All right, good morning. I'm going to call to order this work session in Monroe County Board
of Commissioners. It's Thursday, February 5th. We have one item on our agenda, which is Ordinance 2026-05.
Director Jelen from the Planning Office. Good morning. Oh, you're muted.
TSD, she used to be a presenter. There we go. Hi, Commissioner, sorry about that. Yes, thank you. Let
me go ahead and share my screen. Today I have before you an ordinance
that has been passed on by the Plan Commission. It's Ordinance 2026-05 and some of the main high level
points of this ordinance amendment are in the description on the agenda. But I'll go through these just
for you quickly and see if you have any questions. So also as a note, we have the
revisions page, which is helpful to kind of track over time any changes that we've made to our ordinance.
So this is a good quick place for people to check and see what's been changing. So like I mentioned
in the revisions page, there are just some scriveners errors, things that need to be corrected from
the prior ordinance to the current ordinance, such as correct labeling table numbers, things like that.
There were
some errors in the eco chapter, but we did work with the plan commission and the ordinance review committee
because we are tracking the variances and waivers that have been coming through our office. If they're
approved consistently, we like to make amendments to our ordinance to be as efficient as possible for
the public and for our office as well.
One of the changes that we're making is to help people who are in the environmental constraint overlay
to allow them to have an exception for potentially building accessory structures and or in addition
to their residence if it's on completely flat ground, but they just are not able to comply with some
of the measures such as if their lot does not have enough lake shore frontage,
or if their lot does not contain over an acre of contiguous buildable area, things like that. But this,
again, would only apply to structures that otherwise would be building on a completely flat area. So
the exception states that the total footprint of the proposed accessory structure shall not exceed 1,000
square feet and or, in the case of an addition, both total footprint of the addition to the home shall
not exceed 1,000 square feet.
and that the lot still must have at least 0.25 acres of contiguous buildable area around the single-family
residence. So this applies to lots where you have a single-family residence and someone wants to build,
for instance, an accessory garage or pole barn under 1,000 square feet. They would be able to apply
for this exception. And if it's on otherwise flat ground and they have at least 0.25 acre of contiguous
buildable,
they will no longer need a variance. We also added in here after discussions that it would not apply
though to accessory dwelling units. Since those do need their own septic in another review level, we
decided that that should still require a variance in the case that they don't meet those standards that
I mentioned earlier.
And then we realized that we did not have a definition that was helpful for footprint in measuring the
1,000 square feet. So we've proposed adding that as well and work with our legal department to do so.
And then based on some state code changes, we have had to amend our software for permitting and separate
out from the building department what used to be an integrated process. We're working with the public
to do so, but some of these changes have to be reflected in the code as well. So we're making sure that
people understand that there's a pre-design prerequisite for getting a permit application. And we've
been working with people to make sure they have a complete application so that we do not have to send
them a notice of an incomplete application. So we're trying to make things easier on the public based
on the state code changes that have impacted them.
And then the next change is on the wireless communication facility. If there are small changes within
a fenced area of a wireless communication facility that already exists, we're no longer requiring that
they do a full site plan. And then a Scrivener's error change here to match the state code and also
Scrivener's error to add the word not. This is an error from the transition from the old code to the new code.
And with that, that's all that I have. I do have some examples of the eco accessory structure. If anyone
would like to see how that might apply in real time. I have some that, you know, we'll show that the
exception would apply and then others where if applied, it still would require a variance. And I'm happy
to talk through that. If you have any questions. Thank you so much. Comments or questions, commissioner?
I just had a question on the ILP pre-design requirement. Is that a requirement of state law now that
they have this pre-design? If I understand you correctly? That's a great question. So that is not a
requirement. The requirement is that we have to make sure they have a complete application by the time
they apply to us.
So the pre-design sets out the checklist for what they need to apply. People used to rely on us to,
they would apply and then we would tell them, hey, you need a driver permit, septic permit, and then
some other authorization. Now we have three days and we have to deny their application if they don't
get that before they even apply for the permit. So before they apply for the permit, we're using the
pre-design to give them a notice of what they need to be able to efficiently
apply for the permit and not get that initial denial or incomplete letter. It's been very challenging
and I really wish that we could go back to the way it was before. People have all told us that, but
the state code basically required us to separate it out and do it this way. We're working with the best
that we can. Excellent. Thank you so much for that explanation.
It has made life much more difficult. So I appreciate all of the work being done. We continue to edit
and clean up a very large and technical document. So thank you for that. I believe we have the sliding
scale. Well, we continued it to next week. So could we also do this next week as well? Would that work for you?
Okay. All right. Let's go ahead and put this on the agenda for next week. And, and then we can we can
hear it here at the regular session. Okay. Good. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anything else? Alright,
great. With that we are adjourned. Thank you, Katz. Thank you, TSD.