##VIDEO ID:lZy-uTlANA0## we'll call the Planning Commission meeting to order and make a motion to approve the agenda and the minutes I'll motion to approve the agenda and minutes as written is there a second I'll second it okay Brian how's your mom she doing all right is she all right the okay she you show up a little late no she was she's doing better than she did last night I was going to move her up but if she can take it we'll leave it in place okay thank you okay Dury Enterprises request to consider the Woodland fil Hills foot first edition 24 202 24- 3p Diva thank you madam chair this is a request for the consideration of the Woodland Foothills first Edition a preliminary and final plat uh which would create five new residential lots or units out of the existing outlots d and e in the Woodland Foothills common interest Community the property is owned by jury Enterprises and Smith Law Richard Fong will be representing the application as the agent today Outlaw D and E are um 2.55 acres and 10.32 Acres respectively the property is zon Resort or uh single family residence residential R1 residential planned unit developments are elicit conditional use in this Zone district and the property is non Shoreland this preliminary and final plot application is for the W first edition of Woodland Foothills uh to add the five New Lots each residential lot shows space for a 1200t house and a 30x30 parking area for zoning considerations and background the Woodland Foothills PUD was originally approved by the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1995 and was amended in 2001 to reflect a sizing of the Pud at the time of its creation developers utilized the single family residential R1 Zone district for the Pud in 2001 uh the amended cup allowed for a maximum of or 40 units on 40 acres the cup also required two parking spaces per dwelling unit and 50% open space be maintained as a part of the conditions of approval there was a period of time between 2006 and 2017 when the Pud was zoned for luten Town Center residential incentive District LR2 with the implementation of the Luts and Subara zoning plan however there were issues with sidey setback requirements and a rezone was approved in 2017 to return the Pud to the original R1 Zone District in 2022 an amendment to the plat was completed to clarify the structure setbacks to match the existing easement corridors that were created during the Pud creation and buried lot by lot on the map on this screen that's the proposed first edition which are currently outlots for the current plats you can see on page six of your packets if you're following along in there uh the original outlots d and e where those proposed units are planned to be for site conditions and considerations um the there are wetlands on the property those are shown on the preliminary plat uh Wetland avoidance is being met with the proposed sites um however it'll be a little tight uh for septic the current septic is sized and Mitch ion erson confirms that the current septic system is in compliance and has capacity to accommodate the new additional units the road's already installed and is a plotted Road the storm water infrastructure is already in place and the plat design appears to intentionally utilize existing Wetlands to direct storm water flow and the open space will be maintained with the outlots of the plot for public noticing the application was notice in the Cook County News Herald on September 20th 64 letters of notification were sent to adjacent Property Owners as well as County departments Luts and Township the norshore management board and the DNR hydrologist no written comments were received from adjon Property Owners we did receive two technical memos uh the former Cook County Recorder Dusty Nelms provided a technical memo with two minor edits and the Cook County surveyer Wayne heni provided a technical memo with adjustments to be made to the plat I believe Mr Furlong today will have um add address some of those in some revision so he'll get to those in a minute um for staff recommendations the applications or the applicants have provided several historical and documents for the pled development including the septic permit septic plan title opinion 2003 consent to plant cic declaration first edition draft first edition consent to plant etc those documents have not been provided in the public hearing documents of this packet specifically but they are available upon request given that the original cup allowed for a significantly higher density the proposed first addition appears to remain well within the guidelines for expansion of the ploted development infrastructure for Road storm water management Wetland preservation and septic utilities has either been constructed or designated to adequately support this development while the proposed lots are relatively small and may limit future flexibility for Future Property Owners as long as development adheres to the designated building areas few issues are anticipated regarding future construction or compliance staff recommendation the Planning Commission should hold the scheduled public hearing on October 16th as publicly noticed and Fa facilitate discussion among stakeholders the preliminary plat should incorporate the corrections recommended by the County Surveyor and recorder consideration should be given to tabling the approval of the preliminary and final plats until the recommended Corrections and any issues outlined by the survey are addressed that may be changed since some of those might have been addressed already and per the Cook County subdivision ordinance uh the Planning Commission may act on a preliminary plat and final plat at the same Mee meeting provided the preliminary plot has been heard and tabled at a previous meeting so that is a way of saying that they can't technically both be approved at the same meeting so you could approve the preliminary plat today table the final plat you already held the public hearing today you do the final plat at the next meeting that's one option before you for that um the only condition of approval uh that I recommended was all lot development must conform to County ordinances and applicable regulations um however that's what I have for you thank you mhm does anyone want to speak regarding the Woodland Foothills first edition uh I can start if that is easiest for everybody I've got some updated plat or surveys that I'll start with first just so that everybody can see the the changes that were made and we can walk through Wayne's letter here as well I apologize I miscounted how many people were going to be here this afternoon so I hope you don't mind sharing a coule that's the [Applause] final and attorney hicken would you like copies I I'm good with seeing it on the screen okay okay thank you thank you uh so I think it probably easiest if we just start with Wayne's comments and work through Wayne's comments because that's going to be the primary consideration I would assume I guess we'll start with Dusty since they're the easiest to address um she said the quarter quarter should be added to the plat or the survey as you can see at the top it now says outlots d and e Woodland Foothills in Southwest quarter of the Northeast quarter um Tyson and I disagree slightly with the inclusion of that just because it muddies the legal description slightly but it doesn't change the impacts of what we're doing and it's going to be recorded in the same place in the track index um namely within the Woodland Foothills plaque uh the second is that we had to add a certification for Miss hickin signature that is now added on here uh if you look towards the bottom right of this paragraph or with where all the writings at it's the third signature line up is for Miss hickin and she said they also may want to remove her name of course because she has since retired and so you'll see there's no name for the the recorder line there so we've addressed all three of Dusty's concerns and we can now discuss some of Wayne's um the the primary concern that Wayne seems to point out in a few of his notes is the drainage and Wetland issues and so if you look at um the lot with all of the topographical lines on it you can see um that we're working downhill of course and that on Lots one and two of block one which is the northern two lots in the survey there we have actually added a 30 foot easement to block one along the uh the northeasterly portion of the lot we're also going to add that to block two our surveyor just didn't have time to add that um what that does I was I went out on site yesterday to uh see it for myself and understand it and try to explain it to you more what it is is this is true for lot six to the West there owned by Andre Le hman there's a large just drain that naturally flows as Nea touched on a moment ago and so by placing that 30ft easement almost exactly along where you can see that ridge running from those Topo lines everything is going to stay below that Ridge um based on my view of the site it's a probably a 10 or 12T Ridge so we'd have to have a significant amount of flooding for it ever to impact any of the build lots um and that'll be a permanent 30ft easement that'll run along blocks one and two to avoid any drainage um or Wetland issues of course they can't build within that Wetland and you can see there there's the buildable area for both the house and the 30x30 parking area so they can have a 1,200 square foot house there and that drainage will stay to the northeast of all of the the build sites um the his second bullet Wayne's second bullet point discussing the original uh drainage and utility easement that you can can see on page three of uh Miss Maxwell's packet um is Right within that same Wetland area that's going to be matched by the drainage and utility easement that we're adding to Lots one and two to continue the natural flow of that water along the northern and northeasterly portion of those three lots um walking those lots yesterday I spoke with uh Angelie hman who is Deputy hman um and she owns that lot and has a house built on it and has a good chunk of yard behind the house that she maintains regularly mowing um once you get beyond that of course that's where the drop and the Wetland comes but there's plenty of room behind her house um to sustain that Wetland and to not be within it and the same process would occur for the two new lots that we're creating they will be very very similar in the amount of usable area and by usable I mean grass and yard area primarily is what that'll be used for um uh his third bullet point about the drip zones being within the Wetland I guess I'm not exactly sure what impact that may or may not have uh as Miss Maxwell stated Mitch ion has already approved the septic in this area so I assume that that means that that's not an issue um that needs to be addressed but if it does I'm happy to discuss with Mitch how we need to fix that in one way or the other I don't I don't think you can move that drip Zone very easily um but presumably this was established as a drip Zone knowing that this Wetland was there uh we made a lot of changes to the actual drawing of the map to simplify it slightly um where Wayne talks about some of these over strikes and some of the odd symbols that were included uh it's my understanding that a lot of those were changed or simplified to the extent that they could be in about the 48 hours that I gave my surveyor to do it um if we still need to clarify some things in Wayne's letter we're happy to do so we just didn't have a ton of time to get it done um uh he he references the ReUse of the term Outlaw a in two separate non-connected areas should be changed I understand the thought process there because we're going to have two different Outlaw A's but they're distinct outlots one is Outlaw a woodland Foothills one is Outlaw a woodland Foothills first ition they're going to have separate legal descriptions separate um descriptions and locations and so while colloquially they may be a bit confusing um when you're actually looking at this for any legal work or real estate work it'll be very clear which one is which and you can see that here where Outlaw a of the original Woodland Foothills is with within that island that you see uh within the turnaround and then the outlaw a of Woodland Foothills first edition is the big out lot behind Lots one of two one and two of block one uh those contour lines were darkened and added uh in the the heights for each one and I think those were really the larger primary considerations uh Wayne mentions a lot of drafting preferences and I I just didn't think it necessary to address a lot of those drafting preferences I think that if we need to I'm happy to do whatever the commission requests but it seemed a bit of extraneous work in the short time frame that we had to turn this around so I think that's really everything that I had um otherwise as U Miss Maxwell stated this is going to add five New Lots to the community which as we all know we in desperate need of they're not huge acreage um but they provide that 12200 squ ft² and there's already what I think there's seven houses built up there six houses built are there 10 houses already built yeah so there 10 houses already built um on all of these different lots and we just plan to add five more in almost the exact same manner on my one map it says Outlaw F and Outlaw e and on the other map it's Outlaw A and M oh so it looks like he did uh so he he must have changed it on the final and not on the uh okay he yes he changed it on one of them and not on the other I will be sure to note that do you have a pen and we'll get that changed thank you for noticing that okay thank you all right if does anyone else have something they'd like to add to this hearing on Woodland Foothills first edition come up and state your name and address Tim Kennedy um owner of one of the properties at Woodland Foothills uh this this has been a project that's been in development for for a long time and I was involved way before owning property at Woodland Foothills and thought that what was being done out there was really an important thing it was addressing the issues of affordable housing over 20 years ago that we're still confronted with today uh this development uh has has fulfilled uh its its Mission and and you know the 10 homes that are built out there are providing affordable housing for uh the residents that live there um you know this this additional five Lots uh will continue the effort to uh utilize the lands that are there and the infrastructure that's available to continue to provide uh more more affordable housing opportunities uh that we all know are necessary and needed in the county so uh with that I'm going to say as uh a property owner there for over 10 years um and as U somebody that that's concerned about uh the affordability of Housing and the opportunities that we have here I support uh this request thank you thank you anyone else wish to speak my name is Chris skildum I am a owner at Woodland Foothills and also the uh president of Woodland Foothills Association and I seconded everything Tim said he summed it up very well and I'm here to support this uh addition to the plot thank you anyone else wish to speaked for sale two or well I nothing me oh you we don't need to get into that they'll all be for sale and we're going to do the same thing we did with the first 10 is build modest entrylevel housing at market rate and the the 10 that are there are a perfect example of what we want to do in there so thank you Chris thanks CH and is anyone else wish to speak about Woodland Foothills okay we'll close the hearing to the public and bring it to the commit the board I'd like to approve it Brad yeah um I think staff recommendations were were spot on in terms of approving the preliminary and then waiting for final for the next session okay and Charlie yeah I think they've addressed the concerns uh that were stated and so i' agree both of you yep okay and I have to say I'm pretty proud of this they'll be living with the same Covenant and restrictions that are on the first 10 houses that's correct and am I correct in saying we have 10 people who live and work here living up there that's correct okay that's what we want okay is there a motion to approve this I'll make a motion to approve second I'll second any further discussion Madam chair yes is is that made with we know that there's a few Corrections that still need to be made uh so do you want to acknowledge after the correction that we discussed today get made for this ponary plot okay Brad you back up to the I'm just jumping back up to the staff recommendations he said with the staff recommendations I wasn't aware at that point when I wrote my recommendations I was just compliance with everything essentially so I just wanted to be clear that the preliminary plat that you're recommending approval for will be the version of the preliminary plat that they brought forward but still needs a couple more modifications yeah the the labeling of the Outlaws there that you noticed Madam chair and then is um I think like I said we're going to add that um that easement to lot two there as well so that's going to be a slight change um just moving the line for that back um on the northeast side of that lot but other than that I think that those should be the only two changes that we see okay so the motion is made with with the not approval for the final plat we're approving the preliminary preliminary approving the preliminary but you know saying the condition is that the approval of the final plat will be held pending staff approval of the um updates that are remaining to be completed yeah potentially a cleaner way to do it is you could table table the preliminary plot today because the the requirement for the ordinance is just that you provided the preliminary plot had been heard and tabled at a previous meeting so it might be cleaner because there's a couple of edits that you're not seeing on this version of the plat right now since the final plat can't get approved until the next meeting anyway you could just table the preliminary plat they'll give Rich some time to go back to the surveyor he didn't have a lot of turnaround time for when he got these comments like he mentioned so you could get a fully clean updated version um with with a surveyor having a little bit more time to correct those modifications and it wouldn't delay the timing of anything okay that way okay okay do you want to withdraw your motion that motion yeah and move to table it I'll move to table it and is there a second I'll second it okay don't think any other other discussion all in favor to table say I I I opposed motion carries we're all in support thank you yeah you'll get it thank you thank you commissioner okay the next [Music] request is Deborah Mark and David truart 20 24-2 RZ Nea thank you madam chair this is uh request to reson approximately 2.4 Acres from Resort commercial residential RCR to Lakeshore residential and Forest agriculture residential F3 at at 12208 Gunflint Trail the parcel is owned by Deborah Mark and David truart and Richard Fong of Smith law will be the agent representing the application the parcel the whole parcel is approximately 16.5 Acres approximately 2.4 Acres of that 16.5 is what's proposed to be rezoned the parcel is on Seagull Lake and Seagull Lake is a recreational development Lake the zoning requirements are the RCR Zone District has a 5 acre minimum lot size requirements and the Lakeshore residential F3 Zone District proposed would apply a 1 acre lot size and 150t lot withd minimum requirements the applicant applicant requests to reone a portion of seagull Outfitters property on Seagull Lake from Resort commercial residential to Lakeshore residential in F3 the zone change extends the existing residential zoning along the lake approximately 150 ft North and allows the owners to create a conforming lsrf three residential parcel through an administrative subdivision on the bottom of page 25 of your packet is the proposed area to be rezoned and eventually subdivided note this parcel a the 2.4 Acres on that site plan is not a current parcel today for background the proposed area to be rezone is primarily used for residential use for the business owners and includes a main house the red house and a garage with living space the main house and garage are currently identified in County tax records as Homestead house and residential garage the property owners inquired with the county in January 2024 to explore different subdivision options during this time it was determined that the creation of the proposed 2.4 acre parcel could not be achieved administratively due to the existing RCR Zone District requirements uh you got an aerial photo on page 26 of your packets and on that aerial photo photo B the light blue line indicates the proposed South 150 ft of the parcel on the west side of seagull Lake to be rezoned and eventually subdivided from the whole property and that's a another version on the map up ahead again I'm just trying to be very specific that it's not the whole RCR parcel to be rezoned it's just the South 150 ft on the west side of Seagull Lake so the LSR Zone district is that dark blue that you'll see in the photo on the top left um so that top that blue Lakeshore residential would shift North where it's currently pink for the first 300 ft from the lake and then everything Beyond 300 ft from the lake for the parcel remaining would be F3 with this proposal here's the countywide zoning map just to show the subject property relative to Cook County as a whole so up at the tip of the trail and then here's a little bit more of a locality zoning map so our RCR uh Zone districts are typically located where outfit are located so they are kind of zoned where those uses have been historically and currently for the Lake County land use guide plan um going through that plan to identify what it says about rezones it kind of identifies it a little bit in two locations so General land use goal has says to have an inventory of land suitable and appropriately located for the anticipated types of land uses compatible with natural resources and proximity to existing infrastructure and a protect non-compatible land uses from one another these policies include rezoning of land must consider the existing quantity of land available at the appropriate locations and at the time of for a given purpose and uh number 12 review of conditional uses and rezonings must evaluate impacts on but not limited to relationship to land use plan benefit to the overall Community adjacent land use air and water quality traffic generation Public Safety and Health area athetics and economic impact on the area the residential goal uh is to provide a range of residential options with respect to cost density of development and locations within the county and there's several different policies in there that I've included uh for your consideration um the number 35 says areas designated primarily for residential usage should be located so as to be free of any detrimental effects from commercial or industrial uses When comparing the two Zone districts um the the kind of zoning considerations here there's not a ton um this is essentially a change in the boundary between existing Zone districts uh which appears to be non problematic as the property seems to be well suited for the purposes of Lakeshore residential Zone District I included a chart in your packets uh that kind of outlined the differences that's a yucky slide I know um so the existing Resort commercial residential district the principal purpose of it is to provide for the specific commercial activity of resorts lodges and Outfitters residential uses and limited service oriented commercial uses are also allowed so as to say that that's um already allowing residential use and then the proposed Lakeshore residential district uh principal purpose is to provide for residential uses on certain first tier Lakes shore on specific lakes and rivers and um single family dwellings are permitted use in that zone district and then on page uh 31 of your packets the second half of that table essentially that's where that minimum lot area comes into um effect so the 5 acres is a minimum lot area for RCR it's a 1 acre minimum lot area for the proposed change here most significantly it's the water Frontage so the 150 ft would be the new effective lot width requirements if this zone change took effect for public noticing um the application was legally noticed in the C County news teril on September 20th 44 letters of notification were sent to adjacent Property Owners as well as County departments and the DNR hydrologist no written comments were received in Land Services uh for staff recommendation for consideration the C County zoning map reflects the County's development patterns aligned with the goals and policies of the County's land use guide plan the proposed zoning map adjustment represents a minor modification to the boundaries of existing Zone districts in the area since the current use of the rezone area is residential it will align well well with the proposed zoning change and not be problematic with surrounding land uses Additionally the remaining portion of seagull Resort will continue to be a conforming parcel with the remaining RCR Zone district and uh as a reminder so this this is different from what a lot of uh actions that the Planning Commission sees so this is a a formal request to change the zoning map so uh it's different than a conditional use where we're just changing something with that specific property this is actually a change to the zoning map which equal to a change to the zoning ordinance itself as far as when we talk about the the level of changes that we're doing here um so I included some of the information because it's been a little while since we've had a zoning map uh request here uh before this board the criteria for zone map amendments uh is starting on page 32 of the packet so I believe there's four five criteria uh so the first is is the proposed zoning consistent with the comprehensive plan or land use plan adopted by the county if existing and these are proposed staff's findings that can be amended or changed as your discussion allows um the proposed staff finding is the change from RCR to LSR F3 is consistent with existing zoning patterns in the area the second criteria has a mistake been made in the original zoning which was inconsistent with the comprehensive or land use plan which should now be corrected along with the zoning or have substantial changes occurred in the community since the adoption of the comprehensive or land use plan which should result in the plan and the zoning be amended this was not a mistake to the original zoning as the staff's finding number c uh item C does there exist a clear public need for the benefit from additional zoning of the type proposed which shall be above and beyond any benefit or convenience to the land owner staff's finding there's a community need for residential development and the zone change will allow that use item D Beyond a public need being evident is there a showing that the public interest would be best served by rezoning the property in question rather than other property in the community the shift in existing Zone District boundaries will rezone the existing homesteaded residents to Lakeshore residential and the last finding e in the case of down zoning which is the changing of a Zone district from a higher more intensive use to a lower or less intensive use does the proposed zoning allow the property owner a reasonable use of the property under the terms of this ordinance as well as serve the public interest the reone will allow the property owner to subdivide their currently homesteaded portion of their property into a separate parcel and be separated from the existing resort property thank you is anyone else from the public wish to speak on this top request I can just make a few small comments um the as it sits the Lots owned by debm Mark and David truart are two separate lots that are both zoned Resort commercial right now they have two different certificates of title one is 4.8 Acres which unfortunately is just shy of the five we needed to rezone or to separate them um and then the remainder of about 11 and a half or so is what the resort is actually on the final result here if approved would be that this 2.4 Acres would be rezoned to the LSR R far3 district and would become its own Standalone lot with its own certificate and then the remaining 14 or so Acres would get their its own certificate so we're starting with two certificates of title we will end with two certificates of title one being the Outfitters one being the residential property to make it more accurately fit with what the uses of those pieces of property are thank you anyone else wish to speak okay we'll close the public hearing talk to the board start with Mike have any questions no not really I think it's feasible to be done I don't know what do you guys think M chair I think given that it's contiguous to the same zoning classification we're proposing it makes a lot of sense okay it allows for them to remain on the property even if they sell the Outfitter which is important when you're creating these businesses anyone else have anything they wish to comment on okay everybody we need a motion I'll make a motion to approve it with the recommendations from the staff yes okay is there a second to that motion I'll second that motion any further discussion all in favor I I I opposed motion carries thank you okay thank you Commissioners you don't have to listen to me any longer you were pretty brief good job the Mary vanor and Brian VOR requests for a reone of 30 Acres 20 24-3 RZ vanor NAA thank you madam chair this is a reong request submitted by Mary van Doran and Brian van Doran uh the request is to reson approximately 30 Acres from F3 to single family residential um off of approximately 50 and 100 bandor and Lan and Schroeder uh the five Parcels comprise 31.4 s DED ACR and 3.86 Ma Acres a little discrepancy in that um the parcels are currently Zone F3 the existing F3 Zone district has a 5 acre minimum lot size requirement and the proposed single family residential R1 Zone district has a 2 acre minimum lot size requirement the applicants request to rezone um the their five conforming Parcels along the Kramer Road and Schroeder from F3 to single family residential the justification for the zone change is to create more Parcels for family members and would allow the owners to further subdivide the property into two acre parcels the subject Parcels currently AB budding F1 to the north and west and F2 to the east and south the F1 Zone district is the 20 acre minimum Zone District lot size and f 2 Zone district is the 10 acre minimum lot size the the map on the lower right corner with the yellow and the orang is showing the proposed lots to be reasoned and above that is a certificate of survey from the administrative subdivision that was completed uh previously um um the proposed area to be resed is primarily undeveloped or unimproved property uh going through the county assessor records there aren't any improvements on four of the lots and the fifth lot does have um uh development and housing residential uses an administrative subdivision as I mentioned was approved to create four of the five Parcels in 2017 a survey was completed with the subdivision that shows Wetlands on the properties and the applicant did provide in her application um how the subdivision could accommodate those Wetland locations with proposed driveways and development uh the north border of these Parcels is the old Cliffs eie railroad which historically served hack Harbor industrial area and served as a rail service to the Iron Range however is currently unused with no known future planned uses and the locality of this area hosts several active gravel pits that provide significant sources of sand and gravel for development in the county additionally there are existing legal non-conforming Parcels that have residential uses in the area again here's the County zoning map to give a a area location so here we're in the opposite corner of our triangle-shaped County so we are in the South corner of schroer um and you can see the with this map you can kind of see that F2 and F3 Zone District pattern so traditionally in Cook County zoning um we have the what we call the F Zone districts 1 2 and 3 that are 20 10 and 5 acre Zone District respectively on the inland area of the county without Shoreland um so those follow the road so if you're to put a road map over our zoning map you'd often see roads where you see those uh orange and yellow f 2 and three Zone districts and then the F1 is the the area that's not touching any roads pretty much here's the Kramer Road closeup so um you can see Dyer Lake as the little blue blob up there um just south of Kramer Road so this property these properties are just located northwest of Kramer Road and Kramer lake has Lakeshore residential so that would probably be the nearest um smaller residential lot size Parcels near this property um so Lakeshore residential is a own District traditionally that's on Lake Frontage on the Inland Lakes and so that's the dark blue there here's a map that shows kind of the you land use of this area um I didn't point out specifically the residential uses this is specifically calling out where the Gravel Pit either the active or the permitted pits have been located in this area um so again you can kind of reference uh dire's Lake there and then the subject properties are sort of highlighted yellow um and then anything that's orange is either a active gravel pit or something that's been issued a conditional use permit and hasn't yet become a gravel pit in this location for zoning considerations the property is in schroer Township which does have a sub area plan which I did include in your packets the the whole sub area schroer plan the Subara plan includes the following schroer recognizes its unique sense of place on the NorthShore and seeks to create a functional blend of residential and businesses uses while maintaining and complimenting the scenic character of the area and then specifically to this area of the schroer Town plan uh Kramer Road lists current conditions when the plan was adopted and updated um it states as the Kramer Road continues away from Highway 61 there is an area with current and historical uses including gravel pits landfills a bio remediation site a heavy industrial fly as disposal site and a former County Garage site buffered from residential areas by 40 acres owned by the state of Minnesota and and as the Kramer Road continues P road so and then the 2025 conditions um they what the desired development goals list out is uh wanting some areas for residential development they specifically called out the Minnesota Power uh properties um and I think that's uh and wanting the Kramer Road up upgraded for better travel um for the Cook County land use guide plan again I cited this in the previous reone application these are the same um kind of criteria that I could find our land use guide plan providing us some guidance how to approach these requests so the general land use goal again um is to have an inventory of land suitable for all the different uses and to protect non-compatible land uses from one another the policy is specific to rezoning number five rezoning of land must consider the existing qual quantity of land available at the appropriate locations and at the time for the given purpose and number 12 review of conditional uses and rezoning bus must evaluate impacts on but not limited to relationship to land use plan benefit to the overall Community adjacent use air and water quality traffic generation Public Safety and Health area aesthtics and economic impact on the area and the residential goal to provide a range of residential options with respect to cost and density of development and locations within the county um I think what one thing for us to discuss here is policy number 35 which states that areas designated primarily for residential usage should be located so to be free of any detrimental effects from commercial or industrial uses with relation to the local gravel pits in this area for zoning considerations um this is a relatively substantial request or change to the density of residential uses the existing F3 Zone District intends on medium density development with a 5 acre minimum lot size whereas the proposed R1 Zone District intends on a higher density development for residential use and has a 2 acre minimum uh for Lots without L Superior Water Frontage as these are the proposed R1 Zone District allows fewer permitted uses than the F3 and it's zoned uh primarily for residential use the F3 Zone District allows a wider range of uses on the land as a permitted use more suited for Rural larger acreage Parcels the proposed R1 Zone District allows for a more relaxed structure setback requirements for property lines and roads than the F3 Zone District allows again um there's a table that does kind of a comparison of the two Zone districts um so the principal purpose of the current existing F3 Zone district is to provide for permanence and seasonal areas at medium density farming and other rural activities are also allowed and the proposed per uh single family residential purpose is to provide for residential uses at a higher density generally Adent to or near developed areas major roadways and other sources of services multiple residential unit mobile home parks and limited commercial uses are also allowed on a conditional use basis in this district and then you'll notice the list of permitted uses the R1 is more specific about what types of uses are permitted by right on the property um and then the different lot size requirements there as I've already stated 5 acres and 2 Acres there's a little difference in the sidey setback the R1 that's proposed does allow a closer structure um setback from the sidey yard lines and uh a little bit of a change to the road setback so these properties um most of them are not accessed directly off of Kramer Road they're off of a private road as I understand or shared driveway um so uh yeah just that's why that's bolded there so um for public comments and Technical memos um I did receive one written comment from Bruce Martinson in support of the reone request um citing support for the suitability of the landscape for development um and the application was noticed in the the co County news hled on September 20th 14 letters of notification were sent to aduc some Property Owners as well as County department Sher Township and the DNR hydrologist um staff recommendations for consideration uh the Cook County zoning map outlines the development pattern across the county in alignment with the goals and policies of the Cook County land use guide plan and the local schroer Township sub area plan hire residential densities such as the single family residential district and the Lakeshore residential district are typically Z along the highway 61 or Northshore Corridor and the lake Shoreland areas respectively in contrast non Shoreland Inland areas of the county are intentionally zoned for lower residential density with larger minimum lot sizes 5 10 and 20 acres generally the five or 10 acre lots are found along road frontages while more distant land is zoned F1 the 20 acre minimum these Zone districts also permit more uses typical of rural Cook County which would not be permitted in the higher residential density Zone districts the single family R1 Zone district is currently confined to the highway 61 Northshore Corridor and it's not designated for Inland areas like this as such the proposed zoning change is inconsistent with the overall zoning framework of Cook County as it is today uh additionally this area hosts several active Gravel Pit operations due to the existing aggregate resources higher density residential development near gravel pits is typically incompatible in 2023 a gravel pit was proposed immediately adjacent into these properties which prompted strong opposition from local residents increasing residential density and close proximity to known aggregate pits and travel routes may cause adverse issues and create conflicting land uses given the scarcity of gravel and sand resources in Cook County gravel pits can only be situated where these materials naturally occur while there is significant demand for housing to support local families and the applicant presents this rezone as a solution to that need it's important to note that this request represents a broader change to the zoning map impacting property rights land uses and development standards with only 9% of Co County under private ownership it is understandable to consider revisiting the zoning map to address its limitations however approving a spot rezoning like this for rural area to R1 without broader consideration of existing land uses and resource needs may not fully account for long-term impacts the key issues um for the Planning Commission and Board of Commissioners to consider uh the first from From staff's perspective is an inconsistency with the County's zoning map so this rezoning would introduce a higher density residential Zone and a medium density rural area it doesn't correct a mistake in the zoning map but instead instead creates a new inconsistency if this reone is approved uh staff would like to know how the county would view other requests to rezone low density lots to higher density to provide guidance um for similar requests in the future and then uh number two Inc compatibility with with existing land uses the current land uses in this area do not support higher Den City Residential development um with regard to the current aggregate operations in this area rezoning to R1 would intensify this incompatibility allowing denser housing and structures closer to roads property lines than permitted under F3 recent public hearings regarding nearby gravel pits raised concerns from residents about truck traffic noise dust and safety these issues are likely to worsen with increased residential density the Cook County zoning map and zoning ordinance are Guided by the priorities set in the Cook County land use guide plan and local Township sub area plan the Sher sub area plan was last updated in 2016 um or the the co count uh land use guide plan rather in 2016 if the community desires higher density zoning in Inland areas a comprehensive update to the township and County Planning documents would be a more appropriate approach spot zoning R1 districts within F3 or two corridors is not a best practice from a planning perspective staff recommends exploring alternative solutions to address these concerns for uh potential alternative Solutions uh rezoning a significant request rezoning is a significant request that's equivalent to amending the County zoning ordinance staff invites discussion on lesser options that may provide relief to the applicant without such a substantial change Alternatives could include a variance to create substandard Lots or conditional use permits to allow additional dwellings both of which would allow for a more tailored approach that considers local compatibility the schroer sub area plan lays out goals for development through 2025 staff encourages the the township to explore an update to the sub area plan and for the county as a whole to review the land use guide plan and explore alternative solutions to alleviate the stress on residential development in the county thank you is there anyone from the public that wishes to speak just AE I'm not sure how I should begin to me this is being proactive for my little town West End um I'm going to read my letter I'm sure you've all read it we did I can read the letters support from the township supervisors and but like I said I'm I'm BR proactive because we need housing you know and this is selfish to me and I get it because this is for my grandkids and I have 11 um but basically it all boys down to a affordable housing I was fortunate enough to purchase this property with the sole intent to subdivide it for my children so they they'd have the ability to afford living in this area the process began with a wetland delineation and a survey Contracting equipment stalled more than half mile a road electric and Broadband finally an administrative subdivision to create five Parcels one of those Parcels is now Brian's the other sit idle as my other Sons decided to build in other areas of cook in Lake County which is great we're really fortunate I've continued to pay taxes on those four parcels and for me to justify that expense I need to do something good or make money my wish is to give one parcel each to my grandchildren so they do they have the opportunity to live work and play here some of them decide to sell and use that money to F to further their life that's fine because it's more affordable to buy a 2 acre lot than a 5 acre lot and I realize it's not in the same zoning we have 1 Point one right up above and one of those letters were from her and anyway uh when I discussed this project with our local well driller and septic designer/ installer they said this is a great opportunity here and I realized that we have a lot of gravel that we could make a gravel pit too but that's not you know that's not my desire and I know I'm rambling but so I do have letters of support from all three Township supervisors a septic designer installer the well driller um and the close neighbor who was one of the people that objected when I was sitting right here a couple of months ago actually was quite a few months ago and she supports what I'm doing and like I said I'm not doing it I'm not doing it to make money I'm going to be spending money the whole thing is the Kramer Road you know a lot of opportunity is there a lot of Minnesota Power land there's a lot of elite land too but you know we need to get people young people to be able to afford land and I understand that revisiting the 2016 trer Township and your plans are a great idea I really do but for me this is a step it's the first step that set says hey we need to look at some of this rezoning so that these kids and it doesn't always have to be kids but they have a chance so um supp I better keep rating I'm going to go off in the tangent again um like I said I believe much of the land on Kramer Road is ideal for subdivisions it's my hope that we can open the door to more projects like this one um I'm on a board that's trying to work on housing and as a nonprofit um there's a lot of opportunity right now there's a lot of dollars a lot of Grant dollars out there we need the land and then we need people that are going to want to work at it Schroeder Township has got um an opportunity for Minnesota Power for a 40 acre and they're looking at as soon as that it goes through to sub divide that property and I would like if 2 acres is approved above I would like two acres to be approved for their request you know not everybody can afford 5 10 20 you know a lot of us have been fortunate and some aren't so fortunate you know we have to get the young families we have to get those kids in those schools and I know I ran off on a tangent again I was going to try and be professional about this but it really you know I was born and raised here and this is where I want my family but not only my family my children's friends are paying $1,400 a month for an apartment and they get nowhere in life you know what we need to do is we need to look at a way to get some of that property zoned a little bit less and find a way for them to get in the door thank you I could just go on for a long time I know you a l that's why I'm thanking you now sorry um sorry so I could read the the letters from the supervisors or from them other people yeah um what do you want from me I mean what can I do to help you with this I think you have you've explained it very well if it's written I think we've we all read it and I think that for right now that will be fine we'll ask you questions if we have them okay does anyone else wish to speak I'm looking at you Brian she stated most of what I would say okay we'll close it to the public comments from the board I I feel like I read in the comments is from the I think was from you miss Maxwell that the an alternative here is for um a variance request what I was suggesting what I was suggesting is if if a rezone isn't an appropriate tool to achieve this goal of higher density there's other tools available that could be explored so potential variances to create substandard Lots again that has to have the Practical difficulty standard that would need to be met to issue a variance for the board of adjustment um if the Planning Commission would have tools to look at additional dwellings um and that that's what we have available to us right now um we talk about housing in our office all the time and I've got aspirations to have other tools available able in the future but that's at this point in time what we have that I could think of yeah we've discussed it here a couple of times and I know everybody's in support of helping out in that area it's just sort of a how are we doing this programmatically in the sense of saying it's it's it's about being consistent so that we can be fair to everybody who shows up with a request all right so we start stepping outside of the realm and going into it then we get into you know planning is starting to make things up so um okay Charlie do you have comments I don't at the moment Jeff Paul okay um I I kind of agree with Brad a little bit about the drawbacks on spot zoning does it open up more request for that rather than looking at the bigger picture as we as we look at a comp plan adjust adjustment and revision cuz I mean part of it is we we currently have five buildable Lots there and if there is a resoning that's requested across the road for Minnesota Power then it seems appropriate that that might be what we look at here is a resoning but um right now it just seems it's too far away from contiguous zoning to make that jump that leap right now just as a resoning maybe the other options are better I don't know but it seems the resoning is a little bit a step taken too far at this point I have a lot to say okay then I'll but I'll wait till you guys are that's really all I had just kind of that concern that do we create this with this we open the door and we start creating more requests like this and then it be every time you you accept it it becomes harder to not accept it the next time I think what the plan the land use plan was done in 2016 when tanite Harbor was still functioning that place has closed down they're tearing it down no one knows what's happening there I took the zoning map and I followed up the road and there's nowhere for schroer to have any housing unless Minnesota Power decides to transfer title to Au 40 and then they you know then we're at the mercy of Minnesota Power right now you said there were 93% in private ownership around schroer about I don't there's maybe 2 3% that's available to develop so unless we start looking at schroer and finding ways to to create places for people to live it's just going to shrivel out and die out there they're they've made a lot of progress but housing is part of it and there's nowhere for people in schroer to go CU every parcel is taken up and then we just heard from The Mink Cranch project or the Woodland Foothills that was a 40 in the middle of the forest had to get rezoned to R1 which it did then it developed as an open space subdivision where you put your houses around a circle common septic common well and now they're expanding by 50% I think I would like this Planning Commission maybe to look at as rer to rezone ask for more resoning and maybe get Minnesota Power involved and make some housing so that we can grow and have workers to do our jobs Mary and be proactive because that's what we should be about right I mean well the Woodland Foothills has been trying for 20 years and finally it's fully built out and part of that is Chris skildum took it the bull by the horns and actually built it but we need that iner I know know I know I'd like to see it all the way after the sugar well T has maybe got a shot at it with some of their housing but they're going to be 300,000 plus Tim yeah thank you madam chair and I I actually from the from the sense that I get from everybody I don't I don't know that anybody's opposed to uh the creation of these Lots it's the the kind of the mechanics that's behind all of this and we're representing from the kind of professional approach on this that yes um things we need to be proactive the proactive thing from from our particular standpoint is to get that plan updated and I have spoken with the Commissioners um I haven't run into resistance in terms of updating that comp plan and getting Scher to go ahead and update that so that we don't have to look just at that one particular spot but that we can look at that whole Road and do exactly what it is that you're talking about doing and so I mean it that is the approach that we are looking to take it is a matter of timing and I know you want to do things a little bit can I speak may I speak well that's up to the chair yes you may speak and Bravo my um my oldest grandchild is 12 I'm not like under the gun but you're talking about it yeah and that's what it's about I'll just make a note I know Mary's family 13 children children youngest are 13 Mary grew up in tofy every single one of her siblings are productive active people in the community of tofy and Schroeder some have retired come back but they have generated I mean this whole County or the whole West End depends on the netland family to function but Mary runs the bank you know it it's it it's we've got to look at this and remember that this is how the Pioneers did it and we've got to take this problem and solve it Tim and I I think you kind of pointed out Madam chair uh some of the important facts that whenever we do a plan whether we do the 2003 plan or update it in 2016 we make projections and that's the whole point of the plan is to project out how we would like that to develop and um we as opposed to other uh counties in the area have actually gone that step further by working with townships and sub areas to get the plan even more focused into those uh particular sub areas things may happen Tac Harbor was a kind of a different thing so you project out what you want to what you think is going to happen and obviously in every time at least since I've been here every time we've had that plan we've either surpassed our growth um statistics and everything that that requires a change so though our current plan our current comprehensive land use plan the the date for that to be updated is actually 2035 um as the commissioner can uh Sullivan can can testify that I've been speaking to the board uh this year in terms of getting that that plan updated now because we've obviously had a change in patterns we've had a change in these things so we do recognize that from from our the planning office that the the plans do need to be addressed and we do want that re-engagement from um each of the sub area plans to be able to get all of that firmly set and kind of set that course going forward and we want to do that sooner rather than later absolutely okay I'm going to ask Mary would you be okay if we table this yes okay when I calm down I can see a lot more good I mean I have lots but it's okay Madam chair yes um I mean I I I agree very much with what Brian and Mary are proposing to do here and I'm wondering is there any benefit for us as a Planning Commission to pass a motion suggesting to staff that that comp plan revision happen sooner than later so does that help the County Board I like others here managed a major projects and the sooner than later is driving me absolutely crazy I'm looking at dates and goals objectives when things are going to get done what's the plan who's going to meet with who when kind of a thing so I would say we table it for a month and then you have a chance to develop a plan and come back and we can take a look at it maybe at that time the shorter Tom board can get here there's money from shutting this plant down Millions to put into the community to make some of this happen awesome and and I think you said the complant 2016 typically it's a 10-year cycle that's why 2035 really surprises me as the next proposed revision yeah so well we've had a lot of significant changes you know the whole work from home phenomena and how that's impacted everybody well just the plant closing that was in in business in 2016 and I don't think it was anticipated it was closed now it's gone mhm there was a whole townsite there that is gone right so okay is there a motion to table this I'll make a motion to table it is there a second a second any further discussion all in favor I I opposed motion carries okay thank you and we'll move on to the Toler fund okay the vertical Bridge 2024 d8 cup Diva thank you madam chair this is a conditional use permit from vertical bridge for uh Tower in Schroeder the request is to build 195 ft self-supported lattice Tower with a 4T lightning rod for a total height of 199 ft to be located on a 100x 100t lease parcel the applicants property well I guess to back up the applicant and Tower owner and Lease owner is vertical Bridge there's a few different entities involved the agent available today to answer your questions is Michael come on you can do it Beck Beck Beck yes Beck as with that LCC Telecom Services drove all the way up from Illinois to join us today and the property owner itself is next to Caribou LLC which is Richard and Lori Evans who signed off on this application to be processed the applicant's property includes 58.61 Acres the parcels contained entirely within the F1 Zone District Towers or relay Towers specifically are listed as a conditional use in any Zone District in Cook County uh per section 10.03 of the Cook County zoning ordinance to be considered and the property is non Shoreland uh this location is outside of the NorthShore management Zone the vertical Bridge LLC is requesting to place 195t self- support lattice Tower um the parcel is privately owned as I just mentioned with a lease agreement with vertical bridge for 50 years the review of this conditional use permit will include elements from the Cook County zoning ordinance and the Cook County Tower ordinance the property is within the F1 Zone District as I mentioned the principal purpose of that zone district is to provide for Forest management agriculture uses and recreational activity in less developed areas of the county the um the proposed project is outside of an established Communications dist District which I will go into more detail in a minute for public comments we did the public noticing and this application was legally noticed in the Cook County News Herald on September 20th 19 letters of notification were sent to adjacent Property Owners as well as County departments in schroer Township staff also sent notification to the property owners in Lake County within a quarter mile notice area uh one comment was submitted by the superior Hiking Trail Association recommending consideration of a camouflage type design of the tower to mitigate visual impact and one comment was submitted by the nordstom management board to encourage observation of storm water management in the creation of the access route and consider visual impact to Highway 61 for site conditions this land is uh Upland deciduous forest there are no improvements noted on the County tax records associated with this parcel um surrounding area sparsely populated staff review of aerial imagery from 2021 indicates the nearest homesteaded Parcels are along Lake Superior which is approximately 1,700 horizontal feet from the project site and approximately 100 vertical feet below the project site there is a ridg line to the north which the superior hiking trail crosses access to the tower site will be through private easements to access Highway 61 through an existing driveway entrance immediate access from Highway 61 is through the abing private property which has an existing easement which I did enclose in the packet the existing easement does stipulate a condition of the shared driveway to be Main maintained for residential access no information has been provided uh regarding the potential presence of wetlands and whether the proposed easement meets the requirements of the Minnesota Wetland Conservation act this Tower uh will not require lighting due to the height being less than 200 ft and there will be motion censored security light within the least compound at ground level um there's a excerpt from the application for the site plan so the easement through the neighboring property is is uh the first real small section coming off the highway there and then the rest of that large parcel is all owned by the pro Property Owners with that 100 by 100t lease area and just for reference again the the West property line there that's the Cook County Lake County border so this is the the far corner of the county um here's photos from a environmental review that was conducted for eological things in the springtime so just to show the general uh deciduous character Upland Forest type of the area for Cook County Tower regulations um Towers in Cook County are regulated under its own Cook County Tower ordinance which states to limit the aesthetic impact of towers on the horizon Towers under 200 feet as measured in accordance with this uh in construction within communication districts are prioritized communication districts have been established throughout the county where Tower infrastructure exists including but not limited to electrical utility highspeed back hul and access roads this Tower is less than 200 ft in height however it is not located within a communication District as such the applicant must demonstrate the need for a new tower upon receipt of the application the Cook County Planning and Zoning administrator and radio communications analyst reviewed the application for completeness upon that review staff requested uh the following information which was a letter from a senior radio frequency engineer additional maps to show how this specific Tower would provide more service information regarding what towers might exist in Lake County that could provide service for C location depictions of the viewshed from the north and west specifically from The Spar hiking trail the decommissioning procedures an estimated cost and information why a shorter Tower wouldn't be sufficient since this is a relatively small service area there was an addendum that was provided and I believe you all did receive that um it was in the electronic version of the applications but I handed out out hard copies of the original application last month which did not have the addendum at that point in time so please confirm that you if you need that we make sure that happens um but I think everybody's got it so uh moving on um here's a ownership map for the area so we were just talking about schroer Township this is that um corner of the Cy the proposed Tower is like the little purple blob down in the corner there uh the white is all the private ownership so there is a big chunk of private ownership and schroer Township in this specific location um the yellow is State ownership which does not show up very well on this map there's a little blob in the middle of the white blob and then the green is federal ownership um so what I tried to do was put this into perspective so this is uh the this is what the single proposed Tower would increase service coverage as um so we've got a series of these types of maps and so um you'll see kind of a shaded box in there and hopefully that will get more prominent so this is to put the map you earlier saw for shorter Township into more perspective so um the service area won't be going up to Kramer Road or Dyers Lake it it stays pretty much on the lake side of that Ridge line because the way that uh physics and radio waves work uh they can't get over the ridge line so just for anybody who's wondering why that specific location so typically these towers would if they're on flat ground they would spread out in a big old Circle and so here we're focusing this Tower proposed to provide service primarily to the highway 61 Corridor um a a relatively small number of private property owners in Cook County and Lake Superior gets a lot of service coverage for the Fisher people um and so here's just a map of that topography to show that type of relief that we have up here you can kind of see that Ridge Line This is not the scale to the you just saw you can kind of see some stuff but it's not really worth it it's just very pretty um thank you I thought it was nice so here I tried to put that relief photo relatively scaled to the tower photo so again this is just really to try to visually explain and demonstrate that the this Tower is going to be pretty Limited in the service coverage location because of the proposed location and the elevation that it's proposed to be at um our radio communication analyst is here today and he has additional things he could explain to you um he did kind of a line of sight analysis just to kind of correlate like the nearest Tower in Cook County that's near this is on Kramer Road it's defunct it's not really a good option but in this map you can see that straight line on the bottom graph goes through land so obviously that won't work so that's why that Kramer Road is not a good option the top map is uh the proposed Tower and uh Jay might want to take this opportunity to elaborate some more from his analysis thank you and then I'll pick up zoning after you're done all right J members of the commission over by the microphone it's all public so we need it recorded okay I talk loud enough most of the time okay so um so as the radio communications analyst my responsibility is to is to uphold the the tower ordinance for the for the county and I work with uh with Nea do that uh so like NAA said previously the the objective of our ordinance is to balance the communications Tower uh visual impact and uh and environmental impact uh with the service that can be received from them so historically what has been done across the county is it's tried to be a maximum service for minimum infrastructure kind of concept and when she showed you that that uh that slide that had the the locations of the tower districts those were not just willy-nilly thrown on there those were done in conjunction with the state with the development of the armor system um the Statewide radio system because those were the places we could get the biggest bang for our buck for coverage and so in the writing writing of the ordinance the ordinance was written yeah there they are um one there's one also that's up in Grand Portage but since the county doesn't own that land it doesn't show up as a as a as a Communications District because we can't tell them what to do with their property nor do we want to um so where was I at okay so the ordinance was written with that in mind with the the with it in mind that the intent of construction would be to get the the greatest amount of coverage out over the with the minimum amount of infrastructure so the request that that vertical Bridge brought up is a little bit of a little bit of an odd duck because it's coming out here saying our service area is this and if you slide forward on the slides we you know the the service area that they're that they're talking about right along the highway that's what they declared was their service area and so they're not trying to do something greater than that and it it points out a maybe a bit of a a bit of an incompatibility with the with the ordinance in that um the ordinance doesn't really say that we can't do that you know like that that's not grounds for the construction of a tower um but that location is is really interesting to me because as I was doing the line of sight drawings um to figure out well what's the nearest Tower other than the tower up on Kramer Road which is owned by Elite energy which is defunct um the nearest one is located in in tofy and that one is is not a great option for this for this section of coverage either what I did discover though when I was looking across is that this is this whole chunk is privately owned land and on the ridge there are many options uh for for other properties that that would give significantly better coverage and and that of course that's not my place to say whether or not the application is good or bad that's your guys's place for saying what the purpose or you know like what's the greatest the greatest use of this and whether this fits the the surrounding land um land use and such um but it was it was it was interesting to me that the that this was very limited like it was it was a a chosen property that was limiting the potential coverage um now I totally understand utilities and and back haul and all of those sorts of things have to go into the consideration of a location having it closer to the highway means it's less expensive to get those things there so that's another thing to keep in mind um where do we want to go from there I think I can continue talking and you can chip in as you would like we don't usually tag team like this so it's yeah this is my first time doing this so I mean like I'm just to do it this way um so again going through the tower ordinance it outlines a process for us to follow and think about things um and again the kind of red language in there is giving you the discretion the board May evaluate each of these criteria on a site by site basis with varying levels of preference and determining how the purpose and intents of this ordinance are best served so when this was written it really was giving difference to understanding site specific needs for the community and uh to be thoughtful and flexible towards that so as we go through uh again we got two different ordinances we're kind of going through for this so um we're going to just go through each of these proposed findings for these so the height of the proposed Tower facility 195 ft self-supported lattice Tower so there's no guy wires this is just three three sides um uh with a 4ft lightning rod for a total height of 199 ft so there's no lit up things up top and then the value of the proposed Services as defined in the tower request policy um so the value of proposed Services Jay and I spoke a little bit more about this today I think in my original writing of the narrative I was a little bit more restrictive than what it ought to be be considered so it probably should be considered um a part of the public utility so like the third priority service so this is in from our Tower ordinance this is how we prioritize what towers should be put up so we just want to have Towers everywhere in Cook County so the first priority is Public Safety the second one is public service the third is public utilities which does include cellular and other telephone services so this is kind of checking that box local media number four commercial purposes number five because this Tower is proposed to be a site for other Tower providers to pay to use use this Tower also so there's a commercial element to this and then other private parties and individuals uh the next finding is capacity for the tower structure for additional antenna equipment to accommodate expansion or allow collocation with other providers equipment this application states that the site will be offered as a shared facility to other communication carriers that do have a need for this facility in this area uh item D proximity of the tower to residential structures and residential district boundaries the proposed tower sites approximately 555 ft from the southern parcel which is Zone single family residential the current aerial imagery indicates that existing residential development is not located within a th000 ft of the proposed Tower location uh the nature and uses on adjacent and nearby properties um oh hey Jay we go back to C can we go back to C just shortly so the capacity of the of the tower structure for additional for additional collocation in the designs that that that they' submitted they submitted it as you know future like on the ground they future future uh future collocates were identified there on the ground um largely that's probably other cellular carriers um in the regards to contributions to Public Safety um and or Public Utilities um I think it's important to point out um so T-Mobile cellular carrier great lots of people have T-Mobile um the that won't help our deputies at all um because our deputies all of their all of their their squad cars are fueled with um with first net which is AT&T driven and so until AT&T gets on that Tower um there won't be a public safety benefit as far as the actual law enforcement activity on this Tower I did talk to to uh Lindsay milky who is the head dispatcher down there at the county I you know I'm just want I just want to throw all the information at you you guys can do what you will with it um I did talk to her about it and I ran it past her and she kind of cocked her head to the side and was like well you know it's kind of a weird place for a tower but it's true would be great to have people be able to call in if they get got into an accident down there on that corner and so so with that with that in mind it is um you know it's it's kind of a mixed bag in the public safety realm um until AT&T is on it it's not going to directly support our deputies um but having more connectivity along the shore is not a bad thing so that's um that's kind of the pros and cons as far as Public Safety is concerned you know and as far as Co location is concerned that this there's a possibility that we could have T-Mobile and Verizon and AT&T all on that Tower um blanketing that part of the of Highway 61 which traditionally has been relatively weak service so that's thank you moving on item e is the nature and uses on adjacent and nearby properties so again uh all the adjacent properties either publicly owned land or private recreational land in the immediate surrounding area with private residential uses along Lake Superior this township and range local area of schroer Township includes some of the largest private undeveloped land Holdings in the West End of Cook County uh for surrounding topography um the landscape is sloped down towards Lake Superior with a typical Sawtooth ridg line to the north of the proposed site the north ridg lines at an elevation of around 1,000 ft above sea level the proposed Tower location is about 740 FT elevation at the least area site on the ground uh so the tower itself will be about that you know 9 and 30 something feet and then uh Lake superior's ordinary high water level elevation is 601 ft so just to give you some landscape it's 200ft tower on the landscape and how that's going to be perceived again that spear hiking trail is kind of along that ridgel line there and then uh surrounding tree coverage and foliage um this is probably one discrepancy the application suggested visibility would be limited due to evergreen trees but uh it should be noted a lot of this Forest type is deciduous trees with seasonal foliage um and so just kind of take that into consider consideration on site um and we didn't get site uh potential views from like the north so like what this would look like from the hiking trail we don't have any of that information um the design and sighting the Tower with with particular reference to design characteristics and location affecting or eliminating visual OB OB obtrusiveness I'm sorry everyone not one got me okay I'm sorry uh the proposed Tower site is situated on a sparsely populated area with F1 zoning however the application materials have not adequately addressed the potential visual impact in the weer hiking trail which runs along the northern ridg Line near the proposed location according to the addendum adents mature Evergreen along the tower and Trail approximately 4 miles north along the distance of the High Ridge Drive um are expected to limit visibility this assessment doesn't fully take into consideration the topographic difference between the trails ridgeel line and the tower site the HT ass SP Hiking Trail Association has required a camouflage option for the tow is designed to be considered to further minimize its visual impact I do understand our applicant today brought some photos to kind of show um his perspective of why that might not be a design that would work um for item I the proposed Ingress and egress uh including identification of property ownership of adjacent prop Parcels the access to the proposed 100 by 100 leased areas through a proposed easement with a private property owner additionally the access is proposed through an existing easement with an AB budding private property owner that easement language allows for Ingress and egress and stipulates maintenance of the shared driveway to be for residential use item J evaluation of the environmental and demographic Aesthetics and character of the surrounding landscape so the Cook County land use guide plan indicates shorter Township remains relatively undeveloped it comprises approximately 12% of the County's developable unimproved rural residential land in the NorthShore Corridor the surrounding landscape is the NorthShore quarter of lakesan Highway 61 with a hiking trail along the ridgel line the applicants have not provided clear information is a house tower be reviewed from that trail uh for the next item K adherence to the provision set forth in article one of this ordinance and a comprehensive demonstration that the proposed facility will be constructed with the best interest of Cook County in mind the proposed Tower is not located within an existing Communications District the applicant notes that the existing Towers in this area are too far away to provide adequate service to the location making cocation and feasible the nearest Tower to the South owned by American Towers is approximately 6 Acres of away or six miles away and the closest site in Cook County is about six miles Northeast both of those over six miles according to the application rural Towers typically provide service coverage within a radius of 3 to 6 miles indicating a gap in coverage between these two existing towers as a commercial Tower situated in established Communications District it remains unclear to staff whether the proposed construction aligns with the best interest of C County no written comments have been submitted either in support of or in opposition to this proposal which would have provided valuable local input to confirm the need for additional cellular coverage in this location and then uh for the Cook County um zoning ordinance findings to consider um the coounty tower ordinance requires applicants for new tower conditional use permits to demonstrate why collocation isn't feasible um that information was we already discussed um I outlined the commercial goal that's in the land use guide plan uh it states to provide commercial facilities that to meet the needs of residents and visitors this includes policy number 38 which says to promote strengthening growth of the traditional commercial service centers of schroer toofy lots and Grand maray Hing Grand Portage and policy number 41 location specific commercial uses such as radio towers must be cited on an individual basis with accompanying standards to protect adjacent land uses shter again with their Subara plan um the future desired conditions for the area along Highway 61 from T Harbor to the County Line um includes the desired 2025 conditions to include businesses existing and 2016 remain and continue to prosper and residential uses continue and growth occurs in such a manner that the scenic characteristics of the corridor are preserved which is consistent with County guide uh the second conditional use finding for the use is compatible with the existing neighborhood the proposed project area is on the Cook County Lake County border W of the parcel is Lake County with several publicly owned Parcels managed by Lake County and the DNR south of the proposed property is a parcel Zone single family residential and north and east are F1 the nearest homesteaded property is along Lake Superior approximately 1,700 ft away inv visibility of the tower appears to be limited from Highway 61 in neighboring properties due to topography uh the use will not impede normal and orderly development and Improvement in the surrounding area of uses permitted by right of the Zone District much of the land surrounding the site is undeveloped currently zoned F1 which is a 20 acre minimum lot size the use is comp with his Zone district and the location and character of the proposed use is considered to be consistent with a desirable pattern for development of the area the proposed use of this parcel is compatible with F1 Zone District the principal purpose of which is to provide for Forest management agricultural uses and recreational activity in the less developed areas of the county the value of the proposed Services as defined in the tow facilities request are we can discuss that a little bit more kind of medium priority potentially um one potential issue regarding the compatibility of the desirable pattern for development is the visual impact of the tower uh the tower ordinance was created to manage and direct the proliferation of towers in Cook County a new Tower located outside the communications district is not specifically compatible with the scenic characteristics of the NorthShore quarter of Lake Superior staff recommendations for consideration um the applica application has clarified that this Tower is to fill a gap in cellular coverage staff note there has not been much public comment in indicating that there is a current service coverage issue um the Planning Commission should consider the potential findings listed above and modify or amend or adopt as a determine appropriate after public hearing for recommendation to the County Board of Commissioners uh the following conditions could be considered number one all local state and federal regulations must be adhered to number two the driveway access complies with the Wetland Conservation act and secures necessary grade fill permits through Cook County estate Swip should the total soil disturbance exceed one acre and the the amount of the financial guarantee ass set by the ordinance is one and a half times the cost to remove the tower facility and restore the site our radio communications analyst estimated that would be about um uh about $39,000 so the financial guarantee would shall be equal to at least uh 58,500 in the form of financial guarantee approved by the county attorney and uh prior to the issuance of the land use permit documentation provided demonstrating that the pro Tower facility will conform to applicable State structural building standards and the electrical engineering standards that's what I have for you madam chair thank you so um does anyone else wish to speak briefly once person's the applicant Madam chair and one person is a member from the public if you want to organize who talks first okay let's hear from the applicant first good evening ladies and gentlemen um my name is Mike Beck I'm with a company called LCC Telecom Services we are located at 10700 West Higgins Road suet 240 in Rosemont Illinois and we are the agent on behalf of vertical bridge and T-Mobile and I'd also like to request that I have the opportunity to rebut any comments that are put forth so that sure I can clarify um for starters I wanted to touch on a few things that uh Mr duu addressed as well as the staff report uh one of the big things that was stated is the fact that we are not within a a district that allows for the cell towers you know based on the the map um that's physically impossible for us to within those those districts in order to provide the coverage that T-Mobile needs the closest in the addendum that I provided um it shows on the third page that the nearest Tower existing towers are owned are are with outside of the 10t radius and as I mentioned in the application in in a rural situation a cell tower typically covers about 3 to 6 miles and that's about it unfortunately the cell signals are at such a low level that you cannot broadcast for 20 to 50 miles that's not that's not practical so the areas that are shown on the district maps that it's not practical to locate on any of those existing Towers uh the reason this location was selected is because T-Mobile is trying to fill in a gap in coverage between the existing cell tower that T-Mobile is on in little morray and one that's up north of here of the proposed site about 6 and a half miles and so that 6 mile radius would fill in that Gap and I could prove to you well my testimony is that when I was driving up here I I stayed in Superior and I came up here this afternoon and I did some testing and I I wanted to stop by those two towers to see exactly what those Towers look like what the coverage was when I stopped at the one in little morray there's two carriers on that Tower currently uh T-mobile is definitely or pardon me there were three carriers T-Mobile is on that Tower I'm not sure who else but I'm guessing it was AT&T because I had have AT&T coverage I they're my provider and I I had a good signal there and I'm guessing the other one would be Verizon unless it's a local company the as I went up from there I stopped by our site and what I did was each time I put in new coordinates so that I made sure I knew exactly where those Towers were located um when I got to our our proposed site I put in the coordinates to get to the next Tower I couldn't get a signal I had zero bars I literally could not I knew where that other Tower was so I was able to drive to the coverage but I literally had no coverage so it's it's plainly evident that there is no coverage here addition to that the propagation maps that we provided in the packet and the addendum um show what the existing coverage for T-Mobile is and you if you look at it do you have all the propagation Maps um in the slide deck by chance not in not in the actual no not in that I kind of thought that was a lot of extra noise for it's very important though no it's if you look at your addendum the first map that we have in there shows T-Mobile's existing coverage the site is right right about here and if you want I can walk up there to show everyone if you can't see so the site is right in the middle you can see the red and the dark kind of the orange those are the areas that get good good enough coverage the yellow and the green are very poor coverage so if you look here there's really nothing you flip to the next map you can see very clearly that where my pencil is which is where it was on the last one is bright red and orange so it literally fills in that gap between those two cell sites the the two towers that I had mentioned American Tower to the South and SBA to the north and as Miss Maxwell showed this is the site by itself but that's that's that's not relevant because what happens is these cell towers they function on a grid pattern and the reason that it was selected to be along the highway is because that's where it's most needed and so back into the Wilderness can I just ask a question ma'am who's determined this need who's asked for it T-Mobile okay they it's have the citizens that live there are they complaining and wanting coverage it's not necessarily about what the citizens say they need or or whatever the the way these networks are built out um it's based on what their need to provide coverage for an area is and one of the things I was going to say as I was driving up here the other thing was this this uh site is right along Highway 61 there was a line of 10 cars going both directions at all times so there is a need not only for the res residents in the area but also that traffic that goes along the highway it's it's critical Madam shair yes as I have gone through that Corridor kazillion times on conference calls I can attest that it drops in that area I just tell people I'm going to drop for a few minutes I'll get back on when I get closer little more okay well I'm not going to be here all night so we got to Bunch it up no I'm trying to I I want to address all the the questions though um so there there was the issue that came up about the the deputies statement there is definitely a need for the coverage in the area understand that the uh five or I mean the um first net coverage for AT&T was something that he had mentioned as being important to the to the police well you can't have 5G or I mean first net come to the this area without a tower and in looking at the two sites AT&T is currently on both of those two sites without a tower here vertical Bridge has nothing to um get someone else on that Tower so what happens is once they build the Tower T-Mobile would put their equipment on it however right when it's built vertical Bridge sends out notice to all the various carriers within the industry and lets them know hey we've got 19 5 foot tall tower uh T-Mobile's at the top spot the second spot is open would you be interested because till I mean vertical Bridge they're in the industry to make money off of getting carriers to collocate on their towers so they have what's called a master lease agreement with these other carriers that basically if AT&T Verizon whomever want to go on that Tower they can and it's it's a done deal um and the other thing is it is important just to have coverage in that area even if it is T-Mobile if ATD doesn't go on it because it is a big safety issue because what happens is and I've run into this myself in a personal experience someone had an accident and what happens is when you place a call in an area where there's no coverage it will bounce to another Tower and if it does do what happens is they can no longer triangulate where that location is so what has to happen is then they have to search a huge area to find that person if they don't have exact address to give so it's it's a very significant health and safety issue um okay I think we're here to determine whether there's a need for a conditional use permit and I have a question when I get a chance yes ask the question should I ask it now yeah if this Tower was located in another area would you complish the same thing plus more what what do you mean by another higher elevations no it wouldn't necessarily accomplish the same thing no it wouldn't because what H what would happen is as you get down to the lower levels your signal would shoot out over that lower level and so it would go it wouldn't cover the highway that well it would just cover more back in the the back woods more than it would the highway okay thank you smoke my just suggest if you wanted to limit his time that would be but we we also have another member of the public that wanted to speak we should continue to right follow our procedures right I'm not hearing the public asking for this or I'm not hearing there was no comment from the neighbors um we've lived a long time without these Towers so I I fully understand that and I I I get the fact you're selling towers and you're a business and I've been here before when that's been going on so we I think the citizens of this community need to decide whether we need more Towers so understood but there are federal regulations that pretty much state that if we can provide evidence showing that there is a need uh the local jurisdictions cannot provide regulations that preclude the carriers from providing coverage okay so it's that's that's a part of the equation as well Diva you had your hand up I just wanted to go back to a procedural question Madam chair so so we had our staff analysis the applicant was able to address some of those concerns there might still be more to discuss um but typically then we would turn it open to the open public hearing portion and we do have one member in the audience I believe that would like to speak for this before you guys begin your deliberations and make any conclusions right right but I don't know if you're done yet or if you're no I've got quite a bit more but I mean I don't know if you want to hear from the public first I'll I'll hear from I just have it come up here and sit know that and would you like to yeah address are you a resident in that I so I your name and address please please uh so my name I uh Doug kamak I live at 1410 cheffer in St Paul but we own that land that sort of goes on the north and east side and who has easement that through there and so I have a lot of notes but we're getting late so I'll try to go uh quick um and just for I was there most of the day yesterday on that my property um and most of the morning and I was getting mainly two bars of Lte and I'm on T-Mobile um so and I haven't had a problem uh so that's just I just wanted to put that in the record because I saw it was in the note um so I would say that like any visual we will be impacted most by any visual um display because we're right there we don't have a structure on there we have a a timber frame it's under 160 Square ft so I think we're good um the uh uh took it from North um so any way that this Tower could be lowered and less and camouflage and lessen the visual impact we would we would um we would welcome so when I looked at the propagation maps and I know there's more of those I found it really curious and and you may have more information on than this but the other two towers areund feet essentially and 60 feet essentially and when I look at the areas they cover they cover the same the same area those are meters that's meters so if you multiply times three it's 180 okay okay so yeah so my bad um so uh and then I'm I'm really concerned about that lacking of of um photo from the superior hiking trail and if you want to talk about the trees on on the property there I can spend more time than we have talking about it but I I think Nea showed it really well what our real concern here is the the easement and we bought the land a few years ago and there's an existing uh driveway easement through our property under that property we knew it was there we welcomed it um and neas said I think the conversation went that you spoke with a lawyer and said it seemed like uh uh that that would work I have a buddy who's a lawyer he looked at the easement and this is going to sound crazy but two lawyers can look at the same document and come to different conclusions it's weird um but he said that easement is intended for residential use um and it's mentioned in the maintenance section um there but not for commercial this is clearly a commercial purpose and the reason it matters to us is that there's maintenance language in there and so the documents say once a month the van will go in there and um but if there's four carriers on there at some point in the future that's once a week and now we're maintenance includes snow plowing and now somehow we're on the hook for for this so that's why um it really really matters to us so the easement would need to be clarified yes I would and yours is that little piece at the our is just that little chunk which goes up yes and nobody's talked to us I come by there's flagging on my land nobody's picked up the phone and called me which I I don't know if they have to do it legally kind of bugs me um so and so I will conclude with this it that I think Cook County has has done this as a really thoughtful process that we're going to put our cell towers here we're going to try to minimize the impact there um and and if that doesn't work we're going to do this process and it seems like and they set you set this bar we're going to issue this conditional use permit we're going to set the bar it doesn't seem like they've hit the bar nobody's asked for it um they didn't provide some of the photos I think there was a phrase and you can check me on this but I thought it said did not proved this but showed it with the propagation Maps am I misremembering that I tried to look it up quick yeah I I'll just direct I I answered to the chair when we're in these instances so yeah so I think anyways I I I didn't do that um the uh so I think I I read that but I couldn't find it here on when I when I came through okay anyway so it doesn't seem like they hit the bars so I I don't think they can get their help all right thank you appreciate it and nea I think that language came from the radio tower Communications analysis that there was something lacking in the propagation Maps I don't remember right off the top of my head Jade you I think that was on the initial ones Nea it before we resubmitted because they were the problem with the original ones and I I talked to T-Mobile to make sure they did better they were all kind of that magenta color so they didn't show a differentiation as to what yeah what the levels of coverage were and to if if I may sure those propagation maps are the legal binding document that proves whether or not coverage is needed in that area so that's what they provided as well as a a narrative that was required in the ordinance we did provide every document and the county I have to say is one of the most thorough counties that I've ever come across and I've been doing this for 25 years there were 19 different I think there were like 19 different items that we had to provide and we did provide every one of them so I believe we've we've met the the requirements thank you I'm going to open it up to the board and if they have questions they can ask absolutely like my concern is that if there will be other people looking to build more Towers to accomplish what this could be accomplished if it was just relocated okay and Brad do you have yeah a number of things um you know the guy who was the IT guy right um I'm going to limit you too yeah probably should the um the the visibility comments about the antenna you know there's there's comments about from the NorthShore Trail but I don't think we've subjected the rest of the towers to looking at as it visible from some of our hiking trails so problematic as to whether or not that's an issue but people will enjoy having the additional coverage secondly um the tower is going to top out at about 700 ft below the Horizon so the backdrop behind the tower is the hill so you've got obscuration that occurs naturally just by it blending into the into the trees and the sticks behind it going up the hill behind the Tower not that it won't be visible it's just not going to be obtrusive in my opinion and then um there are distinct coverage gaps there that's that's a fact I mean I can look at the propagation maps and it is what it is um and that the idea that we're providing coverage you know for us goes we also have a very robust tourist industry here and uh making sure that they have coverage as they come through the areas is an enlightened self-interest as well as for that of the citizens now most of the citizens in this County figure out which one works best right like up where I'm at people use Verizon because we get something there I have an AT&T backbone I don't get anything at my house but my wife does if you look at K County there's going to be a lot of gaps that certainly is and if we're going to fill every single Gap we're going to have Towers everywhere because there are a lot of hills and mountains and a certainly certainly considered that and that's one of the things that I brought up in a previous discussion when we started talking about backup and Recovery when the when the fiber net fiber Network you know got taken up by the big yellow cable finder um so the U and suddenly all of our Emergency Services Communications was down for a day and we're listening to the radio that we don't have a a you know memorandum of understanding with to get emergency backup to nobody's examined their emergency backup procedure so there's a couple of different places where I'm concerned about coverage gaps shadows and other things but today we're dealing with this particular request this particular request is identifying a coverage G okay how about you Charlie uh I just Dove dovetail onto that I think um yes there's a lot of coverage gaps throughout Cook County I think addressing ones on Highway 61 um are legitimate to address I've got a question for Jay and I I um don't remember the name of it but the booster for the 800 system that we looked at put putting in kville to address some of the 800 gaps along the highway and I haven't used my 800 in that section of highway is there any gaps in 800 there and is that potentially in this area that we're talking along the County border no there's no armor armor 800 MHz gaps in that area largely because the the Cook County system and the Lake County system Cooperative would work so picking up from pal head off of that never never mind so so there's a tower right over the Border in Lake County that that that sends the 800 MHz signal that that doubles back over I was just down in top D trer um today uh doing uh testing of with r with different radios down in that area and I was bouncing back and forth between Lake County and County so they work really well property which is kind of what he's saying about the grid for for T-Mobile towers or any cellular towers they have to have a certain level of overlap in order to actually function okay okay and Paul I'm inclined to fill in the gaps on 61 as well I think it's a rural County it's a big County we're going to have coverage gaps as we go Inland but having that coverage along the highway I think from a safety perspective is important and it's the way we get AT&T on that Tower but as a T-Mobile user yeah I drop in that spot for sure so and Jeff I would agree as a T-Mobile that's a dead spot for me and I think i' agree with everybody the 61 Corridor is really what we should concentrate on granted you know up at panor Lake or someplace like that you know get cell phone service yeah yeah okay and yeah Madam chair just and and Commissioners just one thing to point out that that like Brad and Charlie did mention in their in their comments about this is is that that the the ordinance the ordinance comes up a little short when it's talking about filling in gaps because it was never the intention of the of the ordinance to to prevent that it was the intention of the ordinance to cover as much as possible with as little as little infrastructure as possible thus you know thus the the tower the tower uh Tower districts and things like that so so when you're saying like you know we could have we could have lots of of infill and lots of towers popping up in different places I don't know that that's necessarily true but I also but that also is you know this this opens up the possibility of of that type of language being used I was surprised the thing that surprised me the most about the application was that that that the service area was a very limited part portion of Highway 61 um when all of the other uh Tower infrastructure that we have in the county to this point is um is very broadly built and that's that's largely because it was built out when the armor system was installed so we tried to put in as sensible as as as equipment as we could to cover as much as we possibly could so thank you yes and the Planning Commission will make a recommendation to the County Board and it will be their decision on kind of where the county heads with this so I need a motion I move that we uh recommend to the County Commissioners that they approve this Tower to address a gap in coverage I second any further discussion all in favor I iOS I chair was that with the findings and conditions outlined in the staff yes yes thank you very much for your time you're welcome is there a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn good job I think they're ready tomorrow yeah first