show you that in just a moment.

On the bottom, you see basically a view of the front of the building.

The front of the building is where there will be significant change.

The front of the building or the east side of the building away from the neighborhood will be in addition for the corporate headquarters, the offices.

So the offices will go on basically the east side of the building, and the large empty box will be used for basically large printers.

And uh it was interesting when we were uh at the pre-development hearing.

It was asked what are these things?

What do they look like?

And it was described that basically if you can imagine the inkjet printer that sits next to all of our desk times size to basically print a billboard.

That's what's inside these buildings in essence.

And so it's really a fairly clean light manufacturing facility if you can imagine that.

Uh, that what's is what would be inside.

But on the front side of this building would be an office complex.

There is also a planned billboard on the far right of the bottom screen, the far upper right corner.

They are a billboard company, and so they would like to have a relatively medium-sized billboard, not the full size, but relatively medium size off to the far right.

It will be 500 feet away from the neighborhood to the east.

And I'm going to show you a lot more about that in just a moment.

You see a little brick wall, you can't see it very well on that screen, but lining the front street there, that will be enhanced with some hedging and some landscaping that will help that.

And on the bottom, you see a very large parking lot.

We're gonna do away with about 46, 43 or 46%, I think, of the parking.

There's about 200 parking spaces there.

We don't need all that.

But this is going to be a complex that only needs at most about 100 parking spaces, so we're gonna eliminate a big chunk of the parking so that we can have the really nice looking corporate office building off to the front of that.

Let's look at it.

So it is zone C1 right now, and so the zoning is to take it to a PUD.

The PUD basically says we want to continue the uses for C1 and an office building, but what I want to basically make sure everybody's aware of is C1 right now allows for a lot of different things.

It allows for a hotel.

The neighborhood has written you a large letter.

Let's say they're worry about views into their homes.

Well, right now, next to OU and all of its playing complex, we could build a hotel there, up to 35 feet, two and a half stories.

And it could be sited right next to that neighborhood with a parking lot front.

This also under C1 allows for marijuana processing, tier one and tier two.

It allows for a full restaurant and basically interior and inside entertainment.

You could have a large restaurant and entertainment complex there, working deep into the evening right next to that neighborhood.

You could have hotel, we talked about that grocery.

This was a grocery store.

It could be a grocery store again by right, and it could have cars and trucks, trucks unloading well into the night, early morning hours all along the back side of that as a matter of right now.

So there are some very intense uses that are already allowed under C1 on this property.

If this is approved, then the Linmark Company and Trent Linmark himself couldn't be here tonight, but he was at the pre-development meeting that was held on this, and he and his staff would occupy this building with a new front done by Rick McKinney, and this would be their corporate office headquarters.

So it really could be something quite special, I think, for this location that is currently an empty big box building.

And how long will it stay an empty big box building?

Could be a long time.

There's a lot of them.

So we don't know what will happen if if this isn't approved.

That's the current aerial.

You can see there's already a lot of uh open space to the west.

We're not really changing that.

We're gonna put one enclosed uh uh truck area just off to the south of this building.

I'm gonna show you that, and we're gonna eliminate a big chunk of that parking that is off just to the front of the building on the right side of it.

And I want to read a few things from the staff report.

Staff, of course, investigated this.

Again, we're only doing a rezoning.

The the land use has is not changed.

It meets the current land use of AIM, and so there was no res no uh amendment made for AIM because it already meets it.

Uh the plating, it does talk about they may have to do some final plotting adjustments, but not in a manner that would necessitate a preliminary plat tonight, so we don't have to come for a preliminary plat.

We are just here for a rezoning, and that's just a spUD to allow for what is basically a light manufacturing facility and the billboard off to the upper right.

And so staff wrote it's consistent with overarching general and non-residential character area policies as it proposes high-quality exterior building materials and parking loading and intake areas are located to the rear of the facility and screen from view.

Again, right now, that's not the case.

There is there is no uh gating or anything from the back side of this building.

It also wrote that it is consistent with the suburban neighborhood policies as it is retrofitting an existing commercial development and improving the site conditions with updated landscaping and exterior materials.

And that's the case that we talked about that we're gonna have some enhanced landscaping across the front of the site that's shown on the site plan.

And the exterior materials would be over 80% of macery on the new facility as it's built out to the front.

I have a better picture than this one that I'll show you as to where the new facility is.

Um, and so that will be an improvement.

This is side by side, so and we've tried to put them at the same size, same scale, and the site plan on the right, and the aerial on the left.

Uh the area on the left is existing, site plan is on the right.

And one of these days, I hope we have a pointer up here that I can use.

I'm along for that one of these days because I could show you with a pointer, but I'm going to just try to describe it to you.

So on the right is the site plan, and you can kind of see it, but when there's a red line there, the red line, we have increased the building setback by basically 55 feet, is what it is now.

Right now, the building setback, I believe would be five feet because it would be a side yard setback coming off that street.

So we have a substantially increased building setback that right now doesn't exist off to the west side.

Then also you see gates, so that drive around the back is not a new drive, it exists, it's already there.

We're just gating it so that in off hours we can secure the back of that building and make sure that nobody is hanging out back there or doing anything behind the building because this is a corporate headquarters.

Then on the lower side, on the left side, you could see it's a large grass area.

That's really probably the biggest change that would be seen from the street because that would have a six-foot masonry wall put around it, and that would be where their trucks are parked, but they would be fully screened by that six-foot masonry wall.

Any new lighting on this site would be full cutoff, completely full cutoff, so that it meets the commercial lighting ordinance.

And of course, that ordinance we talk about all the time, but you have to do a photometric plan with that ordinance to make sure that no light escapes the site.

So they would have to do that as well.

And so that yard to the south is basically just a walled-in yard where trucks would be.

You see the building, if you look at the roof plan on the right of that building versus the left, there's really no change to the building at all until you get out to the east side of it.

And so if you look at the right side of that building, you see kind of a gray area.

That is the office addition, a two-story office addition.

Right now, this site under C1 allows for two and a half stories by right.

We're not changing that.

This will be a two-story addition well away from the neighborhood to the east of the building.

And then a future ability for an addition, it's just kind of dashed, but you could see that whole parking area that was taken away to allow for the current proposed addition and then the future addition to enlarge the office space again to the east.

Again, as we've talked, I think you heard it earlier tonight.

Site plans stay with the PUD.

So even if you approve this, this is not as if we can come back and suddenly do a building off the back side or do anything substantial off the back side, the PUD is locked, as we always say.

So anything different would have to come back before you and the neighborhood to see what was done.

Then on the north side of the building, there's another gate.

You can kind of see on the right on the upper side there.

And then there is new pavement, but it's on the north side of the building, not next to the neighborhood.

And that is basically a truck turnaround area and the dumpster.

So we have basically located the dumpster off to the north side, well away from the neighborhood to the left.

And that's a truck turnaround area, so that if in off hours that gate is closed, a truck that pulls in there has enough space to turn around and leave.

And so any unloading or stopping during offing hours would happen there, away from the neighborhood again, so there's no disturbance of anybody to the east.

So really significant changes that really enhance this property with a new user on-site corporate headquarters level of a look.

And then off to the upper, very farthest corner, upper right is the proposed billboard.

That is their product, that is their business.

They hope to use that for training.

They hope to use that just as if you were a showroom for selling a home or cabinetry or whatever, that would be their product that they hope to have out there and demonstrate for folks.

And I'm going to show you in just a moment how they're doing it very carefully so that it would be of a fairly low impact.

I'm going to read a little more from the staff report.

This is a large site plan.

You saw it side by side with the existing, but there you see the back drive is again unchanged.

There is a trash compactor installed just off the back upper left corner.

That would be a trash compactor.

And I'm going to talk just a moment about what the neighbors have asked for, and I think we can accommodate quite a bit of what they've asked for.

And it will one of the items will address that.

Then you see again the overall site.

But the staff wrote the light manufacturing and printing use will be in a fully enclosed space.

It will be fully within the building.

And the storage or materials will of and machinery will be screened.

So any storage of anything would be behind that six-foot masonry wall and screen and stored there.

Currently, the site has 200 parking spaces.

The proposal will lower the number of parking spaces to 11 and provide additional landscaping along the street out front.

So neighbors, this is some comments that Staff Report wrote about with the neighbors, and I want to address those.

They wrote that the new use will reactivate the property and improve the aesthetic of the site.

We certainly agree with that, and we appreciate that comment.

We think this will be a fantastic addition and improvement for this site.

And staff wrote, and we appreciate this comment that the applicant considered the neighbors and the surrounding uses when designing exterior components of the remodel by my maintaining a large buffer to the west and ensuring any deliveries outside regular business hours will be away from the residential area.

And that's what I talked about to the north.

To the north of the building is where any of that would happen behind basically two walls and well away from the neighborhood.

What's interesting to me tonight is, and Commissioner Byrd was there.

At pre-development meeting, we had a very good pre-development meeting.

We thought we thought we had a very good pre-development meeting.

In fact, this is staff's write-up of that meeting.

It said overall the neighbors in attendance expressed approval of the project.

These are not our words.

This is the staff reporting on the meeting.

And said and noted that the rehabilitation and occupation of the site will be an improvement from its existing state.

I would make note too that we were not required to have a pre-development meeting.

That was by choice of the applicant, which we always encourage applicants to do.

We want to know what the neighbors think.

We encourage that.

We had the meeting, and that was the result of that meeting.

Since that meeting, we got word this week, just this week, that a letter was circulating and was filed of record.

Uh, it's in your packet.

A number of the signatures could not be verified.

We're really not sure, is my understanding where the signatures came from.

But the letter addresses a number of things, and it makes some requests, and we've looked at it carefully, and we think we can probably I wish we had heard all this at the neighborhood meeting.

No, no uh disparagement of that, but I'm glad we heard it by now because I think we can accommodate much of this, and I want to show you sort of how we would do that.

So, again, side by side, you see here those two images.

Much of I think their concern deals with the billboard on the upper right.

And if you look at that site, the billboard is written into the PUD to be a maximum of 35 feet tall.

It's written to be a maximum square footage of 400 square feet.

Typical billboards, up and down I-35 are 14 by 48 feet in length.

They're 672 square feet.

So this billboard is proposed at basically two-thirds of what a normal large billboard size would be.

But you can see on the upper left, what I hope to show you is the building.

So this is a maximum 35-foot tall structure.

The building on the left, existing building, is about 24 feet tall, and the billboard would be 500 feet away from that wall of I showed you of the neighborhood.

But more importantly, at 35 feet tall, with a building that is 24 feet tall, and the new addition would be taller than that, upwards of 28 or 30 feet.

Nobody will see this billboard from the neighborhood at all.

In fact, you saw the image of the neighborhood before, it's a wall with the number of trees.

I don't know that you can really see out of those homes as it is, but nobody will see this billboard except for possibly the very last house.

If you see that yellow line, it is drawn from the northern point of the billboard, and it's drawn from the northeastern point of the building.

The billboard's 35 foot tall max.

The building is already on that corner about 24 feet, 500 feet later.

So nobody's gonna see that billboard at all.

Impossible basically, unless they are in the far northern house.

So the neighbors wrote in their letter, they wrote a number of points, and what they said was we respectfully asked that the city council require the following amendments to the spUD before any approval is considered.

They said require a comprehensive architectural invisibility analysis, and basically we I mean, I don't know what is fully intended by that, but Rick McKinney, one of the more renowned architects in our community is designing this facility, and that is literally graphically what it looks like as far as the location of those issues.

So uh so I think we can accommodate that.

I do want to show one other slide too, by the way.

This is the billboard, and this is a type of billboard that has basically I don't understand this the technology myself too much, but basically blinders in effect that from the south you see this imaging from the south, and you can't really read it, but it says blocked, those red letters are blocked, so you can't see anything on the billboard of lights or anything from the south.

And as I just showed you from the left, you can see only this one house would see it basically, and then from the right, it's the same issue.

So it is a blocked exposure of that billboard.

So back to the neighbor letter, they said basically an analysis to see where the light will be visible from.

Hopefully that shows you that.

The second point in the letter is relocate the trash compactor to the north or south side of the building.

We can't really relocate it to the north side because that's the loading dock area in the back.

That's already existing.

All of that is existing back there.

And you can see the trash compactor is the little rectangle off the northeast side.

It is generally on the north, but then their fourth bullet says restrict compactor usage to between 8 a.m.

and 5 p.m.

We are happy to restrict it between 8 a.m.

and 6 p.m.

Happy to do that.

In the pre-development meeting, it was asked when what's the operation hours of this facility?

It was told, and I think it's written in the staff report that some users come to start preparing the printers at 5 a.m.

inside the building, and then the general staff shows up between 8 and 5.

So we're happy to restrict the use of that compactor if we can go to 6 o'clock just to be safe from 8 to 6.

So we can't move it, which was one of their requests, but we can restrict the hours, which was their other request.

Happy to do that.

They said lower the billboard height.

Um first of all, I think they're confused on the height because they said above the letter it was 49 feet.

It's not, it is 35 foot maximum.

That's written into the PUD.

So I think there was some confusion on what the height was.

They said lower the height or plant uh mature evergreen buffer along the entire west and south property lines of Fiddler Green.

Was I just showed you there is only one house that has any site line whatsoever to the billboard?

It's the most northern house.

We're happy to plant evergreens along that location, so that the only point that can possibly see the billboard, I suppose if they if they looked over the the wall that's already there, then we are happy to plant evergreens trees, full blocking trees along that.

You can see the very top part of that neighborhood.

So I think we can accommodate that request where it is needed.

It's not relevant in the other locations because you can't even see the light source.

Um then there was discussion, the final boy bullet.

So these are all their bullets.

And again, pre-development, we didn't hear any of this.

It was all uh very positive.

This just came in this week.

So we've we can accommodate the first one, the second one relocate the trash compactor.

We can't, but we can restrict by their fourth fourth bullet the hours.

Uh the billboard, we can put evergreen buffering along the basically uh property line where it affects.

And the last thing they put on here, the only other thing is codify a permanent prohibition of west facing windows on any future floor additions to ensure long-term privacy.

What they were worried about, and this did come up at pre-development, is windows facing west.

Um what I think they're concerned about is the office building on the far right.

You see the gray structure on the right.

That's the office building, which would be two stories.

It is hundreds of feet away from their property and is looking over a roof.

So I don't think there's any way they would even see that.

It's proposed as two stories, but any light that we're proposing over there would just be clear story window light.

So that if you that's an architectural term, but clear story windows are upper lights that just simply let light in.

That's that's our goal.

We just want windows to let light in.

So we are happy to codify that any west facing windows would be clear story only when they're in that that area.

So again, site plan wise, we can't do a building on the back because this is the site plan, we've not proposed it.

So it's unnecessary to codify that any future addition of a building on the back would require that because we can't do that.

This is the PUD.

But we're happy to say any future windows uh would be clear story only.

So I think we can accommodate everything that came in this week on the letter, which again was a surprise because of the pre-development was was a very positive meeting with neighbors.

So with that, we can make those accommodations, and as far as I'm aware, we can satisfy the concerns that are expressed from the neighborhood.

And with that, I'll be happy to take into any questions you have.

We again have the full team here tonight, and I thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Uh, are there questions for the applicant by commission?

I do have a question.

Or I should say areas north and south of it.

Is that going to be gravel?

Is that going to be pavement?

Pavement.

Okay.

And um and if I could just add on to that, uh I appreciated the discussion earlier about gravel, and there's always a competing uh thing there.

Gravel can be loud when trucks are going across it.

Uh and it also can blow dust.

And so we tend to, in my tenure of doing this work, uh sometimes when you're near a neighborhood, people don't want to hear that scravily, even though I understand it has stormwater benefits.

When a neighborhood is close by, they don't like the noise of it or the dust of it.

Okay.

And then my other question is um as an accommodation, just to ensure no site of the billboard from that neighborhood.

Um I saw lots of trees on the neighborhood's backyard side of the fence.

Um but I did not see any suggested trees or landscaping on your site plan to make up for the loss of grass.

Um it would add an additional screening as well.

And we're not adding any buildings back there.

Correct, correct.

Just you've removed um the grass to the north by moving the um the dumpster and then where you're putting the the truck in.

We can do some.

I don't know what the extent of that request is.

I I'm just thinking like some tall, I mean it just hedge trees or whatever to ensure there is a screen behind those last like three houses or two houses.

On the north end?

On the north end of the back side of the building.

Yes, that's what I was talking about earlier.

Okay.

Sorry, you had said northeast, and so I wanted to make sure that it's the northwest.

Yeah, what I was talking about is putting trees uh on that upper left.

Yes.

So the upper left, yes, northwest.

That's where I was referring to.

Okay.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Exactly.

That's in fact what we propose.

I know I was at pre-development meeting, but could you just share again what the hours of operation are, the number of employees that are there, um, and generally the printing hours versus the other main staff.

Yeah, and I'll probably forget this.

JD Walker's here, if it correct me if I get any of this wrong, but I recall from the pre-development meeting.

Uh uh, Mr.

Lindmar talked about how an uh small staff shows up at about 5 a.m.

to start getting the printers warmed up and working inside the building, fully inside the building, and then at about 8 a.m.

the rest of the staff comes until about five of them.

It's a corporate office.

They don't do 24-hour work uh to my knowledge at all, and it's fully inside the building.

I don't remember the number, but there's only 11 parking spaces.

I think it was well below that was the number of people totally.

30 to 40.

Yeah.

There you go.

Thank you, JD.

Uh and you may not know this, but just from cloaky being in Norman, the last use of ATT I believe was a call center.

And I think you still have desks in there that came up from that call center inside the building that got left behind.

Do there was it came up at pre-development?

It was there are 200 desks sitting inside that building right now.

In fact, it was kind of joked around in plan commission if anybody wants I mean at pre-development.

If anybody wants a desk, please let us know because we have 200 desks inside that building that so do you have like an estimate on how many employees worked there?

I mean, I hear 200 desks, but I I have no idea.

I don't know when it was actually operating, or maybe the hours that it operated when it was there.

I think there's some legal laws with telemarketing, but we don't know, I don't think that we guys if it's the same as their Oklahoma City call center, um, it would be 5 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

with varying shifts from start to end.

Okay.

And weekends probably also all seven days.

Yes.

Okay.

Um I was curious if they have a current location uh somewhere else where they have this eight their general operations um that they've been housing people at, or is this an expansion of business or these new jobs to Norman?

I think it's a relocation.

It's a combination of both.

Okay.

Would you mind coming and speaking into the micro?

This is JD Walker representing the actual applicant very close to doing the project and knows their operations much better than I.

Yes, JD Walker, Norman Oklahoma, A12 Carry Drive.

Yes.

If you'll just speak into the microphone, uh we uh I've been able to go in in and and visit his uh facility.

It currently is off of highway nine in the industrial area.

Um where the uh US uh the postal training facility is industrial drive, they're they're down there at that current location.

They've outgrown the location.

Um so it's a it's basically taking that current operations there and relocating it, but increasing it.

You know, um he's currently uh in Oklahoma and plus six different states.

And so a lot of the of the activities that are are throughout, he's he's he's trying to co cohabitate here in in Norman, Oklahoma.

So development of new new jobs would would would come from that.

Okay.

Do you know about how many employees currently work at the current facility?

Um I think he's right at that 30-ish.

So potentially about 10 more jobs is an S.

Currently, currently.

And it just I mean, I mean, right now that's why there's a dotted line up there for the additional growth.

He I mean he's he's growing.

So the I know you uh Mr.

Eager also represented the Norman Regional Project and the hospital.

Do you happen to recall how large that billboard is?

I do not.

Um we've been bringing up billboard comparative sides a lot around here.

You want me to tell you?

Oh, she has there you go.

Yes, I do.

It's in my backyard.

So um it is literally, yeah.

It was allowed 400 square feet up to 35 feet, and they the billboard that's actually there is 242 square feet and 35 feet tall.

So they've they made it smaller than the regional.

Okay.

And your size you're asking for is 400 square feet maximum and thirty same height, 35 feet high.

Okay.

And just for point of reference of what 35 feet is, an average story of a house is about 10 to 12, so this is about a three-story building.

Do you happen to know how tall the light poles that are in the parking lot are uh right now 25 feet.

Just as a point of reference since we've seen some.

25 feet.

You said for right now, are you planning on bring just removing them all or lowering high hiring?

And if if we're do you don't mind also for the record, having to speak in the microphone.

Thank you so much.

It can be a team effort.

That's what we always do.

Uh Rick McKinney McKinney Partnership, 3600 West Main Street.

Uh the poles will they will not be any taller, they may be shorter, plus they're gonna have new LED fixtures that are very sharp cutoff.

There'll be no outside glare from the lights at all.

Just straight down.

Straight well, not straight.

I mean well, but yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

Um, that was all on my list.

Do you guys have any other questions for the applicant?

Uh the uh area that you're proposing, the south area, that that's gonna be fenced off.

What is what type of fencing is that gonna be?

It was it's shown as a masonry wall.

A masonry wall, okay.

Yeah, it would match the wall on the back.

Okay.

I mean, I say match.

I'm not sure we can get the exact same brick, but the aesthetic would be the same.

Six-foot masonry.

Yeah.

And I did you discuss the training component of the billboard?

Uh I'm not sure if I did fully, but basically they would be training on that structure with from programming, showing uh customers and staff how to program.

They would also be training on maintaining the structure, being up there working on it.

Um so it would be an on-site facility that they can utilize with staff and customers and and everybody instead of saying let's go drive out to one out on I-35 or somewhere else, they would do it right there.

I appreciate you because there was, I think in some of the letters.

The intent is not to primarily necessarily use it for training, but also to sell ads.

It's a functioning billboard, advertising their own billboard business is the primary function, but also as a secondary use is training, just for clarity.

That's correct.

Yeah.

I lied about my last comment.

Any other uh commission questions for the applicant?

Questions.

Okay.

Well, seeing none, we'll move to audience comments.

Just as a reminder, I give everybody three minutes to speak.

If you would like a 30-second warning before your time is up, please just let me know at the start.

Also, when you come up, please come to the microphone and state your name and address for the record, and then I don't count that towards your three minutes.

Um then this is I think you have been a little many of you here earlier.

The intent is to give us information and and and to direct comments to Planning Commission as a whole with your comments on that.

So with that said, I'm gonna get started with M.

Ellen Fever.

I apologize if I've mispronounced anyone.

Chairwoman Bird and other commissioners.

My name is Ellen Fever.

My legal name is Margaret Ellen Fever, which is why I include the M.

I'm a homeowner 905 Heather Glenn Terrace.

I'm not the home that's been discussed uh a lot as the uh first home on the north, right?

Those are my neighbors.

Uh I'm right across the street from them.

But I I know that there was a letter signed by many, and I apparently some it sounds were unverified, but that was probably because they're residents of Rivermont.

I think that was the case.

And I signed one of those letters, but I also submitted another letter, and that's on page 191 of your agenda, which we saw this afternoon.

And we saw and you also got a hard copy of the second page.

You know, this is uh they're currently in Norman Business Park, and I went out and looked at uh their building, and the nearest residential area is across a broad green belt, including a pond and many mature trees.

I don't know how many years those trees have grown there, but they're mature, very tall trees, much taller than the trees behind the homes that will be directly affected.

Uh and then I think about as I drove out to the business park to look where they're currently uh located, they're a manufacturing company.

If their request was to move their corporate headquarters only to our neighborhood, where if this is basically a residential neighborhood, you've got a little retail right as you come off of Highway 9, Rudy's, and I think there's the dispensary and uh a liquor store, but that's it.

The rest of it is our three neighborhoods, plus the uh retirement center.

And so the request here is to move a manufacturing company into this neighborhood.

And uh we just object to that.

I I think that the uh there's an understatement.

I don't speak the language that's that's spoken uh here by but commissioners or by the lawyers representing the uh applicant.

The objective of having a billboard facing Highway 9 and Chautauqua is a primary objective of this application, and there's lots of uh conflicting information about the extent to which those digital billboards present extreme safety hats.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Oh my goodness.

Okay, thank you.

It does.

Well, uh, all of my statements are written in that letter.

Thank you so much.

I'm gonna move now to Jim Jenkins.

Good evening.

My name is Jim Jenkins.

I live at 3328 Heather Glenn Drive.

I'd like to start by stating that our community, with some exceptions, is not necessarily against Lynn Martin Billboard relate relocating their businesses to the old AT property.

Well, we are here to ask for transparency.

And currently there are significant gaps in the information provided, and as a result, there's considerable doubt among all of our homeowners regarding the proposed digital billboard, excuse me, in the manufacturing aspect of this project.

First, they stated Flynn Mark has stated the primary use of the billboard is for the training of employees that will place the printed material on the billboards.

We are concerned that the training label may be a pretext for installing a high-intensity advertising structure adjacent to the residential areas of Fiddler's Green and Rivermont Independent Living Center.

No, the 35-foot sign would still be 10 feet above the building roof line as it stands now, making it visible from many windows, including bedroom windows at Fiddler's Green and possibly Rivermont Independent Living Center.

Next, Lynn Mark has stated that no fumes will be smelled, but we do not yet know the specific chemicals involved in the vinyl printing process, in particular volatile compounds.

Next, the preliminary development plan places a mechanical trash compactor on the west side of the property.

You address that in very close proximity to our residential boundary.

We still continue to ask that this continue that this equipment be moved to the north or to the south side of the building and restrict its use from 8 a.m.

to 5 p.m.

to prevent any noise from disrupting sleeping residents.

Finally, there are no current, currently no west facing windows.

The proposal indicates that a full second floor may be needed as the business grows.

We asked the city consider a permanent prohibition on west facing windows for any future structural additions to protect our backyards.

Specifically, a comprehensive architectural and visibility analysis and provide a professional architectural analysis and detailed evaluation drawings, elevation drawings for every home in Fiddler's Green and Rivermont Independent Litters Living Center depicting where the light will and will not be visible for every home.

The gentleman mentioned fairly low or relatively low impact.

And that's just the thing.

We don't know what that means.

What is relatively low impact?

We would like to know.

Complete details on air emissions, the solvents that will be used and a comprehensive hazardous waste plan to ensure there is no risk of orders, odors, or chemical spills in our neighborhoods.

Restrictions on compactor noise outside of the hours.

Thank you very much for your comments.

I'm going to move to the next person.

Thank you.

If anybody else also has not already filled out the cards, they are in the back, and you can come bring them up to us.

Good evening.

My name is Julie Reyes, and I am the trustee for JAR Living Trust, which is my home located at 928 Heather Glen Drive.

I'm located in Fiddler's Green as well.

And I'm here to provide some concerns that I have primarily against the billboard.

I don't see the need for the billboard.

I find it to be also problematic in terms of it being stated as it would be for training purposes, and I would say that any training tools be located inside of the building.

So while I'm not against this being a headquarters per se, I am very much against that billboard for most of the reasons that have already been stated.

So that's been on there as well.

I also have concerns about it being manufacturing as opposed to just being a corporate headquarters.

And I also have some concerns about some of the environmental or potential environmental concerns or risks that we don't really have a full understanding of.

So we would like to have more information upon kind of what Jim is talking about.

What are some of the solvents and chemicals and so forth that are going to be used in case of any kind of odor as well as any potential spin or spell spillage and that sort of a thing?

And that those are primarily my biggest concern, and that if this could be moved forward with no billboard, and then some further information about what are the potential hazards chemically, environmentally, I would really appreciate the board and the commission to further look into that and request some of those.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have AC Rains.

Good evening.

Bear with me.

I'm nervous.

First time to ever do this.

AC Rains.

My wife Heather and I live at 3320 Heather Glenn within Fiddler's Green.

So I'm not sure if any of you are Seinfeld fans, but uh I'll remind you of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer suddenly gets a neon sign outside of his apartment window and he can't sleep.

That's what we don't want.

I would also ask you when you go back to ask questions of the applicant.

Have him show you the full map of his slide labeled billboard.

He's only representing about 20% of our neighborhood.

If you follow his yellow line for the line of light, it is going to hit the entire back range of our neighborhood from houses uh 3,001 through 3,016, all the way on the back side of that lot.

Could you give me the 30-second warning also?

Yes, please.

So I just I want to stress that the wife, my wife and I are not necessarily opposed to Linmark.

Uh but we believe that reactivating a vacant structure is a positive step.

Uh, but I want to I want to distinguish between redevelopment of a building versus introducing an inner incompatible use, which uh the city's own staff report.

Uh I'll invite you to look at page two or the last page of your own staff report that says that it's inconsistent with several urban living center policies, yet suggest these violations are acceptable simply because the project is a redevelopment.

And we would argue that no, that does not make that acceptable.

Uh the city's own ULC policies explicitly state that this type of development is least compatible with residential areas and requires additional buffering from noise, orders, and light pollution.

And I'll just tell you, I think the billboard is disingenuous.

Uh that it's for training.

I I don't buy that.

Uh it's their own website says that they will have ads that will rotate every eight seconds.

And so we have significant concerns about flashing lights.

Today I have a transom window that's nine feet off the ground.

I constantly get light through it, and I don't want that light to be a color strobing LED through my bedroom window.

Uh some of the items they've addressed, such as the compactor, we would ask for noise restrictions there.

Also for truck arrivals any time after 8 p.m.

and before 7 a.m.

We would ask that we don't do that.

Is that my 30 seconds?

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

You have 30 more seconds.

Uh just in conclusion, I'll just ask that the board uh know that we support the building's reuse while rejecting the incompatible billboard and manufacturing elements.

Uh, and then I'm also concerned about solvents, and I'd like to see that addressed.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

And you're under three minutes.

Look at that.

Okay, the next one I have Richard Squirrel.

Thank you, Cal.

Uh my name's Richard Squirrel.

I live at 921 Heather Glenn Terrace.

I care for my mother.

We both live there.

Uh first off, I agree with a lot of AC's comments and the other people from Heather Glenn.

Um the indication by Linmark, uh, the representatives that the uh yellow line would affect one house.

No, that's about 20 houses on down on that line.

We just didn't show the rest of the map.

But my biggest complaint is this is a very large billboard that's lit up.

So let's just compare if we drive to Riverwind, we see a two-thirds the size billboard lit up.

Uh that's pretty significant in a rural residential area because if you drive through Norman on Highway 9, there are no billboards from the hospital on the east side on Highway 9 all the way to I-35 of that ilk.

It's a very big light pollution thing, and it will not just affect uh Rivermont, River Chase, Heather Blyon.

It will affect everybody in that area.

And I think if y'all would drive through that area and just look, you would see what I'm talking about.

This is not a small structure.

It is an issue.

And a lot of these people over in that area of Norman have paid their taxes.

They've done all the things right for a long time.

They need some backing from you guys.

I have no problem with building a good company there and all a lot of things.

But but a billboard of that type gets pretty trashy if you're driving into the University of Oklahoma.

And I can't believe the apartment complex across the street hadn't been notified.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's the end of the cards that I have received.

Would any other members of the audience want to make comment before we move to our next section?

Okay.

Um seeing none.

Okay.

We will go to Planning Commission discussion.

So let me get microphones on.

Um so I don't I don't own stock in Landmark or anything like that.

I do have um uh prior knowledge of large sign printing.

I was um many, many years ago vice president of Intermountain Signs in Idaho.

Um, and we used large injured printers as well.

Um I can say, as far as training purposes, if we had thought to put a billboard up to train them, it would have um saved us a lot of headache when you get someone an hour and a half drive from you doing work and realizing that the problem we were told they're having is not the problem they're really having, and we only walked maybe that that new employee through you know the first scenario instead of the second.

Um I also I looked up because I was I was concerned about the understanding of um Oklahoma State 9 being considered an arterial road, and you had arterial in quotes.

Um, but it is not an arterial road, it is considered considered by the state an arterial highway.

Um that indicates this is right off uh DOT's uh website, um, that it serves as a major route for traffic facilitating movement between regions connecting various local roads.

The highway spans from the Texas state line west to Vincent to the Arkansas, well, that's sorry, 35.

It um goes from 35 to those regions eastward.

Um according to the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, arterial highways are designed to carry large volumes of traffic and provide connections to major destinations.

So it is it's not arterial like the roads off of highway nine, those are arterial roads that get you to a major road.

Is it the same size as the interstate?

No.

Um, but it is a legitimate highway, and there will basis of it being a highway, have a demand not just for the traffic, but also for billboards and advertising along said highway.

Um but I I would love um the applicant you're saying you're putting in trees.

I don't know if you can do even longer to um to address the concerns of not just that yellow line, but even you know, beyond it, um, or even angling the sign if the the signs are that narrow of a V that's truly how you're planning on on putting it.

Maybe if you angle the one on the west side, west facing a little more, so less of that light is shining at residential.

That's a really easy fix.

Um, then you've you're still getting traffic visibility, and um you can be seen from all of that that OU complex on on both of those.

Um I think the concerns um of the citizens, the neighbors that live there, I think you're um overly concerned about it being a manufacturing um because it is all internal, it's not like you're gonna hear hammering nails outside.

Um it's gonna be running a printer, or I don't know how many printers you're gonna be running, but it'll be I know when we ran three and we had glass roll doors on two of the sides of the building, you couldn't hear it on the other side of that glass, and that glass isn't meant to um insulate from sound just from um rain and whatnot when we did vehicle wraps and needed to pull vehicles in.

So I think the nature of it, you're gonna have a lot less traffic than you expect, a lot less noise than you expect, and I think if Lindmark would like to be the good neighbor that they're hoping to be being there, that there's some really easy fixes that you can do in your plan between now and city council um to address the the light concerns, and those are my comments just real quick.

Just real quick, um, I was going back through some of the land use categories of aim and what potentially could be there if it's not this building.

Could maybe staff or would Sean, maybe you could tell us what potentially could be there if it's not this building.

I I wouldn't love to, Commissioner, and there will be five printers inside this building, by the way.

Uh and uh I would love to do that because it was it was mentioned just I think the last speaker said uh we were written in the staff report is inconsistent with AIM.

Well, we are, but maybe then people ought to hear what AIM says this should be, because it is not what I think possibly think.

Uh AIM, I'm looking at page 167 in your staff book tonight, in your staff in your report.

The reason this is inconsistent is because what AIM says this should be, which means if we show up with a project that meets this, you have a presumption that you would be approved because AIM says this is what the community wants that site to be.

So what the community wants that site to be building types of large and medium four to five story buildings are common.

Anticipated that various articulation scales, styles, et cetera, public and private spaces, i.e.

balconies, recreational roof decks, outdoor dining are basically intended for this space.

Uh so that's why it was written to say we're inconsistent with what the community wants this site to be, with what AIM Norman wants this site to be, because that's what AIM Normal wants the site to be.

And I would just simply remind the neighborhood, we are a stone throw from the University of Oklahoma, and you have seen a lot of student housing projects coming through here recently of national vendors that build four and five story buildings with balconies of students looking down onto that neighborhood.

That is what AIM says this site should be.

We're proposing something very different, and that's why it was written as inconsistent.

I have the C1 code if you want any of the uses out of that, if you're looking for maybe some of the more intense uses, um, arguably maybe more intense uses.

Hotel motel, hardware stores, that's a pretty normal store, medical marijuana dispensary, office, racquetball courts, uh theater.

Yeah, so those are just some some other illustrative examples.

There's also less intense uses too that are included in C1.

It's a literally two pages of uses.

Okay.

Do you have any I would just simply say that you know uh I sure hope that there's a way for you know, assuming this gets you know goes through the process, if that the applicant can definitely work with the residents to help alleviate some of those concerns.

You know, you talked about screening.

My hope is you're not gonna put a two-foot, you would not talk about a three or foot foot um you know shrub to screen.

You're you're you're talking about something that's gonna actually do the job today, not to not 15 years from now.

So and so that would be my thing is if making sure that those concerns that are expressed uh today or this week that maybe you get with those those uh those residents and see if you can come up with some type of uh mitigation for that.

So, you know, I I think that's a very that's very important.

So that would just be my comment on that.

I lived in another state that had uh on the second floors, my bedroom, and there was a regular street light on what had been a local highway, and it was kind of treated more like a four-lane road, but it was pretty heavy road that connected to other highways, and it had been the state highway at the time, and that did not have any screening and all night, bright orange light straight through the bedroom window, and it was miserable.

So I definitely can appreciate the concerns of light coming through your window.

And this comes up frequently at Planning Commission, and there is lighting ordinances specifically for this.

It you cannot have light spill over in there.

It doesn't necessarily change the fact that you wouldn't see a light on a post.

This also comes up like in your site of line, if you're standing in your backyard, can you see it?

Um you might see also, you may know already that if you can see the light posts from the parking lot currently, maybe maybe you can, maybe you can't.

But that would be an example, whether they're on or not, and the light spilling over, you might see that.

So I definitely um can commiserate with that.

Um I think there were some really good offerings for some compromise on there.

Uh, in the just in the manufacturing component, and I double checked in the PUD language, it was restricted manufacturing because you know, if Lindmark is no longer the occupant, can another occupant come in and change what type of use manufacturing?

Now is it welding?

Now is it something else?

And the light manufacturing and/or printing a billboard with signage on the property was uh for digital signage in a fully enclosed space, such materials for machinery necessary to conduct manufacture those and delivery of materials in there for printing, and required dispatch of the partially finished sign.

So it is very specific for sign making company.

Another manufacturing can't use can't come in without also manufacturing signs.

So that is something that is a protection to kind of limit this larger run of these.

Um there was some reference to the the billboard off of Riverwind, and the our billboard representative may be able to clarify more, but uh the average billboard like that would be a 600 square foot and larger, six to seven hundred square foot size billboard.

So I don't think that's necessarily the size billboard for comparison here.

Um, but it is good to note about the billboard at Norman Regional, which is significantly smaller, even though they asked for 400.

So I think what you can look at as an example is not going to be the highway billboard, but it's probably gonna be bigger than what that hospital billboard currently looks like.

Um kind of in some of the comments on here, I probably do have some follow-up questions for the applicant.

There were questions about smells, and I know we have odor ordinances, but can we maybe talk about filtration of smells, odor ordinance, and any smells on there?

Um so that will be one item.

I can relist this as we go.

Um there's also waste and environmental concerns, completely reasonable.

Dry cleaners also similarly have certain chemicals on there.

And then the third suggestion I had would be if the applicant might be amicable to offering a tour uh inside of their facility on any you know particular day for the residents and their concerns to kind of see firsthand and smell firsthand what they're kind of doing inside that facility.

Um I think that would be something that they have a lot of questions on that would probably be quickly able to answer since it is here in Norman if they're willing to go there and you're willing to host them.

So those would be my three questions for the applicant.

Again, smells and relating to the odor ordinance, waste environmental concerns, and potentially offering a tour of the facility.

Okay.

Thank you, madam chair.

Uh so I I'm gonna have to ask the applicant who is not here tonight.

Uh Trent Landmark himself is wasn't able to attend.

So I as to the tour facility, I need to have his permission, obviously, first to make sure that can happen.

So I will ask him, definitely.

Um as to uh smells and and basically waste.

We have to I I probably just answered this generically.

We have to meet all ordinances and laws as to hazardous materials, smells.

There is also common law tort law that uh an attorney we deal with this all the time.

It's called nuisance when uh when somebody on a property emanates site, I mean sound, odor, vibrations, dust, anything like that, you can be sued as a nuisance for the adjacent property owners if you create that problem onto a nation an adjacent property owner.

So not only does the uh environmental laws control a lot of that, so does tort law.

Tort law gives everybody a vehicle to to go after that.

I think I would answer both those to the same smells and waste.

Does that answer your question?

Yes, it does.

Thank you.

Um yeah, so I have just some follow-up thoughts in general, but if somebody else had other questions in there too.

Um I enjoyed seeing the removing of unnecessary parking to kind of give more functional use than parking that really does not fit the space any longer.

Um I certainly appreciate it's not what the neighbors want, but I do feel like this design was thoughtful and considerate.

Um, and kind of uh I would say a softer intensity, which again, maybe what does that define?

We kind of looked at other example uses that I feel are more intense.

So something that fits in with arguably our quietest neighborhood, one of our quieter neighborhoods per capita, probably in Norman, and something that I think I could speak for all commissioners that we care about helping you preserve, and I feel like another grocery store would have been a more intense use that would have had a lot more deliveries and would be more disruptive, honestly.

Um I think having the office uses uh and having kind of this particular use is helpful.

And I do think that maybe I would be willing to make the motion, even though that's not usually the case for some of the specific requests that the applicant offered, such as Claristory windows on the west side.

It can be miserable to not have light for people that will work in those buildings, but no visibility on there is a meet in the middle that I I could get on board with and planting the evergreens after we just had a storm.

Being thoughtful about planting tall trees right next to other people's houses, I think should be put into consideration as to what happens if one of those trees should fall.

But I do think that that's a reasonable consideration on there in that northwest corner, and um restricting that trash compactor use from eight to six.

I think those are all things that could be put in that the applicant has offered that we could put in as part of a recommendation of our motion, and I'd be willing to state those the same.

Um if that uh I don't know if there's any other discussion we have.

I just I just wanted to comment.

I those of you that were here for from the very beginning.

Um you heard a few of us say, you know, the site plan for item three, like the reason why there were so many issues was because the site plan was approved, and everything that is written into this, it is it it limits them to exactly that.

And um we've seen where that went horribly wrong, but for your neighborhood, um, if followed, it it could go wonderfully right, particularly with um the amendments of those additions that um Commissioner Byrd is is talking about.

So um, since it's not very common that I make the motion, I just want to make sure there wasn't any other discussion first.

Okay, and seeing none, I I oh I'm so sorry, we're done with our applicant presentation time.

We would make a motion to approve uh subject to a limitation to the windows on the west side of the addition being clarestory windows only.

Planting of greenery on the northwest corner consistent with the billboard site line, so as to shield from neighborhood view, and restricting trash compactor uses to the hours from 8 to 6 p.m.

Okay.

So that is the motion I have made.

I second it.

Any discussion on the motion?

No.

Okay.

Seeing none, I would take a vote.

You may vote.

All votes have been cast.

Motion passes five to zero.

Moving on to our next item number 10, consideration of approval acceptance, rejection amendment, and or a postponement of ordinance 0-2526-72.

An ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, mending section 28-601.

Um, if and if you don't mind since we do have one more item, if we can just try to quietly our guests say what the next slide is.

Okay.

So uh I'm gonna restart there.

Item number 10, consideration of approval acceptance, rejection amendment, and or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-72.

An ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 28-601 standards of Article 28-v1 off-premises signs within Chapter 28 Sign Regulations of the Code of the City of Norman to adopt corrected language fully implementing previously approved standards and providing for the severability thereof.

And it's very confusing nature for lack of a better way to describe it.

So after that meeting, uh we went back and tried to figure out why is it that the beginning of the ordinance appears to say one thing while the end of the ordinance completely makes it confusing and not seemed to be applicable.

What we discovered was the sign code, you know, was adopted.

And then in January of 2002, amendments uh were proposed and adopted that uh limited the location of these signs.

Whereas in the beginning, it would have been allowed across uh adjacent to a couple of core uh corridors.

It was limited to only I-35 and under particular conditions that are laid out further in that ordinance.

And uh it does appear that those um amendments were fully implemented because over nine years later, when another amendment came, uh that language was further amended.

That amended language from 2002 was there and it was amended again to add digital sign language.

Staff cannot account for what happened after then.

We were having a company administratively input these ordinance updates, but at some point after 2011 and before 2023, some of the language that should have been stricken in 2002 just snuck its way back in to the end of the ordinance and was sitting there in a very confusing manner.

So that's what um my research uh revealed had happened.

Um the reason that this previously approved language can't simply be fixed administratively because it was approved by council is because of what happened in 2023, which is when our provider, MUNICODE, uh stopped uh codifying for us, and we took over as a self-codifying entity, which means when we have an ordinance that passes, our city clerk's office now uh implements that new codification itself internally.

Uh and when that happened, uh, just before MuniCode did a comprehensive review of our code.

They went through in order to make it consistent, uh, to do renumberings and and all of that.

And uh this odd version of this particular section was in place at that time.

And we did a full repeal and replacement, and unfortunately, for this section, we did it based on that incorrect language.

So we have now officially adopted that incorrect language, and so that's why we're here today to consider re-implementing language that was supposedly implemented implemented in 2002.

And I want to make a point that um, you know, we were just talking about um billboards off-premises signs in the context of a PUD.

This is different in that it is the by right situation.

This is how it would be placed without the need for that.

Um I'd invite any questions you have.

I'm sad, Commissioner Jablonski missed this one.

Yes.

No.

Are there any questions by commission?

Um, well, we've moved to this.

Is there uh you are our applicant?

So if there's no questions of the applicant, are there any audience comments for this item?

Okay, and same same parameters as before.

Now you're an expert.

I'm not uh uh you know when we started the meeting, it was posted that we had four minutes and then that was from the end to it, it suddenly changed to three, so it's hard to prepare.

I asked your staff at the front uh when we turned in the petitions on Monday, uh, what the rules were, they weren't aware.

It would be nice if they were posted, so we could prepare properly.

I apologize for that.

So just as a clarification, that slide was a new slide that is for city council, and it actually said city council on there.

And we had not seen that before.

We caught that in before the meeting started, at least changed the words to say planning commission in three.

We have always done three minutes on there, and it's been consistent, so we couldn't do I didn't want to feel like having one meeting, somebody gets more time and another.

So, but it's it has consistently always been three minutes at Planning Commission that we have done.

The first issue that came up this evening, there were no time limits on those folks.

So uh and we can maybe visit after the meeting, and I'd be happy to discuss further.

But um, yes, so applicants are here for their hearing, and they are here to be heard, and we we really need to chew through with them.

The audience comments are giving you an opportunity to speak.

In addition, just as a note, as you many of you knew that you can submit a protest letter if you did not know there is no limit on your page count of your protest letter.

I mentioned that because I oftentimes spend more than three minutes reading a protest letter.

So we get a lot more detailed information that you have time to prepare for through that process, and that is the best way to communicate with planning commission is in advance where we have time to look through that.

And I know that we have the issue with yours, but that is the best way to communicate with planning commission in advance.

Um there is also at City Council there will be two meetings.

There is first reading where the item is read into the record, and the second reading is where they actually vote on it.

They frequently say the first meeting is not the big one.

The second one is the one that you will actually also have chance to comment.

The mayor makes the choices of running his meetings just like we make the decorum of running our meetings.

I make that decorum choice.

So that he has some different stipulations on there, and I think it sounds like he's doing four minutes, but you should confirm with the city clerk's office for that.

And similarly, protest letters can be submitted in advance and be turned in for those.

So if there are further questions on procedure, just so we don't hold up our item, I'd be happy to answer them after the meeting.

And of course, city staff can also try to answer those for you too.

Beth is right behind you, and I'm sure she'd love to answer that.

Yes, I appreciate that.

Uh I want you to know I'm not a gonna have you say your name and your address into the record.

Yes, ma'am.

AC Rains, 3320, Heather Glenn Terrace.

And do you want a 30-second warning?

Yes, please.

Okay, thank you.

So uh I was uh I guess alarmed or confused why this particular uh topic comes up after we had just got through talking about digital billboards for Fiddler's Green.

Uh because I actually got excited when I saw the city attorney's letter today, the data today posted online today, and I'll quote off-premise signs that shall be permitted only on parcels abutting interstate 35, and which such sign is located within 660 feet from the center line of interstate highway 35.

All such signs must be oriented towards traffic and can be located only in C2 and I2 zones.

So reading this, it made me think, okay, we're in the clear, they're not gonna stick this ugly flashing billboard in my backyard.

But why is this coming up after we just voted on that one?

I I'm just and then what brought this to light, was it because you got 62 letters from a bunch of angry homeowners that were concerned?

It's just bought this house.

Uh just put a lot of money into fixing it up.

Uh not particularly looking forward to seeing that flashing light through the transom window in my bedroom.

And the attorney that was here earlier showed you only a fraction of our neighborhood.

And I asked you, I asked you for one of the councilmen that asked the attorney to show you the rest of the map of our neighborhood.

If I can have the remaining amount of my time, I can show it to you on Google Maps.

That the attorney did not give you the full picture.

There is an entire backside of our neighborhood that will have visibility.

Just as I'm pausing your timer, but this is actually for this item since we've already done our agenda item for that specific agenda.

So but for this ordinance, this is what the comment is for.

Yes, and I guess I would ask for an explanation of why this came up afterwards and caused this to come up now, and why we are deviating from that specification that it only be along the Interstate 35 as it states in the ordinance now.

That's my question.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay, and um it did remind me, did you speak previously as well?

No.

Okay.

All right.

And just make sure that you've signed in also on your way out.

Stephen Long, 3313, Heather Glenn Terrace.

Yes, I'm concerned about the signage as well.

Try to remember that this residential area extends from 24th Avenue Southeast all the way to beyond Chautauqua Avenue.

But there is no digital signs along the way.

I'm so sorry.

We we're not discussing the LINR.

So sorry, let me finish.

Yes, we are talking about the ordinance change only, not specifically that LINARC project.

Digital sign should be restricted only to I-35 and not beyond.

And that's what the ordinance says.

So I hope you can consider that when you look at the signage that is not pertain that is strict it to where it's supposed to be.

And not into residential areas.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Did anybody else care to make a comment on the again the ordinance?

Okay.

All right.

Seeing none, we will go to Planning Commission discussion.

I I have some comments and first I want to answer.

Um this is on the uh the prior agenda item.

Their signage was on premises, not off-premises, and this agenda item is off premises.

And unless you're at a lot of planning commission meetings, then you probably aren't aware that the city as an applicant any time ordinance name language needs to be cleaned up.

That's always at the very end of the meeting.

And so it might seem like a weird order for you.

Um, but a there the the prior agenda item was in regard to on premises, and this is regarding cleaning up language of off-premises.

So just I'm so sorry, but we we do for our decorum, we're gonna keep keep our commission comments going.

So the reason why the city does those um ordinance language cleanups at the very end of the agenda is is really out of a courtesy to all the citizen applicants so that they're not having to wait behind the city doing city business that that does also help the citizens.

So that's the reason why.

And I I also want to uh comment on the remark that you know none of us asked the applicant to see the rest of the map.

And to you, it might seem like um we're only basing anything on the presentation by city staff and um and the applicant, and that is not the case um for every one of the commissioners that I work with.

I know every one of us goes to Google Maps on the regular, drives by it, um, drives around it when there's protest letters, oftentimes it's a second trip out to kind of see like if there's something we didn't think of that a protest letter brought up.

There is a lot of volunteer minutes and hours that go into this this role.

We we are not paid like city council.

It is it is all out of the good to try to help our fellow citizens ensure due diligence, and all we can do is vote on a recommendation.

What we vote on is is just that a recommendation for city council, and um city council can amend that, approve that, or reject that themselves.

And sometimes things that we've unanimously you know rejected has been approved by them, sometimes with modifications, sometimes without.

So um sometimes it's the opposite.

So as uh Commissioner Byrd had pointed out, feel free to write as lengthy and detailed a letter as you would like addressed to those city council elected officials, and um that way they can review those concerns as well.

And um, and and we're not just saying that because hey, our meeting is done, we're saying that because we believe in citizens having that ability to protest and to again speak in a public meeting, and and even if you don't like everything that we say, we really appreciate you being present and being concerned about what's best for Norman.

So thank you.

And we had a project where that language had come up maybe two meetings ago.

And if usually these ordinance changes are not necessarily super fast.

So if I were to guess what triggered it, it was the last meeting where we were pulling it out two months ago, not this item, because we discussed that lengthfully in another meeting.

Laura, can you confirm if that is correct?

That is correct.

Um yeah, we had a long discussion about uh billboard on another project, and uh we realized in trying to read every part of off-premise, which off-premises on premise would be uh there's a Chick-fil-A here and Chick-fil-A has a sign for Chick-fil-A.

Off-premises would be there's a Chick-fil-A here and they're advertising for Walmart.

I'm just trying to think.

So, yeah, if you're advertising for something that's not on the property where the sign is.

And so we were trying to dig in, as Beth said, as to why.

So it was changed a long time.

It's just the language was never taken out.

So the staff report that or Beth's memo was dated today, but it was published last week, and then it was uh advertised in the newspaper 20 days before the meeting.

So it wasn't just because we saw your letters that we wanted to change it.

Yeah.

Um we try to clean up as we find code that is hard to implement, and um this is just one of those, it just kind of worked out that it was on the same agenda as a billboard company.

Yes.

Um I don't know how the billboard company feels about that, but you know, it just is what it is.

We probably have an ordinance change maybe every three meetings, and we have a monthly meeting, so um, of something or another.

So yeah, I I think uh as far as other discussion on this item, um, I think being consistent is good, and uh it does answer some of the questions we had previously on the other project, having that cleaned up and not having that mistaken clarity.

Um so I I don't see a problem with this particular motion, but uh or agenda item.

But if other commissioners have anything to say on here, be happy to hear them out.

I know Commissioner Jablonski cares a lot about the the billboards on there and the signage on there, and I'd I wouldn't say that it wouldn't hurt to have our signage code brought up to date following the zoning code update.

We've discussed that previously too, and I think we all have a lot of concern for those digital billboards, but I do we've already passed this code.

This is truly a cleanup measure on there and kind of goes along with the billboards that we talked about on Flood Street previously.

So that's my comments on this.

Yeah, okay.

Well, um, if there's no other comments, I would take a motion.

Move to approve.

Second.

And a vote.

Oh, any discussion on the motion and then vote.

No.

No.

You may vote.

All votes have been cast, motion passes five to zero.

Okay, we're moving to miscellaneous discussion.

Does staff have any information for commission?

Welcome Laura to sitting next to us up here.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

We had two other items that I have to read into the record.

I apologize.

Item number 11, consideration of approval acceptance, rejection amendment, and or postponement of ordinance 0-2526-45.

An ordinance of the Council of the City of Norman, Oklahoma, amending section 36-201 of the Code of the City of Norman so as to remove a tract of land located in the southeast corner of section 27, Township 9 North, range 2 west of the Indian Meridian to Norman, Cleveland County, Oklahoma, from the R1 single family dwelling district, RM2 low density apartment district, RM6 medium density apartment district, A2 Rural Agricultural District, and C1 local commercial district to a PUD planned unit development of said city and providing for the severability thereof, Northwest Corner of Intersection of 36th Avenue Northeast and East Alameda Street Ward 6.

The item has been withdrawn by the applicant.

An item number 12, consideration of approval, acceptance, rejection, amendment, and/or postponement of PP-2526-14, a preliminary plat submitted by the Kalera Group LLC for Alameda Trails, a property located near the northwest corner of intersection of 36th Avenue Northeast and East Alameda Street Ward 6.

The item has been withdrawn by the applicant.

Thank you, Bailey, for catching me on that.

I don't believe we have to do any motions on this to accept the withdrawal, other than read it into the record.

So now that that is done, we will move to miscellaneous discussion.

Does staff have any information for commission?

Sorry, I don't know why it's making that noise.

But we were talking with the consultant today that we are gonna try to do a few uh meetings with you guys along the way to kind of have you reading bytes of the draft so you're not stuck with an entire new code when it's time for adoption.

Um so I don't know if we'll do special meetings to do education or training or if it'll be small groups where we can get input.

But um just try to bring you along for the ride.

Uh just as a point of clarification from the aim meeting process.

I did not like how really our only opportunity for comment in our commission aspect was really in the training session.

I would really like having more meaningful engagement in the writing portion where there's better opportunity for change and for insight to be added before we're already nearly adoption and looking at training on it.

So that would be my main comment on that.

So yeah, uh, usually with the zoning rewrite, there's a little more involvement of planning commissions, because that is one of your main roles is looking at zoning.

Um we we will be doing that this time.

Um you'll start seeing drafts put out to the public late fall.

So we're about to be very, very busy.

And welcome Laura to sitting up here uh with us.

There we go.

Uh, do commissioners have any other comments to make?

Okay.

Seeing none, uh, uh there's nothing else to come before the commission.

I will declare the meeting adjourned.

Yay.