Kankakee County Board, IL Planning, Zoning & Agriculture Committee Meetings, 21 Dec 2022

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From YouTube: Planning, Zoning & Agriculture Committee Meeting 12/21/2022

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Planning, Zoning & Agriculture Committee Meeting 12/21/2022 9:00am

A

For December 21st, uh could we get a roll call? Please Kelly number two. There you go you're on.

B

Mr featherly yeah Mr Miller Miss, Weber, Mr, Fairfield, Mr long Mr, Swanson, Mr, eckoff, Miss, Foster, Miss, Andrade, Mr, Ashcraft, Mr, Scanlon, Miss Turner, president Mr Wheeler Mr, Alexander Hildebrand. We have a quorum. Thank.

A

You no, we have no public comment that I'm aware of no one everybody back. There is with us, so we don't have any okay I'd like to get a motion to approve the minutes from November 16th that we received on your email from Kelly, get a motion from back off uh Ashcraft. Second, all in favor say aye! Okay! Next up we got the building report Dell's here to give us the building report. I, don't think we need to move on that. Do we need any motion to approve the building report?

A

Okay, Mr, Swanson and Mr long second, we'll go with it and then we'll have a vote afterwards.

C

Good morning, everyone uh you should have in your pack at the uh November 2022 uh Building Division report. uh For the month of November, we had two homes. uh We issued a total of 71 permits uh with valuation of 2.8 million, and we brought in revenue of thirty thousand forty six dollars.

C

A

Questions on that, don't anyone have any questions on the building report.

A

Okay, we have a motion in a second. No, we get all in favor, say: aye aye opposed same sign. Okay, thank you.

A

Okay, Joe, we have a Magruder Associates plumbing inspection, employment agreement that you have to go for today. Yes,.

C

For the last uh several years, well, I'll.

A

Get emotional to approve in a second Mr Wheeler.

A

Mr Fairfield, okay,.

C

Go ahead, anyone doing plumbing inspections has to be a licensed plumber and for the last several years, uh Mike Magruder and Associates has been well. It was Mike. Magruder uh has been our plumbing inspector uh through contract.

C

uh Mr Magruder is getting ready to retire in the next few years and has changed the name to Magruder and Associates and his uh partnering with Rick Lewis, who is one of his employees to uh take up the helm for him after he retires, so the agreement should be in your packet there. Most of the changes are not very substantive. It's date changes and adding Mr Lewis onto the list of people who can do the inspections. We are adjusting the compensation a little bit. If you look at item number four.

C

Currently they receive a 300 a month or excuse me, a 250 a month, stipend and sixty dollars for every inspection that they uh that they perform we're, leaving the sixty dollars per inspection, the same but uh increasing their uh their monthly per diem to three hundred dollars. uh The liability insurance for Mike Magruder is uh paid by us, and uh Mike will pay for Rick Lewis's uh liability insurance. For now, those are the substantive changes to the contract.

A

Okay, any questions on that: okay, Mr Wheeler, just.

D

Curious on how um verification of license uh plays into this is that something that's renewed on a yearly basis for a plumber, or once they have a license. They have one.

C

um You know I'm not 100 sure on that, but we do require them to show us their lives. Okay,.

D

That's all I was concerned with.

C

I, don't know how often it gets renewed if ever but I don't think.

D

It is we wouldn't want somebody, a sub of a sub if you will, or this gentleman to bring someone in that's unlicensed. No, they.

A

Are licensed? Okay, so in dell it has to be these just these two people right? Yes, okay, oh.

E

Yeah number 12., I think he's he has me: was there any kind of process to open it up to the public, I mean as far as finding a new person to take over from Mr mcgrucker.

C

uh Not this time um last, uh the last contract we did open it up and Magruder was the only one who applied for it.

A

A

Miss Foster is that all you had.

E

A

Okay, thank you.

A

Okay, no more questions we'll get a roll call vote on this spending money. Mr.

B

Featherly, yes,.

A

B

Weber aye Mr Fairfield aye Mr long aye, Mr, Swanson, Mr, eckoff, Miss, Foster, Miss, Andrade, Mr, Ashcraft, aye, Mr, Scanlon, aye, Ms, Turner, aye, Mr Wheeler motion carries.

A

Okay, next up, we have quite a few new members here and we have quite a few old old members, so we're gonna, uh Del's gonna, give a little uh like an introduction to this and you're not going to get it all in one day. Obviously, you're not going to learn everything today and obviously you're not going to get all your questions answered. So if you have a question, we'll answer them but Dell's going to give us a little PowerPoint here, and so you can see what kind of goes on in pza here. Yes,.

C

I've determined it takes at least four days to become an expert at all of this, so we'll be doing this for at least four days. First of all, I bet I know I've been presenting, but I'm Delbert skimmerhorn I am the director of both the planning and GIS departments, uh and today, I'm going to give you a little introduction, just a departmental over review. I have it divided into four parts.

C

So today, you're going to get part A and I'm gonna try to do this each month at pza, so Part B will be a crash course in zoning. When we get to part C is going to be more specific about our ordinance and our process and Part D we'll be talking about the County's comprehensive plan.

C

So we should be wrapping that up about March, I, guess or so so make sure you attend it's going to be a lot of good information. uh Kelly. The planning department is divided into four divisions. I head up the planning division of it. um We have Steve Marion who handles our Building Division uh Steve. So you can put a face to a name yeah there you go. Have them all come up here? This is Steve Marion he's our head building inspector and uh no you're fine right there, that's fine! You have.

A

Any I don't think anybody, let's see if they have any questions. We.

C

Have when we get to the question part they're going to hang around, we have a transportation division, Ben Wilson and you probably already seen him heard him talk. Has he heads up the transportation division and we do not have a person in our Solid Waste division? Yet we do have a uh a job description out there looking for candidates. So if you know anybody who might be qualified, please send them my way.

C

It's been posted for about two months now and we still have no candidates so um getting into the more specifics under planning planning um under planning. We have zoning, which is uh zoning board hearings, Farmstead exemptions. I know you should have used a bigger font there for you guys, yeah I can't read.

A

Any rule-based.

C

Service providers. uh We also do the subdivision process, plattack compliance, plat reviews. We do comprehensive planning, plan, maintenance, land use, planning, environmental planning and various specialty plans like Greenways and trails plans and solid waste plans and various other plans.

C

We also administer the County's floodplain program, doing a base, flood elevation determinations and making sure that the county stays compliant with the national flood insurance program, which reduces the flood insurance rates for our citizens. We also do historic preservation, um which is site analysis, selection and uh Process Management and Miss Michelle Sadler. She heads that up for me, she's we're kind of in transition right now.

C

She was our office manager and has moved into a planning role, doing Grant, Management and historic preservation for us and the last one is Grant Management under building we do uh building permits both residential and non-residential, which involves Plan reviews and inspections. We do storm water permits, make sure that we are compliant with the ms4 program. We are actually up for an inspection by the iepa for that, probably in the next month, to make sure we're doing it right, and that involves Plan reviews and inspections for storm water issues.

C

We also do floodplain permits on both the plan, reviews and inspections for that erosion, control, contractor registration and code enforcement, which involves citations and inspections under transportation, um do Transportation Planning, which is safety planning. We do a long range plan for transportation, for the uh pretty much the metropolitan area is called the mpa for them every five years and there are I think it's five core documents that we must maintain on a yearly basis. The unified work program, the transportation Improvement program, title VI, the long-range Transportation plan and I'm pretty sure I'm missing one.

C

But uh those are the core documents. uh Ben manages the mpo for us, make sure we're in compliant with idot and fhwa regulations and uh does project analysis on the various Transportation projects.

C

um The data, collection and management and a big part of transportation is public Outreach under Solid Waste. Even though we don't have a person here, it's anticipated that they will be maintaining the plan. They will be doing the program management such as the East, E-Waste and household hazardous waste, uh they'll be doing a lot of public Outreach with social media and education of our citizens on how best to handle solid waste and they'll be doing compliance, inspection and ordinance enforcement.

C

Our GIS department is a besides myself as a one-person Department Mr uh Jeffrey Olson heads up that division for me and uh GIS stands for geographic information system. Many of you may be the part of it. You probably see is our online mapping system. Many people see that, but there's a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to get it to that point, and that's what Mr Olson does it modifies? The data make sure the servers are running uh just keeps it all. All together manages our software for us, okay.

C

Next, please to accomplish all of this. We uh we actually interact with a variety of groups and committees uh under planning, obviously the County Board and the planning and zoning and agriculture committee. We report to uh we work with the regional Planning Commission on a variety of issues for zoning cases. It's a zoning board of appeals. That's the hearing board for all zoning cases and uh where any zoning case that we have starts, and we will get a little more into that and historic preservation is the historic preservation Commission for building the board of examiners.

C

Is the hearing board for any issues with building permits, building codes or contractors under transportation. Transportation has the mpo policy committee and the technical advisory committee that advises the policy committee, there's a Safety Committee, there's the county, Transportation committee region, 6 hstp group and the Illinois State Freight advisory Council that we work with uh the gis Department reports to the County, Board and pza committee, and they are there's also a GIS advisory committee, which a couple of you actually sit on: okay, next I'd. Let you know a little bit about our revenue and sources.

C

um Planning is mainly paid out of, uh or is uh partially general fund, partially Transportation grants partially the gis fund, the building depart division is paid explicitly out of the general fund, transportation is funded out of a grant from fhwa and I Dot uh Solid Waste, currently is out of the general fund. uh We are looking to see if we can't get a delegation agreement with iepa which may bring some funds and grants our way from that and the gis department is paid for entirely by fees at the Recorder's Office yep.

C

So after all of that, what is this committee's role in all of this um I highlighted zoning, because that one is the one that probably.

A

D

Real quick, though, could you email this PowerPoint to us, so we don't have to take notes. Oh absolutely orbit. I just want to make sure I see people scrambling to write notes, no.

C

You don't have to we'll get out there. I didn't want to send it out early because I didn't want to ruin. My thunder here.

D

A

Hear you are you, okay,.

C

Your thunder well, if you already read it all, why do I need to even be up here, I, don't know so I want to closer to a jerk. This is exciting.

A

Right, there's going to be a quiz when we get done so make sure you get it right. Planning.

C

Is very exciting yeah. It.

A

Is I'm excited? Are you guys excited yeah I'm excited Okay.

C

So part of the Zone we're going to get into this much more next month, but you will have some zoning cases next month, so I thought I'd touch on it a little bit. uh The zoning process starts at the public hearing the zoning board of appeals. Here's each case collects all of the evidence and then renders a recommendation to this Committee of how they think you should vote whether it should be approved or denied, and they give you a rationale called findings effect as to why they think that way.

C

So your role in that is to review those findings, review the record of the zoning board and determine whether you agree with them or not and there's various Avenues. If you do not agree with them, you can send it back or you can make your own recommendation uh we'll get into that. More probably the most important thing that I can tell you right now when it comes to zoning cases, is ex parte Communications. Once we have an application filed, this becomes a really more like a court case.

C

You wouldn't want your jury over at the courthouse talking to everybody in town about how they should vote on that case. This is the same way. All evidence that you're making your decisions on needs to be presented in a public form and if you are talking to some a citizen out on the street or at the coffee shop, the rest of this committee and the rest of the County Board does not get to hear that same evidence and that same communication.

C

So that's you really just shouldn't. Do that? Okay, I can't tell you not to, but you really shouldn't, because you can take the case and many cases have been overturned at the courthouse, because just because of that Soul fact, okay, so you're really hurting the case by doing that, rather than helping it, but we'll get more into the Weeds on that at next month.

C

um When it comes to subdivision. This committee has final approval on any and all preliminary plats, but all final plats go to the count to full County Board uh and for the rest of it.

C

The committee is mainly a recommending body to the county board for all changes to ordinances all adopted plans, uh any of our codes and regulations and I I actually divided them all out there, but they pretty much all stayed say the same thing that that is making recommendations after presentation or after hearing a recommendation from one of the other committees or boards that I mentioned earlier.

C

F

Steve, thank you very much. Mr chairman well, I got a question. How does petitioner object to the findings of fact.

C

uh By coming to the hearing, I.

F

Understand that but I'm saying in terms of petition, when you guys make a determination as to the findings of fact, what kind of forum is that or or how do they do that? Just by presenting information submitting stuff in writing or just oral testimony.

C

Any of the above okay, any of the above, they need to present evidence. That is contrary to the findings, so they present their the way it works, and it's I'll go back to a courtroom uh scenario. The zoning board of appeals sits up here. The applicant sits down there about where you are Mr Hunter and they present their case once they're done with their their presentation. The zoning board asks them questions and once their questions are all satisfied, then they go to the public and that's the Public's opportunity to object. Yeah.

F

I was at a uh a planning board hearing last night with the city of kankakeean, and we had some concerns about the findings. The fact that they presented it and we're able to get that particular aspect deleted I.

C

Think exactly yeah and then once the public has presented their information again, the zoning board will question them. Might question the applicant about a response to that to that new evidence and then ultimately, they will deliberate and render a decision.

C

Okay, great all right. So if you need uh I scroll till you get to uh information and uh if you need any information from us, obviously you can always stop in our office. uh We welcome you anytime, during our normal business hours, of course, uh and we have several websites that you can also gather more information. uh We have a part of the k3county.net transportation has its own website cats, mpo, which all of these you can get through through k3county.net.

C

The gis has K3 GIS and we do a lot of work with the Kanki develop Economic Development Alliance, which Ben actually is a also employed there as well, and that's Kankakee County Ed. So if you have dot org, so if you have any uh questions about anything they're doing, you can get information there and if you need to contact any of us directly next one, that's the direct phone number and email for all of my uh division. Managers and myself, okay, everybody make sure you remember I.

A

C

Make copies of those if you want one today or you can wait till I email this out to you? Okay,.

A

You got it written big enough. You can read it on those papers there. Yes,.

C

Yes, the the smaller text I should have reviewed on on this screen before I did that, because it was right and that that is my introduction for today, okay,.

A

Okay, any questions on what you saw, believing there's going to be there'll, be questions. If you have any questions, though, don't feel feel free to ask any time nobody's going to laugh at you about any questions. So, okay, Mr Wheeler,.

D

Dell, do we have any applications in-house on things we should not talk about with outside of this committee. It might be good. Is there anything well.

C

We have two zoning cases right now for uh Community, solar Gardens one in Limestone and one in Bourbonnais, Township, okay, they will be going to public hearing July 9th.

A

C

R excuse me January here, I am dreaming of uh all those people down there. It takes you that long things somewhere warm uh sorry.

A

About that, okay, yeah, okay, anything else, I'm sure we can we'll have plenty of time to ask questions at the next time. But, okay, next up, uh we have a reappointment to Kankakee County Regional Planning Commission. We have uh let me get a motion to approve these okay Mr Swanson, Mr, eckhoff.

A

Okay, we got a chat to the regional Planning Commission. We have Chad Miller Sam, Payton, Jeff, Jarvis and Thomas suturina set Arena. So Trina we have a motion in a second, so they have any questions about any of those.

A

Okay, all in favor, say aye oppose same sign. Motion carries uh next up. We have appointments and reappointments the economic Alliance of Kankakee County. Okay, um you get a motion in a second on those okay, Mr long, Mr Ashcraft. Second, okay, we have an appointment of Amanda herbs and rosemary Foster, the reappointment of Chad Miller and reappointment of Andrew wheeler to the economic Alliance of key County.

A

Anyone have any questions about any of those. Okay, barring none. We say all in favor, say aye aye oppose same sign. Okay, thank you. Next up we have the bathroom at a bathymetric report, um that's kind of a weird word, but it means exactly what it says. Basically they're going to measure the river and tell you how much sand and how much water is there is that right, though,.

C

um Correct, if you think about topography, think of it as in terms of topography, it's the topography under the water of the river okay, it's not really measuring the water, it's measuring the surface under the water two measurements we're intending to get out of this is the uh the bed of the river, and the other measurement is how much sand load or segmentation is on top of that at any given point um each year or every every few years, as uh funds are, are available.

C

The gis department and the gis committee tries to do a uh a project for either improving the current data we have or new data that we could have.

C

uh In this case it was determined by the gis committee that, because of all of the uh work, that's anticipated to be done on the river that uh getting bathymetrics for the rivers would be the uh the best project that we could do at this time. So what we're doing here this was before you now is the request for proposals that we are intending to send out to get proposals from companies to do this actual work.

C

It will be for the entire length of the Kankakee River, probably going at least a quarter mile outside of our County, and we're not just going to stop right at the County Line and the Iroquois River, so the entire stretch of both Rivers to at least a quarter mile outside of our County, so we're intending to do taking the Iroquois River.

C

All the way will be the Iroquois River as well yes, so this is a new data set that we currently do not have and will be extremely helpful to the uh companies and Engineers that will be doing the dredging on the river in the future. uh Like I said, we do not have this currently, so it is a new data set for us and something to add to our arsenal of information.

A

John: okay, oh Mr, Hart thank.

F

You very much Mr chairman: um what do you plan on utilizing? The data with I mean? How might it be.

C

Useful, how might it be useful, well they're, gonna and I'm, not part of those companies or those Engineers, but it's my understanding that it will be useful for them to know where to deploy the dredging where to where to make it most efficient and best utilize. Our resources, you know so they'll know where the heaviest sand loads are, and that should probably be the areas that they concentrate on and start with yeah, but.

F

If it's coming from the east from Indiana, is it this going to be like a Band-Aid in terms of dredging or is it it'll be a temporary fix? Wouldn't it well.

C

This proposal is just to get the information, so we know where we're at the dredging projects and I think Mr. Wheeler could probably talk more about those um that is to remove the sediment and the sand. Yeah I know is how much of that would be a Band-Aid I, don't know my personal opinion is you need to stop the source first, which right Indiana is making great strides in doing that uh they're trying? Yes,.

F

A

It took a hundred years to get there yeah.

F

Well, you know: what's amazing, this.

A

Is uh you take it down to the rocket take another 100 years to fill back.

F

Up yeah, actually you know we've been talking about this stuff, you know back when I was a babe I mean even before then about doing something about the uh sedimentation and all that stuff in the Kankakee River. And finally, you know finally there's something that's going to be done, because you know people have been top top top, but now it's going to be done.

F

We got some funding, uh there's collaboration with Andy and and the local legislators, specifically Senator Joyce um and it's you know almost saying hallelujah and hopefully there'll be some some pictorial uh Renditions of uh what we're doing for posterity yeah.

C

This is going to help them determine how much they need to take out and where okay, it's the.

D

Weather that was going to be my comment. It's we need to know how many cubic yards of sand we have and where, in order to find a home for it, because that's the big cost on on those types of projects, um is it's not necessarily getting it out? It's the transport and finding a home for all of that sand. So um tomorrow, I would say, if you're interested in this we're going to have a presentation from Burke Engineering about the aroma project and the cubic yards of sand over there.

D

That allows me to be able to talk to the local source that wants the sand to see how much they can take, which lets us determine how much more of that project we can do now. The uh the key is is don't expect and I don't want to manage expectations uh because, as you'll see tomorrow, there's also a presentation of the uh the Yellow River work, which feeds all the sand into the Kankakee.

D

What's been done, 40 of the sand in the cake key comes from the yellow and they just finished their phase, one which was the Yellow River. It's amazing what they've done to stop the sand from coming in I'm on that board. So I hear about it all the time, but the answer is not to dredge here, because it will just fill in it won't take 100 years to fill in it'll take six months to fill back in.

D

um It's that much sand load is coming. So the key is: is that we're able to maintain and use the river here while Indiana stops it coming so in that 40 to 50 year range, we don't have big loads of sand and sediment coming down the river or sediment coming up the Iroquois, which is a much bigger problem once they come together. Massive amounts of sediment and really water volume the Iroquois takes over once they come together and that's what the they call it the barrel of the gun that Wilmington is staring down.

D

So there's a lot more to come. I just don't want people to think that we're going to start dredging, because that would be, as they say, stupid money, because it's going to fill back in. We just want to use the river go around boat, get the log jams out of there stabilize the shoreline, so we're not making the the problem worse, while the Indiana fix takes hold hope that makes sense. But tomorrow's gonna be all about that in our new highway and waterways committee and.

A

Improve fishing and Outdoors, kayaking and canoeing and boating, and things like that too and habitat at the same time, Turtles frogs shells.

C

A

C

That is a I know, it's that's extremely hard to read, but that's a screenshot of what the type of data would look like. One of the deliverables.

D

Is it a good way to look at it? Is it kind of like uh lidar with ground parent chain, penetrating radar, so you're able to kind of see the surface of the sand and the bed underneath it.

C

Not quite but yeah they're, similar products like that yeah and.

D

Does this proposal that you're asking us to vote on for bathymetrics Does, it include any type of 3D modeling, so you can see no, it's just the raw data. This.

C

Is the raw data? Okay and we can decide what to do with that data once we have it? Okay, so we could. We could move on to a 3D model of some sort. Yes, I.

A

Had a quick question about that, Dell is: does that mean we're going to be able to put that all in the gis then is Jeffrey going to blow all that stuff up and cover the whole River from end then, with the bathroom metrics lines in it with the Contours? Yes, okay, we.

C

Distribute that anywhere is a different story, but you can sell pretty.

A

Certainly sell fishing maps.

C

Yes, I've had a lot of comments on that. Yes, okay,.

A

Anybody else have anything: okay, Mr.

F

Hunter um I know there have been some articulation about the use of the sand there with no commercial use for that stuff, but I thought maybe they would use it for sandbags or something you know during floods or whatever. But what? What? What's? The possibility of the use of the sedimentation? The sand that they're going to get from from the river um and I? Think I heard that chairman say that there's somebody who's interested in the in the sand. I said that's kind.

C

Of new, some of it I think that's for agricultural use to spread on fields to loosen the soils. Oh, uh it was studied several years ago and I. It's been a long time since I looked at that study, but the conclusion was that it was not suited for construction material, so you could not use it for making concrete or or for uh backfilling foundations or things like that, all right, whether it could be used for sandbags, I, can't say.

A

One time you're talking about bringing the Iliana Expressway across and they said they could use it between concrete embankments to hold it up. They could fill it in, but they couldn't just use it as a ramp. Going up.

C

At a microscopic level, the sand is rounded and it doesn't bind to its.

A

Power, it's polished, you know, polished sand.

E

A

Thank you, okay, we'll try to show everybody what's going on as it.

C

Goes on there I'm sure you'll probably hear more about that at the highway and waterways committee yeah.

A

That's tomorrow, tomorrow, nine o'clock right here. If anybody wants to come okay, so we have to, we have a motion: do we have to have the motion to put that out the bid or you just put it out the bid.

C

A motion to uh approve the RFP, so I can send it out for bids. Okay,.

A

I got a motion to approve the RFP okay Mr feather Fairfield over there Mr Swanson. Second, all in favor say: oh we're spending money, no, no you're, not.

F

A

Yet, okay, so it's coming back! Okay, yes, okay, all in favor, say aye both same sign! Oh.

C

The process on this is once the bids are received. The gis committee will open and uh and have a presentation by each of the bidders uh for their qualifications. They'll make a recommendation to this committee and then you'll see it again, which will go to the full County Board. Okay,.

A

Thanks, though, all right, that's all for Dell, that's it! Okay, anything under old business, I, don't think so. Anybody have any old business. Anybody have any new business, and none of that so we get a motion to adjourn. Okay, Mr law, Mr Ashcraft, all in favor, say aye.