South West Illinois News

City of Waterloo Planning Commission met Feb. 13.

Here is the agenda as provided by the Commission:

The meeting was called to order by Chairman Nathan Rau at 7:30 PM

Roll call was taken: Present: Gardner, Hicks, Vogt, Lutz, Childers and Rau.

Chairman Rau asked if there were any additions or corrections to the minutes of the January 9, 2017 meeting. Rau stated that under Petition Z-17-01-02 the motion should be changed to read The Planning Commission also recommends adding the term “Gym/Training/Fitness Center” as a permitted use in a B-3, Central Business District. Also, under Discussion on Comprehensive Plan with Todd Streiler, there were a couple grammatical errors. Example.”try” versus “tie” and “compose” instead of “composed”. In addition, under Z-17-01-03 Carol Vogt’s name is spelled wrong. A motion was made by Hicks and seconded by Lutz to approve the minutes of the January 9, 2017 meeting as amended.

Motion carried.

The Chairman asked if there were any citizens to address the Planning Commission. There were none.

The Chairman also asked if there were any corrections or deletions to the agenda. There were none.

OLD BUSINESS:

The Chairman asked if there was any old business. There was none.

NEW BUSINESS:

The Chairman asked if there was any new business. There was none.

PETITIONS:

Z-17-02-01 Review and Comment on Ruth B. Toal Subdivision, Preliminary Plat.

No one was present to speak on behalf of the petition; hence, the Zoning Administrator spoke on behalf of the petition. The Zoning Administrator stated that the property was previously divided and a lot was sold off for the development of the Dollar General Store. The property owners are in the process of selling the property but would like to split off one lot (Lot 1) which would be composed of approximately one (1) acre and which would have frontage on North Market Street. Lot 2 would be composed of approximately 2.9 acres that would stub out to Evansville Avenue. Lot 2 is zoned B2 (commercial) with only the driveway stub being zoned R2 (residential). There will be no zoning change to the property at this time. There are no improvement, street or utility changes.

Motion was made by Gardner and seconded by Childers to recommend approval on the Ruth B.

Toal Subdivision, Preliminary Plat.

Members voted as follows: YES – Gardner, Hicks, Vogt, Lutz, Childers and Rau.

Motion carried.

Discussion on Comprehensive Plan with Todd Streiler of Streiler Planning

Todd Streiler was present to provide an update on the Comprehensive Plan. It was mentioned that perhaps, we need to deliberately review Chapters One and Two and walk through the process. Mr. Streiler stated he already had a new revision for Chapter One and Chapter Two. There are really no fundamental changes in Chapter 1. As a general statement, there appears to be two conflicting areas concerning the Comprehensive Plan, one is annexation and the other is economic development. The majority of people do not want Waterloo to grow, yet this is a 10 year Comprehensive Plan which should include growth. Also, a lot of people want more restaurants, box stores, etc…while a comparable number of people want to maintain a bedroom community. Mr. Streiler thought we needed to raise awareness of these issues, help people understand the concepts of annexation and economic development and how the city and the community benefit from them. Annexation will allow the city to have zoning control. Mr. Streiler mentioned that our transportation plan needed to be more realistic. For example the length of time it took for the expansion of Illinois Route 3 as an example. He also requested future plans from the school district, the police department, the fire department and the parks department. It was pointed out that only 4% of our property tax goes to the City of Waterloo. The major taxing portion goes to the Waterloo School District. The City also receives 25% of sales tax. It is therefore clear that economic development is beneficial for the city. The Zoning Administrator was then asked, if the city had more revenue what would be done with it? The Zoning Administrator stated that the biggest debt they have is pensions. The second biggest cost is with water service; there is the possibility of having to partner with another city and/or district to build an expanded treatment facility. Mr. Streiler stated that is why we need to have economic development pay for itself. It was also noted that the property tax structure is missing for Columbia and Red Bud. Mr. Streiler stated he was having difficulties getting this information. Mr. Streiler mentioned that the currently housing trend is to downsize your home and move into a denser area. Therefore, we might include in the plan, more senior housing, villas, first time homeowners, etc…Mr. Streiler revised Chapter Two and removed all the survey comments. All the survey comments have been moved to Appendix A. He then took all the comments and compiled them into six major themes: 

1 - Neighborhood Stability, 

2 - Public Service and Infrastructure, 

3 - Quality of Life, 

4 - Economic Development, 

5 - Future Land Use and 

6 - Vision For The Future. In Chapter Three we will have a goal and objective for each of these six themes. Mr. Lutz pointed out that the majority of the survey respondents were over 65 years of age. There was a short

discussion on Parks with regard to the distance between parks, lack of a swimming pool, the fact the Park District does not want to maintain any addition land etc.There was also a short discussion regarding City funding or outside funding to encourage downtown business growth. The availability of PUD’s (Planned Unit Development) or city overlay districts might offer assistance in picking and choosing how we would like to implement economic development.

Motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:35 PM was made by Gardner and seconded by Hicks.

Motion carried.

Minutes respectfully submitted by Mechelle Childers.