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HomeMy Public PortalAbout20070208TybeeCouncilMins2007-2-08 City Council Minutes Mayor Buelterman called the Consent Agenda Meeting to order on February 08, 2007 at 6:30 PM. Present in addition to the Mayor were Shirley Sessions, Kathryn Williams, Paul Wolff, Wanda Doyle, Eddie Crone and Mallory Pearce. Also present were City Manager, Diane Schleicher, and City Attorney, Bubba Hughes. Mayor Buelterman listed the Consent Agenda items as: The Falcon Fireworks Agreement for 4th of July Regulatory Fees for Bondsmen and Benches. Diane Schleicher to go with Mayor to Washington, DC on February, 28, 2007 to lobby for Beach Renourishment. Indigent Defense Contract. Buckley Property contract extension until the end of March. Appointment of Harvey Farelle to Beach Task Force to complete Dick Magune’s term. Mayor Buelterman called the regular meeting of the City Council to order at 7:00PM on February 8, 2007. Those present at the consent agenda meeting were still in attendance. Chad Eason of the Chapel by The Sea Baptist Church gave the Invocation and The Tybee Island Memorial Color Guard posted the colors. Everyone recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. Mayor Buelterman acknowledged the return of the Mayors pictures in the auditorium. He thanked Cullen Chambers and the Tybee Island Historical Society for making the needed changes to the pictures to protect and preserve them as well as having them copied digitally. The Mayor also recognized Debbie and Mark Robinson for their hard work in getting the framing done promptly. Mayor Buelterman thanked the Tybee Police Department as well as the Savannah Striders and all volunteers associated with the Tybee Marathon. He said it was a very safe and successful event. Mayor Buelterman and Mayor Pro Tem Sessions presented appreciation plaques to Planning Commission members completing their terms. Members recognized were: Gene Kendrick, Chuck Powell, Honor Hutton, Susan Hill, Charlie Brewer and Lawanna Tsoulos. Mr. David Birdwell gave a Tybee Neighbors update Mr. Stan Hedgecorth invited everyone to the Harlem Ambassadors event on Friday night at the Gym. Mayor Buelterman opened the public hearing for the Text Amendment to Section 4-050 (F) District Use Regulations in the C2 Highway Business District. Adding “dwellings or structures rented for special events” to uses permitted after special review and site plan approval in Zone C2. Mr. Wolff said the 15 Sq. Ft. rule for interior and exterior use should be used to determine parking requirements. He said it is the same criteria used for restaurants. He said one car per four person capacity whether the parking is on site or offsite. Mr. Wolff moved to approve with the addition of requiring one parking space per four person capacity as determined by the ordinance, Mr. Pearce seconded and the vote was unanimous Mayor Buelterman – Opened the public hearing for a Map Amendment – Zone C-2, 706 Polk Street. Request to rezone property from C-2 to R-2. Page 1 of 6 Mr. Brown presented the petition for William Dowell and said he wants to rezone property from C2 to R2. The Planning Commission recommended approval. Mayor Buelterman said in the Planning Commission minutes, it was mentioned that lot six was not originally requested. Mr. Brown said the motion was made to include both parcels of land. Mr. Hughes asked if the posting of this property dealt with the one piece that the original application was on and did not include the Pin number for Lot six. Mr. Dowell said he had no objection to taking it off or rezoning to EC. Mr. Brown said the posting sign was changed the day after the Planning Commission made a motion to add both parcels. Mr. Dowell said lot six was added at the request of the Planning Commission and he was only concerned about the one piece of property. Mr. Hughes said, the minutes should reflect that the zoning map is present in the room as amended as is currently in force. He said Lot six needs to be left out of the motion even if the sign was amended. He said the publication was not changed and the Pin number in the publication would not reflect lot six. There is no reason to create that issue. Mr. Wolf motioned to approve the map amendment excluding Lot 6. Mr. Pearce seconded and the vote was unanimous. Mayor Buelterman opened the public hearing for Site Plan Approval for 1115 Hwy 80, request for a temporary branch banking facility for First National Bank. Mr. Brown said this was approved on condition of a temporary time limit. Mayor Buelterman read a letter from neighbor Diane Killeram dated Thursday, February 7, 2007. She was in support of the temporary bank but had concerns and questions. Mr. Brown said Downer Davis had listed his concerns and it was contingent on meeting all of Downer Davis’s requirements which the petitioners agreed to do. Mr. Wolff said council had received a letter from Downer Davis saying they had met all of his requirements. Pat Livingston of Ward Edwards; project engineers for the proposed temporary bank; addressed the concerns that were in the letter and felt they had provided separation between the residential and the commercial. He said they are actually further from the setback at that point than at any other part of the site. They have provided some landscape buffer in that area and agreed to take the Crepe Myrtles out and add a thicker material such as Wax Myrtle. Mr. Wolff said a heated building of 60 by 28 Sq ft. would require eight parking spaces and there are only five. Ms. Sessions asked if they were planning to use spotlights for security. Mr. Livingston said they had provided a handicap spot per the ordinance and originally had two but had revised it to one. He said the lighting would be limited not to impact the residential areas. He said they would have a 6ft setback along Hwy 80 and along the residential property as well as a 10ft setback along McKenzie Ave. Mr. Wolff said as a bank they wouldn’t need a dumpster and they could get by with a couple of trash bins and a couple of recycling bins. They could recycle their office paper and get rid of regular garbage through the city program. He said eliminating the dumpster would create a parking space and take care of the parking requirements. Ms. Sessions asked about the ATM. Mr. Livingston explained that the ATM is going to be affixed to the building and will be on the front side so that people can park and walk up and have a lighted area; it will not be in the drive through area. Mr. Hughes said he understood the Planning Commission recommended twelve months duration on it. He said they would have to arrive at some appropriate documentation to assure that it will be moved at the end of that time. Mr. Livingston said they agree to the 12 month limit and if there is an unforeseen reason why they would need to go beyond that; they would request a three month extension or something just to cover the gap. But their goal is not to be in this facility very long. Ms. Williams asked if they intended to remove the neighbor’s fence. She said Ms. Killeram’s survey shows the fence is actually on her property line. Mr. Livingston said he didn’t recall stipulating removing her fence in their plans and had not planned to. Page 2 of 6 Mr. Wolff moved to approve with the following conditions; all lighting be directed downward and not be obtrusive to the neighbors, having a parking space replace the dumpster. Ms. Doyle seconded. Ms. Williams asked if Mr. Wolff would amend his motion to include having a heavier vegetative buffer on the North side of the property. Mr. Hughes said Ms. Williams needed to be clear on what she meant by a heavy vegetative buffer. Mr. Wolff amended the motion to include that Crepe Myrtles be replaced with Wax Myrtles on the buffer; 12 month time limit from the date of occupancy with the removal of the facility at the end of 12 months. Sessions seconded the amended motion and the vote was unanimous. Ms. Schleicher requested a budget adjustment of $20.840 for the campground residence to include $1,176 for energy star appliances including a more efficient HVAC system. She said the city was trying to follow the sustainability initiatives and needed the additional money. Mr. Wolff suggested adding $3,500 for a Solar Water Heater as well as having the roof done in white to reflect heat. He also requested having it tapped for solar power. He said when solar panels become cost effective it would only take some PVC and labor to add solar power to the residence at very minimal cost. Ms. Williams said her understanding during the budget was the existing building was to be renovated for the campground residence. Ms. Schleicher explained that initially the budget was to renovate the river room and the pavilion. She said as the plans progressed it was discovered that those areas are used for group meetings therefore the decision was made to purchase a modular home for the campground manger. Mr. Wolff said Tybee has taken major steps in sustainability; we won an award last year for setting the pace for the region. We also have a Green Building resolution that we passed last May that says specifically we will do the very best we can within certain perimeters to make buildings green friendly, reduce green house gas emissions and conserve energy and resources. Ms. Schleicher introduced changes to the parking decal ordinance. She said due to complaints from residents as to why we have so many vehicles using multiple spots with one decal especially when we have a limited resource for parking and we have storage trailers parked long-term. She said people complain about decal parking on the street which causes a lot of vision issues, especially coming out of the side streets. She said if we do decals for boats they often take multiple spots as well. She said it seems counter productive to be issuing decals to different trailers, boats and RVs that take up 3-4 spaces. It was suggested that the only exemption to the ordinance be if they have a business license and they are a legally licensed beach business they would allow those businesses to continue to have that one parking place per site with the city parking decal so that we wouldn’t impact businesses. Ms. Doyle said she would really like to see some work done on this before council takes action to know exactly what is to be considered concerning beach businesses and decals. Mayor Buelterman listed the Consent Agenda items as: The Falcon Fireworks Agreement on the Forth of July Regulatory Fees for Bondsmen and Benches. Request for Diane Schleicher to travel out of state to lobby for Beach Funds in Washington, DC. Approval of the minutes for December 14, 2006 and January 11, 2007. Indigent Defense Addendum. $7500 will be paid for fines and forfeitures. Extension of the Buckley Property acquisition contract. Appoint Harvey Ferelle to complete Dick Magune’s term on Beach Task Force. Page 3 of 6 Mr. Wolff moved to approve the Consent Agenda, Ms. Williams seconded and the vote was unanimous. Mr. Wolff moved to approve the original campground residence proposal including the addition of $1,176 to upgrade the HVAC system to a higher efficiency system plus Energy Star appliances and also to include a budget adjustment not to exceed $4500 to add a solar water heater and stub in potential solar panels and a light roof. Ms. Sessions seconded. Ms. Schleicher said she will talk to the vendor about getting the special water heater and see how hard it would be to stub it and put the piping in; and changing the color of the roof won’t be a problem. She said we need to make sure we do this all at once because it’s very expensive when you change orders. Mayor Buelterman said he wants to make it clear that if the cost exceeds the amount; they still have approval to move forward with it even without the additions. And the vote was unanimous. Mayor Buelterman said regarding the Coastal Protection Ordinance the City line is more restrictive usually than the DNR line. It used to be structure to structure and then it was changed in 2005 to dwelling to dwelling. Now we are looking at trying to figure out a different way of approaching this from the City’s point of view. Mr. Hughes has drafted some ideas that he synthesized from comments he has heard from the Council Members. Mayor Buelterman suggested two logical options. Option number one is to go with the DNR’s line. Option number two is to send this to the Planning Commission and let them take a look at it. Mr. Pearce said the reason for changing it was because it was flawed. In case of eroding beaches which has happened on the North side along the Savannah River, the tree is on the beach. So there is no effective dune protection line at all. Stuart Stevens originally recommended that we do a local change and eliminate the tree for the jurisdiction line. He was the director of Coastal Zone Management but retired a long time ago and this has been going on for 10 years. Mr. Hughes said under the State Shore Protection Act, they do their line based on structures or the presence of a tree that has reached a certain size. The line can move over time because the presence or absence of trees. Our current ordinance which this would replace eliminates trees from the consideration and goes from structure to structure. This does not have distance from which the structures should be located. To get away from the area being determined solely by structures the proposal was made to base it either on the distance from the current DNR jurisdiction line; the toe of the dune; distance from ordinary high tide and to change the procedure so that a permit is required in order to build within whatever the area of operation is. That it be regulated as a matter of special permit as opposed to a variance standard which we now have. Mr. Pearce said when we turned Mr. Chu down on the Dune Protection Ordinance; one of the arguments that were made was our current ordinance was not sufficiently scientific. This is also an attempt to define the dune in a more scientific fashion including a definition that defines an ecosystem and description for the dune. Mr. Wolff said he thinks it is important that we base this on the public welfare and on natural features such as high tide and the dune line and there’s a blank in this as to distance from the landward toe or the landmost dune and I would like to suggest that it be 25 ft. from the landward toe or the landmost dune and that anything inside of that or the appropriate distance from ordinary high tide according to this ordinance would be buildable by right but that anything within that area would trigger federal review or require a permit. Mr. Pearce moved to send the ordinance with suggestion of 25 ft to the Planning Commission for their consideration. Mr. Wolff seconded, and the vote was unanimous. Page 4 of 6 Mr. Hughes said the ordinance adopting Municode should say through December 8, 2005 to be consistent with what Municode has. Council voted in favor of the date being December 8, 2005. Ms. Doyle introduced resolutions requesting four year elections for Mayor and City Council with a four year staggered term for City Council members. She said in this specific ordinance, it didn’t go into a lot of details about how those staggered terms would be done and that would be up for discussion at this point. One suggestion has been the three candidates that get the most votes in the election would do a four year term, and the other three candidates remaining would do a two year term. The next election would be where the staggered terms would work. She said another suggestion has been for four year terms with doing seats at large where you actually have 6 seats and have each person sitting on council draw a seat number out of the hat. If someone wanted to run against them, then they could go and apply for that seat to run against a specific person. She said the final resolution is a bill that was done in the Legislature 2002. This bill which obviously did not pass incorporated all of this. It incorporated four year staggered terms for the six Council Members with seats at large and also a four year term for the Mayor. There has to be an open hearing for this, but whatever happens, a resolution goes to the Legislature and if they vote to approve it, it comes back and has to be put on a referendum for the citizens of the island. Mr. Hughes explained the process to change the form of government on the method of electing officials and it can’t be done on the local level. It requires action by the State Legislature. Referendums can only be done at certain times of the year in Georgia and the only times it would be available for this; that did not include the general election; could be the third day of a month either June or September because it is too late for March. The notice has to be published before it’s introduced into the legislature. Ms. Doyle said her intent was to have discussions and hopefully get some kind of agreement about this to send one resolution and she noticed in the resolution that Mr. Hughes sent it referred to 2009 instead of 2007 which is probably because of a time factor. Mr. Hughes said in order to make it staggered, you have to plan on the next election down. He said there was discussion about having a special election. In order for Tybee to conduct a special election it would cost about $5,000-$6,000 dollars but having it added to the ballot of the general election would be minimal. Mr. Hughes said it would be a lot cleaner if the council took a vote on having the Public Hearing. I would like authorization to get the notice of local legislation being introduced. Mr. Pearce motioned that we have a public hearing discussing staggered four year terms and the various options that have been presented and that Mr. Hughes contact the state offices for the citizens. Mr. Hughes said the notice gets published in the local paper and he doesn’t want anyone to see the notice and wonder what’s going on. It won’t specify an option; It is just a pretty generic notice that a local bill will be introduced. Ms. Doyle seconded and the vote was unanimous Under old business Mr. Hughes said we had a public hearing on an application for a zoning variance for Joan and B.H. Levy on the 8th St. property back on September 14, 2006. At the conclusion of the public hearing, the issue was tabled for 90 days while options about an ordinance affecting the shore protection line were explored. At the end of 90 days Mr. Levy and I talked and it was scheduled to come back at tonight’s meeting instead of at the end of the 90 days. Mr. Hughes gave council the options and said they can deny the variance request, grant it, limit it or table it. He said because it’s residential property, there’s not a site plan requirement and location on these lots could be critical. Mr. Hughes said if any form of variance is granted, we need to know how much it is and where we’re measuring from. The survey depicts the DNR delineation flag which might be a convenient Page 5 of 6 place to measure to or a certain distance back from. He said he wants to make sure that if it’s not denied that it is clear what variance is granted. Mayor Buelterman asked if they are voting on what the Planning Commission had approved in August. Mr. Hughes said yes, it’s the same. Nothing has changed since the public hearing. This is the same proposal. Ms. Williams asked Mr. Levy. How many feet back from the landward toe of the dune the house was going to sit. Mr. Levy answered that he believed it was 10 ft back from the toe of the dune. Ms. Doyle motioned to approve. Mr. Crone seconded, the vote tied with Doyle, Crone and Sessions voting in favor and Pearce, Williams and Wolff opposed. Mayor Buelterman broke the tie in favor of the petitioner and the motion carried. Ms. Doyle moved to go into Executive Session to discussion litigation, Mr. Wolff seconded and the vote was unanimous. Mr. Pearce moved to end Executive Session, Sessions seconded and the vote was unanimous. Ms. Sessions moved to adjourn, Mr. Wolff seconded and the vote was unanimous. ____________________________ Mayor Jason Buelterman ________________________ Vivian Woods, Clerk of Council Page 6 of 6