It’s Déjà Vu Time For City Planning Board
Some Familiar Issues On Agenda For Monday Night Meeting
If members of the Commerce Planning Commission experience the feeling of déjà vu Monday night, it’ll be understandable.
When the planning commission meets at 7:00 p.m. in the Peach Room of the Commerce Civic Center, everything on the agenda is a repeat, most of it from last month’s meeting.
For example, the planners will have a second go at Walgreens’ request of a variance in the size of its sign and an LED message board.
The planning commission heard that request for a sign three times larger than is allowed under the city sign ordinance — and the LED sign not allowed under the ordinance, and the planners opted to table the matter for 30 days to consider how the zoning ordinance should be interpreted.
And, the planners last month recommended that the city council amend the section of its ordinance dealing with utility buildings — but the council didn’t like the recommendation and ordered the planners to revisit the matter.
It’s also on the agenda for Monday.
The recommendation was to increase the allowable size of such structures to half the square footage of the “footprint” of the house, limit them to one story in height, require that they be built of the same materials as the dwelling, and to allow up to two outbuildings for larger lots and one for smaller lots.
The city council voiced opposition to the limit in the height, to the restrictions on building materials, and to allowing more outbuildings on some lots than others, whiich they termed discriminatory.
The third issue on Monday’s agenda is a proposed recommendation to change the maximum height of front-yard fences from three feet to four feet. The planning commission has discussed that at two meetings, but has yet to make a recommendation.
One of the concerns voiced when the matter last came up was that fences — especially thosed designed to keep dogs in the yard — have some kind of arrangement so city meter readers can get in to do their job once a month.
