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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Council Minutes 05.05.1981Minutes of the City Council of Laurel was Herman, at 7:00 p.m., on May 5, 1981. COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Albert Ehrlick Harold Burns Duane Behm Donald Meyers COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSENT: none INVOCATION: Invocation given by Reverend Whanger. MINUTES: Minutes of the regular meeting of April presented. CORRESPONDENCE: Letter from the City of Billings Futures Conference on Saturday, May 16, 1981. May 5, 1981 A regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Laurel, Montana, held in t~e Council chambers and called to order by Mayor Larry D. Bill Brennan Susan Carter Terry Fink Ervin Metzger 21, 1981, approved as regarding an Energy Received letters from Margaret M. Hirschfelt, Ellen Kuoera, Cathron Lockwood, and T. A. DuFresne regarding the zone changes in the Mogan Subdivision and the zone change to allow GEL Properties to construct elderly housing. CLAIMS: A copy of the "Statement of Items Released for Payment" for the April claims has been presented to the Council for review and approval. Motion by Alderman Metzger. to approve the April claims as presented, seconded by Alderwoman Carter. Carried. PUBLIC HEARING - ZONE CHANGE, BLOCKS 1 & 2, MOGAN SUBDIVISION, FROM RESI- DE--~L LI~ MUL~-~AM--~ ~L~-~ ~-~ ~E~I-~NT--~ ~OB--~ ~ (R~? The public portion of this hearing was held on April 21, ~ and tonight is for Council discussion. Mayor Herman informed the Council that there is a valid protest within 150' of the property in question, by 20% of the property owners. Since there is a valid protest on record, it will take three-fourths vote (6) of all members of the Council to pass a zone change. Alderman Ehrlick - I think we have discussed that quite a little already. Alderman Behm - I missed the last meeting, but from what I can gather from the minutes, the main objection to designating this zone change was a traffic problem. Were there any other objections? Alderman EhrlJ~k - I don't think we are going to be able to correct that either. Alderman Brennan - I think you are going to have a lot less traffic problem with that number of trailer houses (34), instead of multi-family housing (80 units), because you are going to have about 1/3 as many people living there. RESOLUTION NO. 1844 APPROVING THE ZONE DESIGNATION OF RESIDENTIAL MOBILE HOMES FOR BLOCKS ONE (1) AND TWO (2), MOGAN SUBDIVISION, LAUREL, YELLOWSTONE COUNTY, MONTANA. Motion by Alderman Meyers that Resolution No. 1844 be passed and adopted, seconded by Alderman Brennan. All members of the Council were present and all voted "yes." pago 2 Minutes of the City Council of Laurel PUBLIC HEARING - RE©UEST OF A ZONE CHANGE TO RMF BY GEL PROPERTIES, ON THE FOLLOWING PROPERTY: S½SE¼$E¼NE¼ (except C/S 155) in Sec. 8, Twp 2S~ R24E, MPM, in Yellowstone County, Montana, adjacent to the City of Laurel, located west of 8th Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets. The public portion of this hearing was held on April 21, 1981, and tonight is for Council discussion. Mr. McDonnell - GEL Properties - I have a correction to make. In my pre- sentation last week I said that we had to keep it as elderly housing for five years. We met with the Farm Home people today, and it has to be kept at rental assistance for twenty years. Alderman Meyers - I was not at the last Council meeting either, but I went up to Joliet and looked over the home they put up there. That was filled by people before it was even done, as far as renting them out. I know there are a lot of rentals in town, but most senior citizens could not afford to rent them anyway. They have to have subsidized housing and a lot of the rental units in town are not adequate for senior citizens. I ~n rentals myself and there is no way I could rent to senior citizens, be- cause they could not afford them. Alderman Metzger - I would like to ask our engineer if our utilities are adequate. Curt McKenzie - Yes, the end of our 7th Street Sanitary Sewer Line was in- stalled last year, and on that corner of 7th Street and 8th Avenue, it is about 150 feet down from one end of the property and in the westerly direc- tion it is about 200 feet from the end of the property. ~here is an 8" waterline that goes up 8th Avenue right past the property. Alderman Burns I am fully in favor of the housing development perse. I am actually against the area where it is proposed. I wonder if all avenues have been looked into in regards to having the building placed in an area more susceptible to downtown area, post office and doctor's office. We went through this thing once before. We had some protestors, but they didn't change my mind. It was the area where it was designated to be built. They did explore the possibility of looking at other areas, and as a result we have Meadowlark in an ideal place. I am sure we would have protestors anywhere this unit is built. I am thinking of two places in particular: 1) the North School site, which would be an ideal site for a structure such as this as far as our town is concerned. 2) My seoond choioe would be in the Whitfield Subdivision. It would be close to the doctor's office and post office. Alderman Ehrlick I am not opposed to it. The only thing that I am opposed to, if I am right, is that they are going Go add multiple fa~ly dwellings later. To me, that is going to create problems having kids with the elderly people. Alderman Behm - I have one question to like Albert said, the proposed housing phase is for low inoome with families. Mr. McDonnell - No. We have changed elderly, if possible. Alderman Fink - After you have built isn't enough elderly people, can you families? ask the developer. As I recall too, is for the elderly, but the second Is that correct? that and we want to try and go all the first phase and you decide there change the next phase to low income page 3Minutes of the City Council of Laurel Mr. McDonnell - I suppose it could be changed. That wouid be a legal question. Our intention right now is to build it all for the elderly in phases as the need arises. Alderman Fink - What I am getting at is that sometimes the intentions are not followed and carried out. Mayor Herman - Let me answer that for you Terry. Once you create a zone change you can not have a conditional zone change. Alderman Burns - One other thing we have to consider in this town, and there is no doubt in my mind. What used to be John Daley's trailer court, Mace owns it now, but we'll say that is an ideal location for trailer courts. Move every trailer court in town to this area. Well, this is wrong. We don't want an area like that around town. What we are going to have to do in spite of protests and things like that, we're going to have to have areas dotted around the town and not all one bunch of mul- tiple family dwellings, trailer courts, etc. We can't have them all in one area. Alderman Fink - What I am worried about is that we got landlords that have people renting from them and it's going to create a rental problem. Alderman Ehrlick - I have three rentals and I really don't think so. Alderman Meyers - Most of these people own their own homes anyway. Alderman Burns - The thing about it, whether we like it or not, we have all been faced with it one way or another. It's competition. You can't stop it. It's just like someone who wants to put up another filling station. You're going to say no~ no, there are enough filling stations in town. The rest of the people in town say we got all the filling sta- tions we need. And the building is the same way. It doesn't make any difference. Alderman Ehrlick - I don't think there is competition. That's all govern- ment financing. There is no such thing as competition in this. Alderman Meyers It's all open to whoever wants to build. He can go after government money as well as anyone else. Alderman Burns - It is competition. With other people in Laurel who are in the rental business. Alderman Ehrlick - I am sure of that. It is creating a hardship on them. Alderwoman Carter - Some of these people though that live in them now, probably would not live in a rental anyway because they would be living with their sons or daughters. Alderman Burns - I think the safety factor of being together in one building is a great thing. I think you have more security. RESOLUTION NO. 1B45 APPROVING THE ZONE DESIGNATION OF RESIDENTIAL MULTI- ~E~E~E~ (EXCEPT C/S 155) IN SEC. 8, FAMILY (RMF) FOR ~ ~ ~.~ ~ TWP 2S, R2~E, MPM, IN YELLOWSTONE COUNTY, MONTANA, ADJA- CENT TO THE CITY OF LAUREL, MONTANA. Motion by Alderman Meyers that Resolution No. 18~5 be passed and adopted, seconded by Alderwoman Carter. All aldermen present voted "yes," except Alderman Fink who voted "no." page Minutes of the City Council of Laurel DAVE GAUSLOW - FIRE CHIEF presented the contracts in the amount of $2,609.15, and Fire District No. for the year July 1, 1981, through June BO, 1982. RESOLUTION NOo 1846 APPROVING AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF LAUREL AND RURAL FIRE DISTRICT NO. 5, SAID AGREEMENT RE- LATING TO PROVIDING FIRE PROTECTION. Motion by Alderman Meyers that Resolution No. 1846 seconded by Alderman Burns. Carried. RESOLUTION NO. 1847 APPROVING AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF LAUREL AND RURAL FIRE DISTRICT NO. 7, SAID AGREEMENT RE- LATING TO PROVIDING FIRE PROTECTION. for Fire District No. 5 7 in the amount of $13,125.00 be passed and adopted, Motion by Alderman Burns that Resolution No. 1847 be passed and adopted, seconded by Alderman Metzger. Carried. There is a possibility of a third district being formed effective around July 1. This would be the White Horse area in Carbon County. JOHN SMITH - AIRPORT COMMISSION: What the Airport Commission is proposing is that we go from a commission to an Airport Authority. The main advantage is that it would give us the ability to set up a sinking fund so that any money that was left over at the end of the year we could keep. Our big problem up there, as you are well aware, is that we have very little money to operate on. Most of the maintenance has to be done at the end of the year which we can't get done at the beginning, because we have to save every dime in case we have a snowstorm. So that's why we would like the change. It functions pretty much the same, with a five-member board. Discussion. RESOLUTION NO. 1848 BEING A RESOLUTION CREATING A LAUREL MUNICIPAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY. Motion by Alderman Ehrlick that Resolution No. 1848 be passed and adopted, seconded by Alderman Meyers. Carried. MAYOR HERMAN Since Resolution No. 1848 passed, we now have to repeal our present code that created the Airport Commission. ORDINANCE NO. 691 (first reading} BEING AN ORDINANCE REPEALING TITLE 14, CHAPTER SECTIONS 14.04.010 THROUGH I4.04.070 OF THE REVISED ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF LAUREL, MONTANA. Motion by Alderman Fink that Ordinance No. 691 be passed and adopted, seconded by Alderman Ehrlick. (The second reading will be May 19th.) CURT McKENZIE - MAPPING: Reported on the Farm Home "601" mapping project and part of the agreement was that we would place our utilities on the mapping provided. We have 17 of these area maps within the city. It would cost about $2,000.00 to get the maps printed in Billings, but we could buy a printing machine for $1,555.00 and materials would bring the total up around $1,800.00 So it would be cheaper to go that page 5 Minutes of the City Council of Laurel route and we have made out a purchase order to get a Diazo Printer. But before I bring the printer in here, I would like to get a resolution from the City to say the printing will be done on a reimbursable basis and be- fore we did any printing we would have a paid receipt and we would keep a cost record for our own printing. RESOLUTION NO. 1849 SETTING FORTH CRITERIA CONCERNING USE OF DIAZO PRINTER IN THE CITY ENGINEER'S OFFICE. Motion by Alderman Ehrlick that Resolution No. 1849 be passed and adopted, seconded by Alderman Meyers. Carried. CURT McKENZIE - SPECIAL IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT: Mr. McKenzie presented a proposal that would involve about 1.7 miles of paving in the Malit, Laurmac, Mountain Vista, and Casa Linda Subdivisions. Discussion. Mr. McKenzie was directed to prepare the necessary paper work to create the Special Improvement District. Without any objection from the Council, Tom Bradley was appointed as attorney for the new SID. There are some areas within this SID and on 6th along the Morman Church that need curb and gutter before this project can be done satisfactorily. RESOLUTION NO. 1850 COUNCIL ORDER DIRECTING PROPERTY OWNERS TO INSTALL CURB Motion by Alderman Ehrlick that Resolution No. seconded by Alderman Brennan. Carried. Alderman Behm suggested that curb cocks be installed, not have to tear up a new street once it has been paved. DON MEYERS - PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMITTEE: Motion by Alderman Meyers to enter into the record, the committee minutes of Apr--~ 29, 1981, seconded by Alderman Ehrlick. Carried. MAYOR'S COMMENTS: Informed the Council and encouraged them to attend the League of Cities and Towns District ll meeting on May 14th a~ 7:00 p.m., in the Laurel City Council Chambers. Alderman Behm was granted permission to leave the state in June and July. There being no further business to come before the Council at this time, the meeting was adjourned at .m. VDonald L. Hackmann, City Clerk Approved by the Mayor and passed by the City Council of the City of Laurel, Montana, this 19th day of May, 1981. 1850 be passed and adopted, so that we do