Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN 05.28.2013 CC-WThe City Council of the City of Georgetown, Texas, met in Regular Session on the above date with Mayor George Garver presiding. Council Present: Council Absent: Tommy Gonzalez, Patty Eason, Troy Hellmann, Rachael Jonrowe John Hesser, Steve Fought, Jerry Hammerlun Staff Present: Paul E. Brandenburg, City Manager; Bridget Chapman, Acting City Attorney; Jessica Brettle, City Secretary; Micki Rundell, Chief Financial Officer; Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager; Dave Hall, Chief Building Official; John Sullivan, Fire Chief; Valerie Kreger, Principal Planner; Andrew Spurgin, Planning Director; Mike Peters, Information Technology Director; Robyn Rye, Records Coordinator IVB i n utes 's1 �- sus �°- .� •s 's a �- � i� �"` A Bed and Breakfast Establishments -- Laurie Brewer, Assistant City Manager; Dave Hall, Chief Building Official and Fire Chief, John Sullivan Jonrowe absent. Mayor called the meeting to order at 3:01 PM. With a Powerpoint Presentation, Brewer gave a brief introduction and provided the definition of bed and breakfast (B&B) as identified in the City's Unified Development Code. She said the City's current B&B is at San Gabriel House, 1008 E. University Avenue and there are more short term/vacation rentals of homes, but they are not considered B&Bs because they do not serve the breakfast or have the owner on premise. She spoke about the type of people who use bed and breakfasts.She said staff has gotten together to discuss issues and considerations regarding bed and breakfasts. She said we want to make sure the buildings and architecture of the B&Bs are conserved. She said they also want to make sure they are considering turnover, building layout, safety issues as well as the environment.She said, if someone wanted to come in and newly construct a bed and breakfast, they would need to follow the UDC guidelines and current building codes. She said there is currently no purpose-built B&Bs in the City, although they have had people express interest in the construction of a bed and breakfast. She said they are considering the conversion process of moving residential property to the new B&B use. She listed the rules regulating B&Bs. She said, in the City of Georgetown, they require a special use permit for the establishment of a bed and breakfast. She spoke about building modifications needed to allow for a bed and breakfast. She said, this use in permitted under the city code as a home based business. She said a special use permit is required and there should be no more than eight guestrooms, no food preparation within guestrooms, no parking in front yard and it would require the operator to be a full time resident. She said they have an additional requirement for bed and breakfasts with events. She said in those cases, the owner shall attend all events, the events can be held Sunday through Thursday from gam to 9pm, Friday through Saturday,9 am- 11 pm and the outdoor area must be screened from view.She said, the City has adopted the 2003 international building code, which sets out the minimum standards for life and safety. She said in the code, changing the use from single family dwelling to a commercial occupancy types, turns it into a commercial building. She continue to describe how the international building code applies to B&B standards. She said we have a Building Standards Commission that does not meet frequently. She said the City has not adopted the 2013 residential building code. She said this is being reviewed by staff and Council will be seeing City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 1 of 4 Pages this in the next six to twelve months. She briefly reviewed some of the challenges of a bed and breakfast. She said they are doing a bed and breakfast survey and added some cities accept liability by amending building codes to permit reduced fire protection if certain standards are met. She said, in most cities, they do not amend their building codes. She reviewed the current incentives/assistance for bed and breakfasts. She listed some additional incentives and considerations they have been discussing as staff. She said one is the possibility of safety grants and sharing in the cost of fire sprinkler systems. She said other incentives include expedited review/permitting, fee waivers and/or reductions, marketing grants, ensure HOT is collected and community outreach prior to issuance of special use permits. Mayor asked and Brewer said they are looking to see if any of the Council direction has changed since these codes were adopted. She said they are also looking for feedback regarding possible incentives as well. Mayor asked and Brewer spoke about how Georgetown compares to what she has found in the survey. Gonzalez asked and Brewer said money for incentives would come from HOT tax funds, facade grants or fundraisers or from the general fund. There was much discussion regarding incentives. Hammerlun thanked Brewer and said she is doing a great job. Hammerlun asked and Brewer said, at the peak, Georgetown has four or five B&B establishments. Brewer explained why most of those establishments have gone out of business. She spoke about the requests the city receives for bed and breakfast establishments. Fought said he likes the idea of people staying downtown near the square. He said he is open minded regarding incentives and shared investments. Hesser said the city needs to answer the question regarding whether or not they want hotels downtown and how to evaluate that payback. He asked if there is a process for having the neighbors involved. Brewer said the City does not necessarily do a return on investment but it does do other measures including the preservation of the historic buildings. She said the special use permit process does require proper notification and a hearing process to neighbors. Hellmann asked and Brewer said the survey shows many communities either do not have the sprinkler system requirement or are not enforcing it. Hellmann spoke about why Georgetown is the perfect place for a B&B. Eason said she assumes we will always require smoke detectors. She asked about the sprinkler systems. Brewer said her understanding is that, when someone is in an unfamiliar area, the sprinkler system gives them more time to get out and reduces the fire to the point where they can more easily exit. Chief Sullivan spoke about the current requirements for sprinkler systems in the homes.Eason spoke about Fredericksburg and said their bed and breakfasts are all managed through one company. She asked if the City works with that management company to oversee the establishments. She spoke about advertising and marketing strategies to bring people in with bed and breakfasts. There were many comments. Gonzalez spoke about going out to homeowners to see if homeowners who would be interested in doing this. She said we can easily do a community coordination outreach workshop and see where that goes. Eason said she hopes we will be strict with our definition of bed and breakfatss so tourists can have a happy time visiting Georgetown. Mayor asked and Brewer said they will come back within the next three to four months with more information. B Workshop presentation and discussion regarding revisions to the current amendment process for the Unified Development Code (UDC) -- Valerie Kreger, AICP, Principal Planner and Andrew Spurgin, AICP, Planning Director With a Powerpoint Presentation, Kreger said we will be talking about the UDC amendment process and the possibility of changing that. She reviewed the history of the Unified Development Code and said it was adopted in 2003, regulated land development in Georgetown. She said it has been amended each year since its adoption. She reviewed the existing amendment process and said the annual process was created in 2004 to establish approval of an annual list of amendments. She said staff would schedule and hold two public workshops prior to P&Z and City Council consideration. She said the process was revised in 2008 to include a Task Force to participate in list creation and generation of language. She noted it took two years to complete the review process for those amendments. She said participants in these meetings changed from meeting to meeting as well. She said, last May, they did have a Council workshop on UDC and the amendment processes up to this point. She said the May 2012 Council direction on the UDC process was to revise the process, have less frequent code amendments, create council appointed committee with diverse membership and encourage more involvement of the P&Z commissions. She said, on May 16, there was a pubic meeting to get feedback from the public on this. She said there were mixed opinions on the creation of a committee. She said the public wanted to limit formality as much as possible to avoid discouraging public involvement, maintain open public discussion opportunities and provide increased public notice. She provided Council with a proposed committee structure. She said one thing that came up are non committee amendments which are nondiscretionary, mandatory or legally required changes, Director determinations or Council emergency amendments. She said these are posted on the internet for 30 days before it goes to the Zoning Board of Adjustment. She said these can be held on an as needed base as determined by City Attorney or Council. She said the committee amendments will be done using a UDC amendment list. She noted, instead of an annual list, it would be an ongoing list that the committee would be in charge of. She noted there will be a public call for items every two years. She reviewed the process for general amendments and off -cycle amendments. She said Council can City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 2 of 4 Pages declare any item an emergency which would make it out of cycle. She spoke about topics needing special public input, greater research or additional expertise. She said, currently, staff will meet with experts or hold special public outreach meetings as needed. She said this would be based on public input from the meeting. She noted staff suggests continuing same process, with the Committee able to attend or provide direction as needed. She provided a summary of what staff is proposing for revisions of this process. Eason said she is not happy with this process. She said her concern is that we need to do something about the time frame. She noted the process had become a continuous one throughout the year and the city had trouble keeping people involved. She said she was hesitant in supporting the idea of a task force but noted it eventually became advantageous to the process. She noted it seems staff has gone away from the original plan of a task force. She said the process was supposed to continue as a collaboration between City Council, the task force, Planning and Zoning, staff and other entities. She continued to speak about what she thinks the process should look like. She said she prefers to stay with the Task Force structure. She said she thinks this should remain with the Planning and Zoning Commission and not a subcommittee. Hellmann said he agrees with Eason that this is redundant but notes he thinks that's a good thing. He said redundancy gives citizens the opportunity to vet things before they come to Council. Hellmann said the UDC is something a lot of people care about and it makes sense to him that it has its own committee. He said this seems like a reasonable solution and is a pattern that has worked well in the past. Hesser said he likes the idea of what has been presented. He said he thinks all views should be considered and they should be filtered out by someone long before it gets to Council. He said there is some work to be done but he thinks staff is headed in the right direction. Fought said he has concerns on the developer builder end that needs predictability. He said a constantly changing UDC is a problem and this new process seems to address that issue. He spoke about his dislike of the three minutes speaker policy. He noted he is happy this process will encourage free flowing dialogue. He said, fundamentally, he is happy with this. Hammerlun said he agrees with Fought that less change is better. He said he is a bit confused about the definitive nature of the City Council in this process. He said he does like the every two year thought process and noted he thinks this process has been a little out of control. Gonzalez spoke about emergency issues and how that should be a very rare occurrence in this process. He said he would prefer to see more technical qualified people on the subcommittee rather than pulling members from geographical areas. He spoke about how the City's committtees and volunteer community makes it a better place. Mayor asked and Kreger spoke about the next steps in the process. Brandenburg said this has become a full time job for staff. He noted being about to change the process and go back to what it was originally intended for will be beneficial. Eason spoke about how the citizens are being left out of the process. C Presentation of Information Technology (IT) major project status for the current fiscal year and the IT Master Plan update for FY2014 -- Mike Peters, Information Technology Director With a Powerpoint Presentation, Peters said he comes in once a year to provide an update on IT planned projects for the coming years. He provided Council with a list of projects already in the 2013 fiscal year. He reviewed some of the major projects that are underway right now. He said they are working on introducing more tablet computers into the environment in order to provide accessibility to desktops when employees are away from their desks. She spoke about the virtual desktop implementation that is currently underway. He described the Laserfiche Records Management system as well as the Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system. He said they are getting rid of the Lotus Notes system. He described the EAM system and what it will provide to the City. He spoke about the public safety facility data center design and the timeline for that project. He said the customer information system project is the next major project after the EAM system. He spoke about some of the other projects occurring in fiscal year 2014 and projects on the horizon in the near future. D Records Management Update -- Robyn Rye, Records Coordinator and Jessica Brettle, City Secretary With a Powerpoint Presentation, Rye gave an overview of Records Management in the City. She said the City ships their files and documents offsite to a facility called Iron Mountain. She said they allow staff to search for items and documents that can be destroyed remotely.. She spoke about the Records Management newsletter that is being sent to staff each month. She described the newly implemented Open Records Request policy to the City Council. She said Rachel Saucier in the Legal Department handles all Police related requests and the City Secretary's Office logs the rest. She spoke about Laserfiche and how it is an electronic records management program. She noted it is able to read the document and enhances its search ability. She described how this program will be used for sharing and finding documents between department. She listed some of the documents currently in the program. She said the City Secretary's Office, the Legal Department and now Purchasing are all on the program. She added they sent all of the current contracts to Laserfiche to be scanned and those should be done relatively soon. She showed Council the Open Records website and listed some of the information available on that site, including frequently requested documents and the Laserfiche web portal. She spoke about some of the efforts being made to promote Records Management throughout the City. She City Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 3 of 4 Pages described some of the future goals for Records Management, including continued expansion of the Laserfiche system and the possible addition of a Records Management assistant on City staff. She said efforts have been made toward historic preservation of City documents and added she sent the very first City records off to be preserved. She showed the Council the historic book and described hte preservation process. She thanked the City Council for their time. Meeting recessed to Executive Session under Section 551.071 -- 5:14PM Meeting returned to Open Session and adjourned -- 6:36PM A7%:et Mayor Geole Garver Council Meeting Minutes/ Page 4 of 4 Pages ,adjournment The meeting was adjourned at 06:36 PM. .,_ Brettle