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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1994.03.02 CITY COUNCIL MINUTES/?'1 City Council 3/2/94 7:30 P. M. ~. State of Idaho) County of Madison( ss City of Rexburg) Present were the following: Mayor: Councilman: City Clerk: Finance Officer: Attorney: Engineer: Pledge to the flag. Nile Boyle Kay Beck Farrell Young Glen Pond Bruce Sutherland Nyle Fullmer Jim Flamm Rose Bagley Richard Horner J. D. Hancock Joe Laird A motion was made by Bruce Sutherland and seconded by Kay Beck to approve the minutes. All Aye RE: NEW BUILDING FOR MILLHOLLOW YOGURT (JOE ROMNEY) - PARKING Joe Romney was at the meeting to present a plan to build a building for Millhollow Yogurt. (he gave the council a handout with plan) They are purchasing a piece of property in the Central Business District. The property is immediately adjacent to a city parking lot. It would be helpful for them if the parking on that lot could just be realigned and also make a slight change in the direction of the traffic ingress and egress. He wanted to get a response to the concept of what they want to do, then they would be able to go ahead with a detailed site plan that they could present to the Planning & Zoning. They had talked to Planning & Zoning twice, to Joe Laird, to J. D. Hancock and met with Kay Beck and Mayor Boyle on the site so they could understand what was going on. This property is next to the city parking lot which is on the corner of Carlson Ave and 1st East. They are hoping to put their building in the middle of the property, and hope the parking places on the city lot could be put on the other side and have the entrance from 1st East rather than from Carlson Ave and the exit on Carlson Ave or around on the property they are purchasing. They are anticipating putting a drive up window so the traffic would go around through the loading area and past their building and exit on 1st East. The parking spaces on the city lot would be the same number but be slanted the other direction. It would change the entrance, because the exit on 1st East is 10 feet from the corner. In the ordinance, it suggested that they be 20 feet from the corner and they are proposing putting the entrance 20 feet from the corner. They will add 4 parking places on their property. Bruce Sutherland mentioned it was talked about in Planning & Zoning that if the realignment is made, there will have to be parking bumpers put along there so the cars don't park on the sidewalk. Joe Romney said if that needed to be done he would do that. Kay Beck stated that Mr Romney would be putting in more parking than the city actually has now and he was glad to see something going in the downtown area. The mayor stated that the only problem he could see is most of the people that are working at Career Beauty College are parking on the lot that Mr Romney wants to purchase. If we leave it the way it is now, the eight parking spots on the city lot will be filled. If the businesses need the parking we will have to make it all two hour parking. The mayor said while he is getting his building built, the city would contact all the businesses and see if they feel all the parking lots along that road need to be posted for two hour parking. Joe Romney stated that Mr Taylor owns the parking lot across the street on College Ave and the employees from Career Beauty College could park over there until that is used for something else. ~~~~~: Jim Flamm asked about the easement with D.I? Joe Romney stated that Gerald has a warehouse that he rents to D.I and he wants to keep a 20 foot easement to the warehouse. They have talked to D.I., because there is a garage door 30 feet from that entrance which comes out onto the parking lot and there is no legal easement of record for that and the representative for the D.I. indicated that there would be no problem of them getting a revocable license to use the side entrance. Bruce Sutherland asked about the trucks they park along the one side? Mr Romney stated that they won't be concerned about that, they park them very infrequently on that lot. A motion was made by Bruce Sutherland that we approve the realignment of the parking on the city parking lot. Seconded by Kay Beck. All Aye Introduction of the scouts. RE: REPORT FROM THE SWIMMING POOL COMMITTEE - SAFETY OF OLD POOL Brad Liljenquist was at the meeting to make a report from the Swimming Pool Committee. (Handout, on file) Handout included the findings, conclusions, exhibits. Brad explained the handout. The committee recommended that the city sponsor an in depth facility study for the pool similar to the facilities project studies done for other projects such as water and sewer studies. This should include a great deal of public input in the form of surveys, public meetings as well as other factors. It was discussed that we use a group of students from a university such as I.S.U. to do the study or hire a swimming pool consultant. He then discussed funding options and recommendations listed in the handout. The pool committee talked at the last meeting and all the committee members felt that if there was a need to look into anything else, they would be glad to do it. The council thanked Brad and the committee for the work they have done, with time and know how. Mike Mitchell was concerned about keeping the pool open and it not being A.D.A. Assessable. The mayor stated that to make the pool handicapped assessable would be too costly and as soon as someone makes an issue about it, we will have to close the pool. Bruce Sutherland make a report on the Planning & Zoning meeting. RE: IMPACT ZONE The mayor stated that the Planning & Zoning has set the date for the Impact Zone Hearing and the council needs to set a date for their hearing with the commissioners. The council felt that the mayor should check with the commissioners. RE: AFFORDABLE HOUSING - LOT SIZE DISCUSSED The mayor discussed the issue of enough affordable housing. There is a fellow from Idaho Falls that wants to build some affordable housing in Rexburg. They have to be in the $70,000 to $80,000 range with a lot, and he called to ask if we had any place where there are lots as narrow as 60 feet and we don't have any platted that small. Our zoning ordinance in LDR1 requires a 60 foot wide lot, but it requires 8000 square feet, so it would be 133 feet long. In Idaho Falls they allow 50 foot frontage lots, but only require 6000 square feet in LDR1. The mayor felt we need to take a look to see if we want some place they can come in and build these homes in this price range, so they will qualify for low to moderate income people. When you get a lot 70 to 80 foot wide and pay for the curb and gutter, water and sewer, and the street you would have too much in the lot to come up with a house in that price range. With L.D.R. there are several lots zoned that way that does not meet the lot size. He felt we need to look into it. RE: APARTMENT INSPECTION ORDINANCE Discussion the Apartment Inspection Ordinance. Rex Larson explained he had called Idaho Falls, Pocatello and Twin Falls where they have college housing and they also have full time fire inspectors. None of log them will touch the apartment inspection similar to what we have recommended. They say they don't have man power and they classify an apartment as a home and things they will check is the exit from the furnace rooms, laundry rooms. If they have students in and have complaints they go in and do an inspection. He recommended since we don't have the man power and the code states that all apartments will have smoke detectors and fire detectors, that when the business licenses go out the owners are required to sign that they have fire detectors and smoke detectors in each unit and put the liability back on the apartment owners. Joe Laird stated the additional people he talked with in Boise and Moscow as well as the ones Rex had talked to, said that they inspected apartments or homes when there was a complaint, but other than that they did not have the man power. Boise is starting to do more inspections because of the college and their size. The rest are doing the minimum that they can get by with. The mayor stated that our current ordinance requires an inspection every 2 years, so sometime soon we need to either change that or do it. Unless we have a full time fire inspector, we probably would not be able to do it. Glen recommended that we sit down with Blair and Joe and have a work meeting, and possibly have two apartment owners come to the meeting. RE: DISCUSSION OF THE SOLID WASTE - NEW FEES, RECYCLING, GARBAGE PICK-UP We have a problem coming up. In the past the way it has been set up is the city picks up the garbage and takes it out and dumps it at the county. The county increased the fee and each household is paying $100 a year and the businesses are paying a lot more for that garbage. They have had so many complaints from so many business saying that is not a fair way to do it, the county is looking at cutting the fee back to $30 or $40 enough to run the transfer station, but they would charge everyone that goes out there and dumps about $30 or $35 a ton to dump into the transfer station. That will cover their costs when they compact that garbage and haul it to Idaho Falls, and it is going to cost $28 a ton to dump it. They will have to pay the transportation down and back and what it will do is take the money away from the county and put it on us, so we will have to double our fees in the city to dump as much garbage as we have been dumping. We have been dumping about 100 ton a week. There are some things we need to look at over the next few months. It will probably not go into effect until October. There is always a lot of things in the garbage that can be re-cycled we need to encourage or mandate, mainly paper and cardboard, plastic and cans. Another thing that adds a lot is yard waste, tree limbs, grass and leaves. Everyone has just been putting that sort of thing in the dumpster. Are we willing to pay $35 a ton for those things or try to find another method to pull it out of the garbage stream? Bruce stated that we are looking at composting with the sludge. Are we going to go around twice to pick up yard waste or have them haul it to a compost pile? We can't afford to pay $35 a ton for those type of things in the solid waste. Jim suggested putting bins in neighborhoods. Another thing in the ordinance we need to put about $300 fine for anyone unauthorized dumping into a dumpster. RE: PROBLEM WITH CARS JUMPING RAILROAD TRACKS ON WEST 2ND SOUTH STOP SIGNS TO BE INSTALLED Kay Beck reported that about six weeks ago we had some people to council complaining about cars jumping the railroad tracks on West 2nd South. Joe Laird called Boise to see what the schedule was to put lights on that crossing and found it was about 1998 when the lights would be put in. They at first thought they had some funds and had thought in that funding they could bring the grade up between bridge and railroad track and take that ski jump affect out. They called back and said they did not have any funds but were expecting some. If we can go that way, that is the way we want to go. In talking to several people including the Chief of Police the next desirable thing we could do is a physical barrier such as a speed //o bump. In talking to the chairman of the Safety Committee, Mayor Boyle, Chief Siepert and Farrell Davidson, all felt that a temporary solution would be to put some portable stop signs in, as soon as possible. The city police said they would work very close to monitor that, and they would work close with the people in that area, and anyone that runs that stop sign, which they would have to do to jump that railroad track, if they could get the license number the police would check into it and see who was driving the car and they would be cited. A motion was made by Kay Beck to install stop signs at the Railroad Crossing both ways on West 2nd South. Seconded by Bruce Sutherland. All Aye A motion was made by Glen Pond and seconded by Nyle Fullmer to pay the bills. All Aye A motion was made by Bruce Sutherland adjourn, seconded by Nyle Fullmer. All Aye Mayor, Nil L. Boyle City Clerk, Rose Ba ey G~% 1