PLAINFIELD BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS January 21, 2013 7:00 p.m. CALL TO ORDER Mr. Monnett: I will now call to order the Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals for January 21, 2013. ROLL CALL/DETERMINE OF QUORUM Mr. Monnett: I will now ask our board secretary to have a roll call for determination of a quorum. Mr. Carlucci: Mr. Brouillard- here Ms. Duffer- here Mr. Cavanaugh- here Mr. Gibbs- here Mr. Monnett- here Five members present, none absent, we have quorum for the purpose of conducting business. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mr. Monnett: Would you all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF MINUTES (December 17, 2012 meeting) Mr. Monnett: I will now entertain a motion from our board members for corrections and or approval for our board meeting minutes from December 17, 2012. Ms. Duffer: for approval. If no one had any changes I will be glad to make a motion Mr. Gibbs: Second. Mr. Monnett: I have a motion and a second by Mr. Gibbs. say aye. All in favor ELECTIONS FOR 2013 OFFICES Mr. Monnett: Now we will hold our election for the 2013 offices. Mr. Gibbs: How about I just make a motion that we keep the election of officers as is for 2013 with Greg as President and Kathy as Vice President. Mr. Cavanaugh: Second. Mr. Monnett: Motion and a second to keep the same officers for 2013 as previous year, all in favor say aye. Thank you. OATH OF TESTIMONY Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 1-21-13 1
Mr. Daniel conducted the oath of testimony. PUBLIC HEARINGS Mr. Monnett reviewed guidelines for public hearings. PETITIONS FOR PUBLIC HEARING Mr. Monnett: Tonight the first petition, BZA-13-001. Ms. Sprague: This petition is for El Cerrito Mexican Bar and Grill. They are requesting special exception to allow serving of alcohol in a restaurant with a bar. To give you the location, it is at the Main Street crossing, which is the northwest corner of Perry Road and Main Street. This is the center here and the restaurant itself will be basically in the center of the strip mall, and just as a reference Joe s Grill is on the south end of that location. It is zoned general commercial and is surrounded by general commercial. Applebee s is just across Main Street from there. The petitioner has stated given on the floor plan there, the area of the bar, which is going to be just a little under the 15% of the total tenant space. In their findings they also stated they have another similar restaurant in Columbus, which sells about 20% of its sales as alcohol and they anticipate it to be the same in this location. Then just to go back, Applebee s is right here on the corner. Mr. Monnett: What is on the other side of that Jill? Ms. Sprague: Chiropractor and I think there may be a tenant space map in your stuff that will show you that. That is the just of what I have for me, I can answer those and I know the petitioner is here as well. Ms. Duffer: I just have one quick question, not pertaining to the alcohol, but the parking for that with Joe s and this restaurant as well, is there sufficient enough parking there? Ms. Sprague: I did not go through and check it versus having two restaurants. It would have been designed probably as retail for the whole center. Ms. Duffer: Thank you. Mr. Monnett: Is the petitioner here tonight or a representative of? Mr. Genrich: Good evening, Greg Genrich with Bradford and Riley, 445 North Pennsylvania Street, Indianapolis, Indiana. With the prepare of the exception El Cerrito Restaurant, as Jill mentioned this is their second restaurant, Mr. Salgado also owns a restaurant in Columbus, Indiana, which has been in operation for (inaudible) years with no violations. Similar size concept and menu. Predominately food and serves alcohol and the petitioners are here if you have any questions for them and they will be open probably in mid-february. Their hearing for the liquor license is February 5 th. Mr. Gibbs: Can you give us some idea of the hours of operation and is Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 1-21-13 2
there a specific bar area? MR. Genrich: Yes, hours would be 11-(inaudible). There is a separate bar area, as you go in they have kind of 2 bays and a back strip center and the very front of the northern part of their space, the north eastern part is where the bar is, which is enclosed. Mr. Monnett: And your client I assume is aware if this is approved it is non-transferable? Mr. Genrich: Correct. Mr. Brouillard: Is there a limit to the number of liquor licenses. Mr. Genrich: It is a quota, basically it ties to the Federal Census, so in the 2010 Census, I think there was over 20,000 in population, and I believe they are still on quota, which is 6 to 10, which is beer/wine/liquor license available to be issued by the State for (inaudible). Mr. Brouillard: Thank you. I have no further questions. Mr. Monnett: Thank you. If there is anyone in the audience that would like to speak for or against this petition please come forward at this time. Seeing none, I will go ahead and close this to the public and open it up to the board for any further discussion or a possible motion. I don t have any trouble with this. Ms. Duffer: I don t either; I would just add a second subject to approval of the liquor license. If there is no further discussion, I am prepared to make a motion. I move that the Board of Zoning Appeals approve BZA-13-001 as filed by El Cerrito Mexican Restaurant, LLC requesting a special exception to allow the serving of alcohol at El Cerrito at 140 North Perry Road subject to the following conditions. 1. Approval is only for El Cerrito and is non-transferable to a subsequent business owner operator at the same location and subject to the approval of an Indiana Liquor License. Mr. Cavanaugh: Second. Mr. Monnett: I have a motion by Ms. Duffer and a second by Mr. Cavanaugh. Mr. Carlucci would you please poll the board. Mr. Carlucci: Mr. Brouillard- yes Ms. Duffer- yes Mr. Cavanaugh- yes Mr. Gibbs- yes Mr. Monnett- yes Five ayes, none opposed, motion is approved. Mr. Monnett: Our next petition tonight is BZA-13-002. Mr. James: This is a petition for a use variance to allow an indoor recreation in the I-1 district. Currently the I-1 does not allow indoor recreation. This is the only property in Plainfield that is zoned I-1. When the ordinance was amended in 2006 to allow indoor recreation in the I-2 by special exception for some reason this was left out or over Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 1-21-13 3
looked. This is the Damon Jones property at the corner of Reeves and Quaker Boulevard, the northeast corner. They are going to share this building. It is a 20,000 square foot building, so they will take half of it, 10,000 square feet. Then the other half is an existing legal nonconforming indoor recreation use, used by Legends Cheer Academy. So it is the I-1 zoning and then the comp plan does recommend mixed use, office commercial which is where I-1 and I-2, and C-I zoning will go for some flex office type buildings. Main standard for concern of a request like this, is parking. When they share a building, is there enough shared parking for integrated centers for all of the uses and are there any conflicts with any of the other existing uses? Photo of the building, you ve got a lot of parking right here, here is an aerial view showing all of the parking. This is ABC Distributor, this is just a warehouse building so there is no parking that is used for this building and then Legends Cheer Academy is over here. So here is all of the available parking around the building. Ordinance requires 40 parking spaces based on 10,000 square feet, the building only has 29 spaces, but when you look at all of the shared parking and plus they can add 8 more here, 18 down here, and 29 here. They currently share 81 spaces and they can get up to over 90 spaces. So for 10,000 square foot building, 40 spaces is required for indoor recreation, the building has 29, but additional parking can be added in and they can use the shared parking also. With the shared parking they can get up to over 90 spaces. Sessions would be by appointment with group classes, about 8-10 people per session, so it is not like you can get 20 people there at 1 time. So is it compatible with the existing uses in the integrated center? Are the hours going to cause conflicts with the other businesses in the center? Their proposed hours are 10- maybe 8:00 P.M. at night during the week. But the cheer academy, I talked to them, their hours are only 6-8 P.M. during the evenings during the week and maybe 9-1 on Saturdays. So they are not going to have many conflicts and plus she said that most of her customers are dropped off by their parents. She doesn t have a big need for parking. So when we look at a hardship for this, for some reason indoor recreation was not included in the I-1 district and this is the only property in Plainfield that is zoned I-1 with flex office type buildings that supports multiple uses. In staff s opinion this use variance is very much like a special exception and that it gets brought before the board and the board has an opportunity to review the request for compatibly and compliance. I want to make one correction in the findings that were handed out; it was the findings for special exception. I probably gave him the wrong form, but I gave Jim the use findings so he is going to fill that out and get that back to me. But we can adopt it at the next meeting if you see fit to approve this use variance. So with that, I will be quiet and have a seat and Jim is here to answer any questions he might have. Mr. Brouillard: Joe I have one question when it says it requires a certain number of parking places, do those have to be actually painted in there or does it have to be official Mr. James: Yes, they should be painted in, and so if more parking is needed, all they would have to do is strike the parking lot to add the parking spaces. Mr. Carlucci: I have something else Joe, so we are talking about the Plainfield Cross Training correct? Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 1-21-13 4
Mr. James: Yes. Mr. Carlucci: The cheer academy has already been there for quite a while, so they were not there legally to begin with? Mr. James: Right. Mr. Carlucci: My point is these are just different uses in there in that building that are not consistent with the ordinance necessarily. So we have done the trailer repair, it is pretty substantial and it is an outside use that also had to get approval. It doesn t matter to me on this; I m not trying to say this is good or bad. I m just saying we are getting a lot of different uses in a building in an area that was never intended for those uses, and we keep pecking away at this thing with different proposed uses in there, so at some point someone will come in there with another thing that will have to go through a variance or a use ordinance. The question is for the board, do they keep doing this, or do they want to look at the zoning out there as a whole? Mr. James: Yes. Mr. Carlucci: Which this board cannot do that. Mr. James: That is an option, to amend the zoning ordinance. Mr. Beebe: Jim Beebe, 1058 Sheffield Drive, Avon, Indiana 46123. I will be the owner of the business that we operate in the ABC Distributor s building. Only one thing I want to point out, Joe said the hours, we start at 10 A.M., they will start 6, so we will offer some early morning fitness classes. Ms. Duffer: You said these are by appointment only so it is not like an open gym type facility, is that correct? Mr. Beebe: 90% of the time it will be a class where the coach would walk all of the athletes through the workout, there might be a couple hours on Saturday or Sunday where there will be an open gym time where a coach will be there and they can come in and perform a workout that was designed earlier in the week, but only for a couple of hours. 90% of the time each class is designed and the coach walks all the athletes through the workout. Mr. Cavanaugh: Could you give me your full hours again? Mr. Beebe: During the week, we will open at 6 A.M. and the last class will end around 8. It won t be every hour on the hour however. Mr. Cavanaugh: 6 A.M. to 8 P.M. Mr. Beebe: And on the weekends I m not quite sure yet, maybe 9 to noon on Saturday and 9 to noon on Sunday. Mr. Gibbs: Can you give me some idea of exactly this facility is going to be used inside? Is this equipment or, kind of give me some idea of what is happening inside. Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 1-21-13 5
Mr. Beebe: Sure. This space is almost completely open, cross fit gyms are completely different than a typical LA Fitness or Bally s type gym. We don t have mirror, TV s, and stair masters. It is more like a boot camp, but a little bit nicer than that, so there is dumb bells, barbells, kettle bells, pull up bars, and ropes to climb up. It is very basic; we don t use machines other than rowing machines. The definition is kind of a constantly varied functional movements but at a high intensity, so the coach puts together a workout and a class comes in and I walk them through all of it and they do the workout within the facility and then they go home about an hour later. Mr. Cavanaugh: What is your typical class size that you anticipate? Mr. Beebe: I don t think it will be more than 12 or 14, but maybe in the beginning it will be 6-8. Once you get over 10 or 12 athletes you will need another coach because it is hard to manage and instruct. (inaudible) Mr. Monnett: How long have you been doing this? Mr. Beebe: I ve been doing the workouts myself for about 2 years and I ve had a lot of success, used to be much heavier. In terms of training folks, I do more on a one or one basis, or four on one, or five on one, either at my place in the garage, where a lot of gyms start out at, or at parks, or people s houses in their basement and things like that. Mr. Monnett: Anyone here in attendance that would like to speak for or against this petition please come forward. Seeing none I will open it up to our board for further discussion or possible motion. Mr. Cavanaugh: I don t particularly have any issues with the request other than we are in I-2 which is different than I-1, typically I-1 would be more intensive use than I-2. Joe can you give us a feel for why that area is I-1 and it is not I-2, it isn t particularly specific to the petition, but it might give us some background. Mr. James: I think a lot of this property was I-1 years ago and I don t know the exact history but I think a lot of it got rezoned to I-2 when Dickenson deal came in, that was in 2005, and so I am not sure how long this property has been zoned I-1, but that is the only I-1 zoning we have in Plainfield. Mr. Cavanaugh: Then the really use I am familiar with out there is ABC and if that came in today would it become I-1 use? Mr. James: It says flex space, are they wholesale, how would you categorize it? Mr. Monnett: Wholesale. Mr. James: It should be zoned I-2 for wholesale. So that is a legal non-conforming use also. Ms. Duffer: So it seems to me that area probably needs to be rezoned. Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 1-21-13 6
Mr. Carlucci: Part of the confusion is that we annexed Mr. Jones property into the Town of Plainfield years ago when we were doing a lot of annexations. So when you do that you don t punish the person to be annexed, most of that was just the businesses that he ran out of there and then things continued out of there. It might make sense to look at a zoning that would work for several of these items, which is not to mean to hold up what they want to do, but we should take a look at that. Mr. James: Here is what I think probably happened, years ago the I-1 zoning probably allowed this and then the I-1 zoning was just never changed, but as our ordinance changed and the permitted uses in the I-1 changed. Mr. Cavanaugh: I think it would be looking at the Town to maybe a request to rezone that area to I-2, certainly separate from our proceeding. And then you point out in your notes that we still have the same opportunity to review this request whether it would have been a special exception, I-2, or an actual zoning variance for I-1, we still have the same principals and same vehicle except this use and not just a special exception. I don t particularly have any problem at all with the use request. Mr. Carlucci: Maybe at the end of the voting you can direct the staff to take your concerns on that zoning to the Plan Commission. Mr. Cavanaugh: Did anyone else have any questions or concerns? I would move that the Board of Zoning Appeals approve BZA-13-002 as filed by Plainfield Cross Training LLC requesting a use variance to allow a cross training fitness gym as indoor recreation in the I-1 district at 2198 Reeves Road, subject to the following condition: approval is only for Plainfield Cross Training, LLC and is non-transferable to subsequent owners or proprietors. Mr. Gibbs: Second. Mr. Monnett: I have a motion by Mr. Cavanaugh and a second by Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Carlucci would you please poll the board? Mr. Carlucci: Mr. Brouillard- yes Ms. Duffer- yes Mr. Cavanaugh- yes Mr. Gibbs- yes Mr. Monnett- yes Five ayes, none opposed, the motion is approved. Mr. Cavanaugh: I guess as a follow up I would request the planning staff to examine the opportunity to change that to I-2 and perhaps to make a recommendation to the Plan Commission and Council. Mr. James: Ok, we can certainly do that. That is all that we have tonight. Ms. Duffer: Motion to adjourn. Mr. Gibbs: Second. ADJOURNMENT Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals 1-21-13 7