03-11-19 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

REGULAR MEETING March 11, 2019 Councilmember Karen White made a motion to accept the second (2nd) substitute version of Bill No. 19-15. Councilmember Jo M. Broden seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of eight(8) ayes. Council President Tim Scott reported the Zoning and Annexation Committee met this afternoon and, due to the lack of quorum, send this bill forward with no recommendation. Tim Corcoran, Director of Planning for the Department of Community Investment with offices located on the 14th floor of the County-City Building, South Bend, IN, served as the presenter for this bill. Mr. Corcoran stated,Thank you,Council Members.This comes back to you after a couple weeks where we went back and looked to answer some of the questions asked at Committee. I hope I can answer some of those questions for you. So, what does this resolution enable us to do? (Referencing a presentation which is available in the City Clerk's Office) It simply allows us to hire two (2) new staff as proposed and outlined in the 2019 budget. These two (2) new staff are critical in helping us work towards the development of a South Bend Plan Commission. The responsibilities of these two (2) new staff members will be to coordinate with the existing Area Plan Commission in terms of knowledge and data transfer, look at the existing processes to understand where we might be able to find some efficiencies and refine those processes and help us continue the quick fixes we've been doing over the last couple of years. Also,they will help us rewrite the zoning ordinance to date. It's really important those people play a role in that because those will be the people who administer it. So, it will be a great way to make sure that, when we get to that point, they are starting with a lot of knowledge behind them. Mr. Corcoran continued, What the resolution does not do is establish the South Bend Plan Commission.That would need to be done through an ordinance and this will be brought to Council later this year and I am estimating approximately around September. Between now and then, we hope to and we plan on working through all the issues that you raise and that we find internally to make sure we meet the critical goal of having a seamless transition making this happen. Why establish a Plan Commission for South Bend? Philosophically, I think South Bend citizens should be making decisions on South Bend issues. We have the right people and wealth of internal experience.There are a lot of people in South Bend,and some of those members are on the existing Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA), who understand planning and the objectives of the City. The South Bend Plan Commission members will have a greater insight into City planning objectives. This is because they understand the goals of the City because they are people who live within the City. We hope for and we expect better communication throughout the zoning process. So, when you get a recommendation, there will be one(1)recommendation and it flows through. There won't be any sort of mismatches in that. We want to streamline the process. So, currently, Strategic Planning, which is my department, we look at neighborhood visions with a lot of citizen engagement. The Building Department does what is called Plan Review. That is when a project is already appropriate in a zone. Currently,we,DCI,don't really see those projects. Finally, on the Economic and Business Development side, which is usually working with the developer. Having all this together really allows us to streamline that process and really work together to help shepherd these projects through the system. Mr. Corcoran went on, We also hope that we can help with zoning code compliance. What I mean by that is,firstly,we want to,and we've been doing this,look at the zoning ordinance and eliminate all unnecessary, overburdensome and out-of-date regulations. You've been helping us do this already. So, this is a positive step that we want to keep taking. But, we want to also stand firm on rules we believe in and that we believe make the City a better place. If we're consistent in the application of the zoning code, especially at the BZA level, be believe this consistency promotes compliance and reduces overall administration time. This is one (1) of the things we hope to accomplish in the future. Mr. Corcoran continued,There were questions about the independence and accountability of these Boards. Well, you know, State Law dictates the criteria these boards must utilize in order to make their decisions. This is the same case when it would become the South Bend Plan Commission. The criteria are clearly defined in State Law and they are the same criteria that the current Board of Zoning Appeals and Area Plan Commission use. We also have been taking an incremental approach to this. So, not only have the quick-fixes been incremental and over-time, but we want to use these two (2) people to incrementally look at all the different things we need to look at in 5