00:00:10,530	the Burley County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting for November, uh, we’ll call the meeting to order and start with a roll call, uh, Marla, if you could take us through that. Comm Bittner. He Comm Connelly. Comm Jarrett. Here. Comm Munsen. Here. Comm Patrick. Here. Comm Rich. Here. Comm Streifel. Here. Comm Zerov. Here. And Chair.

00:00:39,400	Here. All present. All right. Thank you. We have a quorum. Uh, we’ll move into approval of the October 9th, 2024 meeting minutes. I assume you all have had a chance to go through those in your packet. Move to approve? R has been moved to approved by Comm Munsen, seconded by Comm Risch.

00:01:00,370	And, uh, all in favor of approving the meeting minutes from the October 9th meeting. Say I. All right. Any opposition? Hearing none. All right. Minutes are approved. We’ll move into our consent agenda, the first, uh, line item on our consent agenda is the wrath subdivision.

00:01:21,900	And Marla, if you could take us through the details of this subdivision. Hey, good evening, Comm. Tonight on the first item on the consent agenda is the wrath subdivision, um, the petitioner developer are Linda Kip and Kevin Rathth, Mark Isaac is the engineer. The location is described as part of the Northwest one quarter, Section 4, Township 138 North Range 76 West, in Burley County.

00:02:08,970	The project size is 153 acres, there will be 4 lots. Lot 1 will be 10 acres, lot 296, Lot 3, 13 acres, and lot 429 acres and the petitioners are requesting a call for a public hearing.

00:02:36,570	The history, um, Burleigh County was approached several months ago I bought a parcel located in the southeast corner of 83 and Fifth Avenue. The parcel contained 3 lots and was zoned agricultural. The petitioners owned two of the 3 lots and are purchasing the 3rd lot for a total of 55 acres, more or less. Um, a pre-application review was held.

00:03:00,330	The existing lot lines did show some discrepancies between the original survey and the survey completed for the purchase of the 3rd lot. These discrepancies were corrected in the submitted preliminary plot, the review committee did not find issues of concern. Zoning for the parcel is an agricultural. The property is in Taft Township. Taft Township has zoning jurisdiction for the parcel, and they have recommended approval of the subdivision.

00:03:28,130	Staff findings this subdivision does fulfill all the requirements of Article 33 of the Burleigh County Zoning Ordinances, a peevving weaver was granted by Burley County Commission at their October 7th meeting. But storm water management plan or waiver request will be submitted. The preliminary plot has been submitted to all reviewing entities, all concerns and corrections have been addressed.

00:03:51,630	Zoning is agricultural, Taft Township has zoning jurisdiction and approved the zoning as is Taft Township has been notified and they recommend approval of the proposed subdivision. The subdivision does meet the goals and intents of the Burleigh County Comprehensive Plan for the orderly development in Burleigh County.

00:04:24,730	Staff recommends the petition for preliminary plat meets all administrative requirements of the Burley County zoning ordinances and staff recommends approval of the preliminary plot and calling for a public hearing. The planning and zoning commission can approve the preliminary plot and call for a public hearing approved with conditions and call for a public hearing, denied the preliminary plot with reason and tabled a preliminary platform more information.

00:04:50,470	Any questions? All right, any questions for Marla before she steps away. Seeing none. Thank you, Marla. Thank you. All right, so, uh, we have the preliminary plot and request to approve the preliminary plot and move to a public hearing on the wrath subdivision.

00:05:19,930	Any, uh, discussion or motion on this? A more Approved the preliminary plant and called for a public hearing. Second, all right, it’s been moved to approve the preliminary plant and move to a call for a public hearing on this matter by Comm Risch and, uh, seconded by Comm Munsen. Any discussion on the motion. Seeing none will move into a vote.

00:05:42,230	Marla, if you could take us through a roll call vote. The motion is to approve the preliminary plot and call for a public hearing, a yes vote means you approve of the motion. No vote means you do not. Comm Zeroff. Yes. Comm Bittner. Yes. Comm Connelly. Yes. Comm Streifel. Yes. Comm Rich? Yes. Comm Jarrett? Yes. Comm Munsen. Yes. Comm Patrick? Yes. Chair.

00:06:16,430	Yes. All approved. OK, uh, so we have approved the Rathth subdivision preliminary plat, and that will move to a public hearing, uh, likely in our next meeting. All right, the second piece of the consent agenda is the RRH subdivision and uh Marla can give us some details on that.

00:07:00,600	OK, this is the, RRH subdivision, formerly known as Love Subdivision. Um, it’s on the consent agenda and uh petitioners are loves travel stops and country stores. The engineer is CEI Engineering Dallas, Texas, and more engineering, Bismarck, North Dakota. The location is Sterling Township, Section 21, part of the Southwest one quarter, Lot A, irregular plat, number 291884.

00:07:35,430	The project’s size is 19 acres, more or less, and the petitioners are requesting a public hearing. And the project description is a fuel station and restaurant. Burley County has been working with Sterling Township regarding loves travelop and Country Store for several months.

00:08:05,470	Sterling Township was approached by loves regarding placing a fuel station on a property located on I-94, Sterling Township Board has approved the construction of the fuel station in an ag agricultural zoning in Burleigh County has been receiving several calls from contractors regarding the permitting and inspection requirements for this site. Building planning and zoning staff have had several conversations with Sterling Township regarding the requirements needed for the state of North Dakota and the developer for licensing of the fuel station.

00:08:31,930	Sterling Township does not do inspections and do not have a certified building official to sign off on the construction of the site. Lack of inspections on the construction of this site could be detrimental to the citizens of Sterling Township and Burley County.

00:08:55,970	After several discussions with Lucas Lane, the supervising chair for Sterling Township and approval from the Sterling Township board. Um, staff received permission from Sterling Township to assist them with permitting inspections and record keeping for the site. Staff reviewed the proposed development for 8100 square foot convenience store with attached 2700 square foot restaurant, 5 MPDs and associated parking, truck scale, landscaping, and utilities.

00:09:29,130	Burleigh County staff expressed to the owner representative that the property must be plotted. The property consists of 19 acres, more or less. The preliminary Platt review was held on October 17th. The re review committee did not find any issues of concern, a stormwater management plan will be required, and the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality must give approval of the proposed septic lagoons.

00:09:57,270	Um Sterling Township has requested to have a zoning change now to change the property from an agricultural to C commercial, and that will be handled by Sterling Township. It does not affect this board at this time.

00:10:21,330	And this subdivision does fulfill the requirements of Article 33 of the Burley County Zoning Ordinances and a stormwater management plan has been requested. The preliminary plot has been submitted to all reviewing entities, all concerns and corrections have been addressed. Zoning is a agricultural, but they have requested a zoning change. Sterling Township has asked for zoning change from agricultural to commercial.

00:10:50,670	The subdivision does meet the requirements of the Berlin County Comprehensive Plan, Article 2 government increase the effectiveness of government decisions in order to improve the county’s physical, social, and economic environment. Objective to promote cooperation among townships, city, county and state. Objective 3 emphasizing sound planning process as a means of managing future growth in the most rational, efficient manner possible. And an Article 6, Business and industry.

00:11:20,600	Maintain a balanced sustained growth of commercial industry and manufacturing development in the county. Um, objective one, enhance and diversify Burley County’s economy and objective to promote the quality of growth of commercial uses. The petition for preliminary plat meets all the administrative requirements of the Burleigh County zoning ordinance. Staff recommends approval of the preliminary plot and calling for a public hearing.

00:11:49,400	And you can approve the preliminary pla. Call for a public hearing, do the approve the preliminary pla with conditions and call for public hearing after all the conditions have been met. denied the preliminary plot with reason and table the preliminary platform, more information. And that’s all I have.

00:12:12,870	Marla, just a, a question that if this were to be rezoned, it would not affect the requirements of the, uh, inspections and permitting, right? There’s no, would be no change to that, no, that won’t, um, it’s going to be a recommendation of staff if we do a final platin and it goes to public hearing and approved, that staff is going to recommend that the condition be

00:12:34,200	that these zoning be changed before it is submitted to the County Commission. For approval. OK, thank you. But yeah, Commissioners are off. Just a question more. So, I guess I’m, I’m kind of confused as to why there’s a delay in a zoning request for a project like this.

00:12:54,730	Typically when you have, what I’ll say, known intent for the platin, no one intent for the zoning, um, they don’t even typically want to put the plaque through without actually having that zoning.

00:13:18,670	at a minimum running concurrent, but, or even zoned prior to, so, um, I guess my question is, is who ultimately has a zoning jurisdiction here, I mean, is uh Sterling Township retain that or? Yes. OK. Sterling Towing Stirling Township retains their zoning jurisdiction and at first they were gonna just leave it as is as agricultural. OK. But I guess after discussions, they decided to Requests the zoning change to commercial, which will fit.

00:13:44,200	The building and the use of the land better than having an agriculturally zoned. Right, because I know, I don’t, I don’t think within Burley County planning or within, uh, Burleigh County zoning ordinance, uh, truck stop like that. I mean, that is obviously a large commercial enterprise is allowed in agriculturally zoned land. Yeah. But we don’t have jurisdiction over that. That’s sterling.

00:14:04,070	They get to make the decision on that. OK. So, will we, will we be seeing an application for rezoning then, or do, do we? Do we administratively handle that for Sterling Township then, or? We don’t. OK. This board doesn’t, um, that goes through the Sterling Township board.

00:14:26,530	To approve that, um, I have offered to help them if they, because it’s been a while. I don’t know if they’ve done one. OK, because I, my, I guess my, my only concern is, is knowing the intent of the plaque for being a truck stop going through on what is currently zoned agricultural land.

00:14:47,300	Yeah That has been our recommendation from the beginning is to change it to commercial. But it’s not our jurisdiction. We can only offer suggestions. So, um, but we are going to put a condition on the final plot now that we know that this is what Sterling Township wants. We’re gonna put a condition that could not be submitted to the county commission until the zoning has been changed to commercial.

00:15:11,270	So Mhm Right. Any other questions for Marla? Seeing none, thank you, Marla. OK, this is, uh, considering the RRH subdivision to approve, approve or deny the uh uh preliminary plot and move to a public hearing.

00:15:42,870	Uh, Comm, I’d moved to approve, uh, Moving this to a public hearing, uh, on, I, I’ll say the condition that, uh, in the coming time between the next month here, uh, the zoning gets squared away. With with Sterling Township. So to approve the preliminary plot and move to a public hearing with the condition that it is rezoned to commercial. OK. Or, or there’s at least forward progress. OK. Is there a second.

00:16:04,130	All right, it has been moved to approve the preliminary plot and move to a public hearing, uh, pending the rezoning to commercial on the RRH subdivision by Comm Zuroff, seconded by Comm Munsen. Is there any discussion on the motion? Yes, Comm Rich. No, no, no. Oh, OK.

00:16:26,500	All right, seeing none, uh, we’ll move into a vote, Marla, if you could take us through the roll call vote. The motion is to approve the preliminary plant and call for a public hearing after the rezoning has been taken care of. A yes vote means to prove no vote means you do not. Um, Comm Bittner. Yes. Comm Connelly. Yes. Comm are off? Yes. Comm Streifo? Yes. Comm Rich? Yes.

00:16:57,570	Comm Jarrett. Yes. Comm Munsen. Yes. Comm Patrick? Yes. And German. Yes. All approved. Hey, the, uh, uh, yes, uh Comm Bittner. Thank you. I think the motion included a caveat at the end that or that significant progress was made on the Uh Zoning change.

00:17:25,000	And Marlo read it off it it didn’t include that, and I think that should be there. Yes. Marla, if you could Yeah. Make that, make that detail or take that detail. Thank you. OK. Thank you. Alright, that’s uh, that concludes our consent agenda.

00:17:51,470	We’ll move into our public hearings for the evening, and our first public hearing is a presentation for the Arrive 2050 Metropolitan Transportation plan and, uh, yes, uh, Rachel is here to give us a, give us that, uh, that plan, so we will open the public hearing and, uh, Rachel take us through this presentation. Uh, good evening and thank you, chair, um, Agnew and Commissioners.

00:18:11,730	um, thank you for your audience tonight, uh, as Char Agnew mentioned, my name is Rachel Lukasevski, and I represent the Bismarck Mandan Metropolitan Planning Organization. Uh, I’m here tonight to introduce um the NPO’s consultant, Jason Carby of HDR, uh, and they arrived 2050 Metropolitan Transportation plan, uh, arrived 2050 is a major planning document and it assists the NPOs, the local counties and cities, and the North Dakota Department of

00:18:37,870	Transportation to envision and prepare for the future of our transportation systems, more specifically, it helps us use federal transportation dollars to improve. The network through expansion or maintenance.

00:18:59,200	Uh, we have been working on this project for approximately a year and a half, uh, Jason’s presentation will provide you with the outline of how we prepared for this study, how we used public input throughout and what overarching goals, development themes, and grant projects, we hope to pursue should this plan move to final approval. Um, and the final approval does occur at the NPO’s policy board.

00:19:24,270	Uh, in conclusion, uh, the NPO is requesting that this board consider a motion to recommend acceptance of the plan to the county commission, uh, the NPO has advertised this as a public hearing, and I would be happy to take any questions you might have at the conclusion of Jason Jason’s presentation. Thank you. Right. And can everybody hear me OK? Uh yes, we have you. OK, perfect. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate your time tonight.

00:19:47,270	Um, so, yeah, as Rachel said, we really tonight wanted to get into giving you an overview, um. Of the, the draft plan content. Answer any questions you have. Um, this is a very detailed, uh, plan, uh, document, and I’m going to give a very high level overview.

00:20:07,000	Um, this is kind of an outline of all of the chapters um involved with the, the transportation plan. Um And, and so the, the, the MTP or the Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Um, is one of the, the key kind of core products that the Metropolitan Planning Organization. Um, and it’s jurisdictional partners like Burley County. Um, really our, our responsible for developing.

00:20:29,430	So every 5 years, um, the, the, the plan is updated, kind of looks at, you know, trends, what’s happened recently, um, but it looks out 20 plus years trying to get ahead of some long term trends, um, evaluate where we are from a safety and mobility perspective.

00:20:44,530	Um, this plan, as we noted, is the Arrive 2050, so we’re looking out to the year 2050 on this one. Um, but really looking at system needs um for all modes of travel. You know, bicyclists, pedestrians, uh, automobiles, freight movement, uh, public transportation, um, you know, the whole gamut of surface transportation.

00:21:06,300	Um, one of the key requirements, uh, for federal compliance on this is that we need to have a physically constrained list of projects and strategies kind of on the back end of it. And so we as we walk through this, you’ll see we have kind of a longer list of, of needs and projects that we think are good ideas compared to the amount of funding that.

00:21:22,400	So, um, the framework that kind of guides all of this is goals, objectives, and performance measures, and this really came a lot from our local engagement, you know, we had some public meetings that we’ll talk about, really worked with planning and engineering staffs with all of the different jurisdictions. Um, we do have some federal metropolitan transportation requirements.

00:21:39,170	Um, and we wanted to make sure we did a good job of aligning um with North Dakota DOT. On, on their goals. But really, this is the framework for how we kind of look problems and try to address, um, you know, how we were doing in terms of addressing all those needs.

00:21:57,570	And so we had 8 goal areas, um, for the, for the metropolitan Transportation plan for Arrive 2050. Um, safety is really become one of the the most paramount. Um, important things in our industry, you know, trying to, trying to reduce or and eliminate. Um, all serious injury and fatal crashes.

00:22:19,530	Um, you know, economic perspective, resiliency, efficiency and reliability, um, maintaining that system that we’ve got today, um, you know, really one of the key focuses. We have a really great transportation system. Let’s, you know, keep it in the best state of good repair that we can. Um, make sure it’s forward thinking, active transportation and transit, and also, uh, consider equity in some of the decisions that we make through this.

00:22:37,070	So public engagement was really one of the main Um, approaches to helping develop this plan. We had a range of strategies here. Um, you know, we had some online engagement, had a project website. We had, uh, a series of public open houses. Um, and, and they were each at some key milestones.

00:22:54,370	Um, we, you know, did them on both sides of the river, um, and, and so during 3 different phases of the plan we’re looking for issues, trying to get some feedback on different strategies and project options and then also as we were kind of presenting the draft plan, uh, perspectives just recently, um, last month we kind of

00:23:11,800	wrapped up with, with, with that kind of online engagement. Um, but also we had a stakeholder committee, um, a steering committee made up of, of, uh, engineering and, and planning staff from all of the jurisdictions, and then also the, the MPO technical Committee and Policy board.

00:23:29,800	Um, the next chapter really went into kind of the trends of, you know, how we, have we been changing as a community in terms of just, you know, demographics, age, housing, um, but also, also, you know, how, how is, how we travel, getting an idea of what that baseline travel, um, characteristics are for the region.

00:23:50,730	Um, and then the baseline system performance, kind of that evaluation of where we are of, of a transportation system today from a wide range of, of different perspectives.

00:24:04,400	Um, I’m not gonna get into a ton of details on all of these, but when you guys have, you know, when we wrap up, you might have some questions on some of these that we can try to answer. Um, again, we said it was multimodal, so we’re looking at safety, traffic operations, you know, trying to limit congestion. I’m freight, uh, making sure we have safe connections for bicyclists and pedestrians, um, that public transit system, and then, you know, how do we connect from You know, Bismarckanan.

00:24:23,270	Lincoln to the rest of, of the state and the wider country and then making sure we talked about that maintenance perspective. Asset conditions and, and, and pavement and bridges are really important. Um, from a safety perspective, we looked at trends across the entire area looking at the last 5 years’ worth of data.

00:24:40,400	Um, also looked for kind of some hotspots and how can the, the strategies and projects that came out of the maybe address some of those more critical uh locations. I’m also looking at uh uh. Congestion.

00:24:59,530	We call it traffic operations, but, you know, where are we starting to see some congestion today and as we, you’ll, we’ll, we’ll see here, um, as we grow, you know, as a community into the future, we anticipate more of this, um, congestion to start popping up. And so, you know, kind of came up with that overall summary from all those different perspectives.

00:25:17,300	Um, I, I, I won’t read you all of these words, but, um, one of the key areas that really is, is resonated and come up a lot in discussions, um, with, um, you know, the, the public, um, with, you know, technical staff from both sides of the river is cross-area travel. There’s been some barriers to kind of having continuous, um, high levels of mobility arterial corridors, um, on both sides of the river.

00:25:36,670	That’s one of those things that plan is really um tried to address. Um, we looked at future growth patterns, um, and, and kind of forecasted where growth was gonna happen. I think the key kind of headline here is that we are anticipating by the year 2050 for jobs and housing.

00:25:56,830	Um, and, and employment to grow by about 40% between today and the future, um, you know, kind of the same high levels of growth that we’ve seen here, um, in the area for the last 2030 years. And we again looked at where uh where, where, where new housing would be and also where new jobs would be.

00:26:16,400	But all of that really fed kind of these um estimates of how does all this growth really change how we travel? And so we looked at, you know, how traffic patterns might increase on our current network and how that might inform some of the strategies that in, in projects that we came up with as a part of this plan.

00:26:34,700	Um, and, and so, you know, the, the plan up to this point it really focused on, you know, where we are as a system today. You know, where do we think we’re going to be, um, by 2050, you know, thinking about what all those goals are for mobility and safety, you know, what are the range of projects and strategies, we

00:26:49,770	really should pull. Um, into this plan and kind of consider. And so this is a map of all the different things we considered. This is also in your packets. Um, I, we can talk about some of the bigger ones.

00:27:05,530	Maybe I’m not gonna obviously walk through all of them, but we, you know, we’ve got like a northern bridge corridor, um, that, that we kind of maintained as a good idea in the future, um, new interchanges potentially on each side of the river. Um, and then, you know, the idea of, as, as we, you know, the communities grow, continue to improve that, that roadway network.

00:27:23,200	that, that traditional, you know, that grid of having to make sure we’ve gotten our burial. Um, every mile Kind of help, um, you know, support mobility and safety through the area. Pardon me. And so, you know, we’ve got this long list of, of project ideas and needs and we, you know, this needs to be a physically constrained plan.

00:27:44,070	And so, um, we did a financial analysis of all sources of local, state, federal funding, um, looking at the trends, you can see we’re anticipating maybe a 2% growth. Um, in what we call revenues or the ability to actually pay for things. However, costs historically have been going up about 4%.

00:28:01,170	And so that means really our long term purchasing power is going down. So that really is one of the realities, um, that we face as we do this planning process. And so, you know, with that, we, um, you know, worked through. Um, all of those kind of critical short term needs also with some of the funding constraints.

00:28:19,270	Um You know, looked at what types of projects made the most sense for the fiscally constrained plan in working with all of the jurisdictions. Um, and so you can see we’ve got a range of Um, you know, of, of roadway, uh, maintenance where we’re, we’re taking care of the pavement that we’ve got out there today. Um, we’ve also got some, uh, widening projects.

00:28:38,600	And also some uh safety projects that kind of critical intersections and also some um from, from uh Brent, uh, transportation funding sources, um, new trails and side paths or, or rehabilitated trails inside us. Um, and then because this is a, you know, a federal requirement.

00:28:58,670	The last chapter really focuses on that federal compliance piece. Um, and so, but again, I think one of the key things to take away here is we do have that, that physically constrainedli, but there’s also this list of things that we call, you know, it’s kind of our vision plan or the illustrative plan.

00:29:13,130	Um, these are great ideas, and we, we want to continue trying to, you know, with the jurisdictional partners, continue searching. Uh, for funding options for all those projects. So with that, um, I wanna open it up for questions. All right. Are there any questions for Jeremy? Or Rachel.

00:29:40,900	I think one I had in here is that um is there was a, it looks like the vehicle miles traveled in the vehicle hours traveled went up significantly as that, that is just in the in the where the uh the just the Bismarck Mandan greater area. Right, yeah, and I can share that slide again really quick. That’s a great question.

00:29:58,600	So there’s a couple of things you can take away from them. So we’re anticipating that total trips would go up about 48%. Um, and that’s a combination of employment. Um, and, and housing growth, um, because a lot of that growth is kind of further out than it has been historically.

00:30:17,430	Some of those trips get a little bit longer and so that’s why those vehicle miles traveled. Go up a little bit higher than the total number of trips, um, that basically means the average trip gets a little bit longer between today and 2050. And then that vehicle hours traveled is really a function of the fact that we anticipate to see again, more trips.

00:30:35,500	It’ll take a little bit longer, and that’s some of that’s due to a little additional congestion. Um, and, and items like that. But we do have some, you know, kind of big projects on the list that could potentially help with that. We just need to find, find the source.

00:30:50,630	OK, that’s why, that’s why your hours, your, your traveled hours and your traveled your travel hours are going up faster than your travel miles. Got it OK are starting to go down just a little bit in the future. Yup. No, great question. OK. Any other questions for Jeremy or Rachel? Yes, Comm Rich. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:31:07,970	Neither Jim or Rachel, I, I was, uh, at the last NPO meeting, there was a presentation about Amtrak possibly coming to Bismarck. Is that part of the, um, overall plan or is it included at all? Uh, thank you for bringing that up, Comm Risch, um, the purview of the MTP, um, does, uh, typically include rail, uh, however, at the time that we were collecting our existing conditions, um, that discussion

00:31:32,400	of Amtrak coming through or um reintroducing passenger rail was not on our horizon, so unfortunately in this plan, there is no specific discussion of Amtrak, although I think throughout we may have, you know, a a a place or two where we will plan to add a sentence or a small paragraph to indicate that these discussions

00:31:53,000	are coming online as the plan is closing out, um, so, uh, we won’t have any, uh, in-depth discussion on the effects of passenger rail for our area, but we will have a nod to that and in future plans, we will certainly be including that, uh, as and when it comes into our area. You’re welcome. OK.

00:32:14,670	Any other questions for Rachel or Jeremy? Oh yeah, Comm Connelly. Uh With the map being so small, uh, is that number 38 on there. Is that the Tyler Parkway corridor? I’ll let Jason bring that up for a second. Yeah, hold on one second. That Project 38, um.

00:32:46,870	Jeremy, did you get audio back yet? Uh, yes, yep, we can hear you. Oh, I apologize. We have another um Jeremy Williams from HDR is also on the line. Um, we had intended to have him give the presentation, but his audio is not working. OK, I’m sorry for referring to you as the wrong name. it’s quite all right. No, no, no.

00:33:07,530	Jeremy was, I, I did have an opportunity to actually join. Um, I apologize. I, I don’t have that project list in front of me. Um, but I, I see Project 38, um, I believe it is a trail connection. That was, um.

00:33:27,830	Recommended, um, out of the planning process and it’s um I can, if you give me one second, I can play you with read it along. Thank you, that’s that’s a trail system along Claremont. That’s the Ducks Unlimited? Yeah, that’s the Ducks Unlimited trail system all down in there. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

00:33:53,930	Any other questions? OK, seeing none, we will close the public hearing, uh, thank you, Rachel and crew for, uh, for bringing this to us and presenting it, uh. I guess we are, uh, we’re looking for a motion to recommend approval of this plan to the county commission. OK. OK. It has been moved by. Oh yes, yes, Marla, we got to open it up for a public hearing.

00:34:14,870	It was scheduled for a public hearing. Oh, we opened and closed. Open it and close it. Already? We already did. Oh, OK. Yep. Cause I just got my sheet out. Oh, OK. All right.

00:34:32,600	And, uh, and, uh, uh, Rachel, if you could sign, if you could sign the sheet saying that you, that you spoke at this public hearing, we would appreciate that. Thank you. Uh, so it has been moved by Comm Zerhoff and who gave the second on that? Oh, OK, Comm Patrick with the 2nd. Any discussion on the motion to Recommend approval of this plan to the County Commission. OK, seeing none, uh, Marla, if you could take us through the roll call vote.

00:35:01,530	OK The, um, motion was to approve the plan and recommend approval to the County Commission. Yes vote means you approve, no vote means you do not. Comm Munsen. Comm Jared. Yes. Comm Connelly. Yes. Comm Bittner. Yes Comm Patrick. Comm Rich? Yes. Comm Streifel. Yes. Commissioners are off. Yes. Chair. Yes. All approved.

00:35:35,470	OK, that will be, that will go to the county commission as a recommend for approval. We’ll move into our next. Our next public hearing, and that is the Weissaccres subdivision and zoning change. And, uh, Marla, if you could give us the details and then we will open the public hearing. OK. This is the Weis acres subdivision and zoning change.

00:36:13,030	Um, the petitioners are Eugene and Kathleen Weisz. Um, the engineer is Thomas. Lushhossky of engineering. And the location is being part of the Southeast one quarter, Section 34, Township 139 North range 79 West. Um, this project is a one lot subdivision with containing two acres, the zoning change is a agricultural to our one single family residential.

00:36:48,700	Petitioners are requesting the approval of the final plot and zoning change and give a due pass recommendation to the board of Burley County Commissioners. The posting dates were in the Bismarck Tribune, October 28th and November 4th. Burley County website, October 30th and surrounding property owners, October twenty-ninth.

00:37:17,430	The petitioner approached Burley County regarding building a single-family home on land, they intend to purchase after review of the requests, the petitioners were advised to platty one lot subdivision for the 2 acres they were purchasing and to request a zoning change from agricultural to our one single family residential.

00:37:40,400	A preliminary plat and zoning change were subitted, the review committee did not find issues of concern and the property will use an existing approach to the property. The property is currently zoned a agricultural, but it changed to our one single family residential will be required, and the property located north of the proposed subdivision is own agricultural directly to the West are one zoning south and east of the proposed subdivision are zoned

00:38:05,470	agricultural. The change to our one zoning is suitable for this location. The Burleigh County Planning and Zoning Commission approved the preliminary plot and zoning change for a public hearing on October 9th. Staff findings on the preliminary on the final plot.

00:38:34,270	This subdivision does fulfill the requirements of Article 33 of the Burleigh County Zoning Ordinance, a stormwater management waiver has been um sent in and approved. The final plot has been submitted to all reviewing entities and all concerns and corrections have been addressed.

00:38:59,400	The zoning is a agricultural and the zoning change has been requested and the subdivision does meet the requirements of the Burley County Comprehensive Plan, Article 3 residential neighborhoods, objectives 1 and 2. The petition for the final plot meets all administrative requirements of the Burley County zoning ordinance and when this was written, the stormwater management waiver hadn’t been submitted and approved yet, but it is known. And staff recommends approval of the final plot with Well, there’s no conditions cause it’s already been turned in.

00:39:23,330	And uh petition for the zoning change fulfills all the requirements of Article 29, and the property fulfills the requirements for Article 12 of the Burley County zoning ordinances, the R1 zoning of this property is suitable for the area and a zoning change is required to avoid a non-conforming lot.

00:39:49,630	The petition for zoning change meets all the administrative requirements of the Burley County Zoning Ordinance. Staff recommends approval of the zoning change, and they do pass recommendation. Burley County Commission can approve the final plot and our zoning change and give a due pass recommendation, approved the final platter zoning change and zoning change with condition.

00:40:15,130	Um, give a due past recommendation when the condition has been met, which it has. Denied the final plot or and our zoning change with reason and tabled the final plot and our zoning change for more information. Thank you, Marla. Is there, are there any questions for Marlo before she steps away? seeing none. Thank you, Marla.

00:40:42,930	We will open the public hearing on the Weiss acres subdivision final plat and zoning change. So if you would like to speak on this matter, please approach the lectern, sign in, let us know where you’re from, or let you announce your name. Let us know where you’re from and sign in. Good evening, commissioners. Um, simple question, my property is just to the west.

00:41:24,700	And uh just wanted to know if we’re gonna be provided, uh, any of the any of the documentation on the actual um lot plot so we can just make sure that it’s in line with our property border. We haven’t received any of that information.

00:41:41,130	I’ve had discussion with Eugene just slight discussions, but, um, we haven’t received any of that information. Can I get your name? Bob Uper. Bob, OK. Thanks, Bob. And so from my understanding they’re gonna build right along. The lot line which would be my Eastlot line and just the I think the question is just to make sure that those lines are respected.

00:41:58,200	What is the easement? We can see the e mint and see where the property is going to be built, and I don’t believe that we’ve been providing that you have that in the packet, correct? Yeah. Yours is right here. S No. Go right along Yeah And here’s the Black.

00:42:22,670	Yeah, and Marla, if you could just remind me what is the setback on an R1. Pardon? The setback for building on an R1. It’s 15 ft on the sides, 40 ft in the front and 50 in the back. So, to Bob’s property line, it would be. 155. The property line of the plaque. Yeah. OK. Yeah, yeah.

00:42:45,200	On the side And maybe you could, is, is the standard or the minimum 2 acres to subdivide? What would that, what would that be? No, If, um, for an R1, you have to be able to have septic and it can be, it’s like 66. 65 square feet.

00:43:07,700	If they went in R2, they’d have to have more lots and a community septic, so. This does fit cause it’s 2 acres. OK. OK. Thank you. That’s it. Yep. Thank you, Bob. If there’s anyone else who would like to speak at this public hearing. Please approach the lectern, let us know who you are, where you’re from, and sign in.

00:43:35,870	Anyone like to speak on the Weissacres subdivision final plat and zoning change. Last call for this public hearing. OK, seeing no one, we will close the public hearing and then move into action on the Weissacres subdivision final platt and zoning change. Move to approve and provide a due past recommendation in Burley County Commission for both the plat and the zoning change.

00:44:03,130	Second. All right. It has been moved to approve and, uh, and sent to the county commission with a due past recommendation for by Comm Zuroff and seconded by Comm Munsen, I believe, correct? Yes. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing the, oh yes, Comm Patrick, the stormwater plant, a waiver.

00:44:31,400	I believe the, the stormwater plan was, was submitted, correct? Yeah, they requested a storm water management waiver, and it was granted. It just was not in by the time this went on. All right. Thank you. OK. Thanks, Marla.

00:44:54,400	Any other discussion on the motion? See none, we will move into a vote, and Marlo, if you could take us through a roll call vote. And this is on the Weissacres subdivision final plat and zoning change. The motion is to approve the plat and give a platform and zoning change and give a due pass recommendation. Yes, vote means you approve, no vote means you do not. Comm Jarrett Yes. Comm Connelly? Yes. Comm Bittner. Yes. Comm Munsen. Yes.

00:45:21,670	Commissioners are off? Yes. Comm Streifel? Yes. Comm Rich? Yes. Comm Patrick? Yes. And Chair. Yeah, yes. I’ll approved. OK, the Weissacres subdivision final Plattin zoning change, uh, has been approved to send to the County Commission for approval.

00:45:49,500	We’ll move into our 3rd public hearing, and that is to amend Article 8 to include Section 29, solar farms, and Mitch, if you could take us through the details of this. Good evening, Commissioners Cha Agnew. I’m back. Good to have you. We are here tonight, uh before you open the public hearing we’re here tonight to discuss, first off, the solar. Um Article 29, uh, Section 8, Article 29 for the, for the solar farms.

00:46:20,000	Uh, this section will allow, uh, the development of on-site renewable energy systems, uh, example of accessory use in and just in any district and then a solar farms within an ag district.

00:46:50,870	As you recall, Last time we had this meeting, uh, discussion we had comments from Greg Um Uh, Greg Owens with CEC and he had about 55 changes that he wanted that, that, that I have incorporated into this, into the ordinance, and I sent that to him and he sent an email back saying it looks good to him, so. His concerns have been met, um. This 9 page ordinance, um. Basically, as, as outlined the same, same way that it was.

00:47:12,700	I haven’t changed anything. I did add some extra, uh, definitions, but it’s basically the same as what was presented to you. Prior to the public hearing. Um There are um Examples. Of Some information necessary to, to evaluate a project, um. Basically are in this, they are in this ordinance.

00:47:47,470	And I can go buy them item by item. Um, for solar for information necessary to evaluate the impacts of a project they’re part of this ordinance. The first one is a detailed site plan. Which is in section 2.4. E. Next one is the hall Road, um, which would not be required.

00:48:29,070	Or traffic impact study unless you thought it was necessary, but solar farms are not a real active. Um, impact on the community. They’re just, they set up these 8 by 4 panels and Let him sit. Uh, emergency response plan would be reviewed by the emergency manager that, that’s provided by the developer. We don’t, we don’t write it. They do.

00:48:54,130	Um, manufacture equipment specs are in section 2.8, B, C. No noise impact study, um, there’s no, there’s no need for an evidence of land control, uh, evidence of electric utility approved signed power purchase agreement is in Section 2.8.8, which basically means that they’ll, they have an agreement to sell this electricity back to the companies.

00:49:19,130	Uh, impact of water and electrical needs are in Section 1.1 point B. Sitting and performance standards on the zone codes are in section for allowable zones approval process is in Section 1.1 and Section 2, minimum section, uh, minimum setbacks from occupied structures, uh, assembly uses are in Section 1 and 2 Road use agreements not necessary.

00:49:46,000	Decommissioning plan is in section 2.6. Um, we will require a bond from the owner. Basically, that’s the engineer’s estimate times 2 of the value. Time frame for substantial performance, uh, that is already in Section 8.

00:50:10,500	That takes uh if you, if we have a special use permit come to you for approval, and it is approved by eventually by the county commission. They have 2 years to enact that permit. After 2 years, it falls off. Uh, shielded light, lightning glare is in section 2.8. G, control of noxious weeds are in section 2.8. D. Uh, the screening and landscape buffers are in section 1.3. E. Um, that’s basically the nutshell of this ordinance.

00:50:38,200	I don’t know if you want me to go through each 9 pages of it. I certainly can if you want. The tax impact of this is is just on the real property. The equipment, the, the infrastructure is not the panels, that sort of thing are not taxed. Are there any questions for Mitch? Mr. Chair. Uh, yes, Comm Munsen.

00:51:02,670	It’s just real quick, uh, why would a solar farm be agricultural? I mean, to me, that’s commercial. You’re, you’re creating a farm to sell this energy back. Um Those Or industrial. Or industrial, um, I don’t, I, the only thing that solar farms impact. In general Are the light glare, uh, the weeds. And they basically remove agricultural property from use.

00:51:39,100	That’s those are the, the high impact things from solar farms. I thought it was a good fit for because it’s these are large. These are 5 acres, 500 acres, uh, the one in, in, uh, not Ellendale, the one in um. Richland County. Uh, that’s a 300 megawatt farm and it’s large.

00:52:04,130	And took over 500 acres there and so that’s why if you’re going to take out commercial areas. For that minimal use, I think it’d be. Too expensive myself. I’m, I’m, they don’t need. They don’t need access to it. They don’t need any kind of commercial highway. They don’t need paving.

00:52:25,400	They don’t need anything, just to set up these panels out there and go to it. It’s just a question. Yeah, I, I, I didn’t even consider being in commercial. I don’t, I think it would probably would probably price these uh projects out of there. Out of existence for Yeah, sure. oh, Comm Connelly.

00:52:44,200	Well, when I looked at it and you kind of hinted at it and things since there’s not concrete, if, um, the farm’s not successful in that, there’s not a lot of removal, there’s not a lot of reclamation, so it can go back to agricultural pretty quickly, where other forms of energy where there’s a lot of infrastructure like concrete in the ground and things, uh, doesn’t easily

00:53:03,600	return back to that. Um, from what I’ve seen. um There are, Comm Agnew, uh, chair, Comm Connelly, there, there are foundation requires for some of the equipment.

00:53:21,670	If it’s too, if it is too heavy and that sort of thing, they have to have engineered design for that and in part of the, as part of the decommissioning plan, that stuff has to be removed. Yes, I, I think the way that I, I read it here is that it’s, it’s full removal, not a. Not a, uh, you can’t leave anything. Right. Yeah. Yeah, Comm Rich, Mr. Chair Mitch, I’m just, you, you mentioned the tax consequences.

00:53:45,070	So if I have 20 acres of land that’s zoned agricultural, and I’m paying $300 a year taxes. But if I put a million dollars with the solar panels on it, I still pay the same property tax. From what I understand, E Equipment’s not taxed. Is that considered a building is, but not, not the equipment. You’re not taxed for your tractor.

00:54:11,770	I don’t think so, Comm Bittner, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, I think we’re going to want the Burley County uh tax director to weigh in on that before it gets to the county commission. We’ll, we’ll carry that conversation on. On another day. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for Mitch? Yeah, Comm Connelly.

00:54:33,600	Two things, um, you know, with what Comm Bittner said, um, watching the, uh, special meeting that you had, I guess the question would be also is that after it’s all established, can they choose the because their production was less, um, that their evaluation be dropped during a year if you can carry that question as well.

00:54:57,130	And then the other portion is, is just right in the second, or this, uh, second line under the Section 29 solar system, says Burle County supports, um. Would the wording be better off be saying we’ll consider two support. Because then it’s a case by case project that would come in front of planning and zoning and the county commission.

00:55:23,800	I’m not sure if that’s necessary. I haven’t heard any opposition from anybody on uh support or opposition solar firms. Um, it’s. We, as part of zoning, we have to allow them. We have to allow them somewhere. I agree. I agree with Comm Connelly. I don’t like that word support in there either. I think allows or.

00:55:44,470	Some cause we didn’t take a vote and Burley County didn’t say that they. Support the use of solar collection systems. So the wording you’re, you’re Thinking it should change too is.

00:56:10,370	Well, I just put in there, we’ll consider to support because it’s just like on a case by case basis, every time a plat’s changed or a zoning changed, it comes in front of here and then your, Making a decision just like the truck stop in Stirling. It’s still coming in front of here. There’s not guaranteed support until it comes in front of the boards. OK. Mr. Chair. Yes.

00:56:32,670	This board doesn’t consider policies, and that’s what this is policy, and I can uh ask the county commission if they support this. But I haven’t heard any opposition from it. It’s if I overstepped, I apologize. No, I, it’s, it’s a good point. It hasn’t been, this has been presented to you before and hasn’t been discussed in that manner, so. Certainly, Mr. Chair. Yes, Comm Bitner.

00:56:54,000	Uh, thanks for that good question, uh, Mitch, if you wouldn’t mind, we will want to talk about that at the county commission level. Thank you. Any other questions for Mitch before we open the public hearing? lar Commission. Go ahead, go ahead.

00:57:19,800	On the bottom on the footnote here, it says Article 8, section 30, we’re talking section 29, correct? Uh Yeah, that’s a mistake on that, on, on the, yeah, on the bottom. Sorry, but it, I was looking through the bottom and I was getting a little thinking I was in the wrong section, so. Yeah, no, too many ordinances going on. Good catch, yes. Any other questions for Mitch before we open the public hearing. OK, seeing none Thank you, Mitch.

00:57:40,600	Uh, we will open the public hearing if anyone would like to speak on this matter of the amendment to Article 8 to include Section 29 of Solar Farms. Uh, please approach the lectern, sign in, tell us where you’re from, and, uh, you may speak at this public hearing.

00:58:03,130	Anyone would like to speak at this public hearing regarding the amendment to Article 8, please approach the lectern. And the final call for this public hearing. If anyone would like to speak, please do now. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing on Amendment uh to amend Article 8 to include Section 29 solar farms into Uh Yeah.

00:58:32,400	And anyway, uh, any, uh, is there any action on this. Amendment. Uh, request, Mr. Chair, the request to move it to the 2nd hearing. We have, we’ll have two public hearings on this, and will that second hearing happen here or at the county commission? No. here. OK, thank you.

00:58:57,400	Well, I think that I’ve uh did not include or are considered to conclude, and I think maybe that’s, it could be on the, on your, on a. Then the next one is that there’s no permitting costs on this. Um The, the only other solar farm that I know of that well that I have the information on.

00:59:17,670	Is the one in in Richland County and that, that, uh, was the 300 megawatt project was based, uh, The um $200 per megawatt. For a for a fee. What is our, what is our fee schedule for permits for other alternative energies, say, uh, wind towers. Do you call that offhand but we, there is one there is one, yeah, OK.

00:59:46,470	Marla, you got that on the wind towers when they were being looked at this most recent one, they required a special use permit and it was $300 for the special use permit. Per permit. OK. Um-hum. It didn’t, it didn’t reflect megawatt, OK. No. OK. It’s just per permit. Got you. Yeah, Comm Rich. Yeah, Mr.

01:00:09,430	Chair. So what about the wind towers? Do we, um, assess them differently than solar panels. I mean, if a wind tower costs 2 million. dollar to put up, is there, um. Taxes associated with that. That, yeah, we, that’s a good Al Vittmer question.

01:00:27,530	I guess the, the question you’re asking is that, is that a, is that an improvement to the land, right? Because what you’re asking me Chair Ker Bittner. That’s a good question. Yes, they are taxed, and that’s why we will want to talk about that on the commission level. If we don’t include that in the next public hearing here. Thank you. OK. All right, uh, so we’ve closed public hearing.

01:00:50,500	Uh, is there any, uh, any action that we would like to take on the amendment to Article 8 to include Section 29 for solar farms. I think the uh the recommended action is to move to send this to a second public hearing. Also move OK. OK.

01:01:14,670	It has been moved by Comm Rich and seconded by Comm Connelly to move this amendment of Article 8 to include Section 29, solar farms to a second public hearing. Is there any discussion on the motion? Yes, Mr. Chair. Comm. Yeah, I think if Mitch could draft up um uh a couple of the changes that we kind of referred to here.

01:01:33,800	Um, for consideration at the next public hearing, that would be helpful, um, specifically the, the question brought up by Comm Connelly, and then the property tax issue that we’ve we’ve discussed, uh. Uh, both between uh Mr. Munsen and Comm Risch, I believe, and I believe that, um. Permitting costs, correct? That too, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So.

01:01:57,830	So we can, we can include that in, in changes prior to submitting it to the county commission. OK. Any other discussion on the motion? Seeing none, we’ll move into a vote, uh, Marla, if you could take us through roll call vote. the motion is to call for a second public hearing on Article 8 on section on Solar Farms.

01:02:25,530	Um, just a side note here on our notes it says section 29, but it will be put in the ordinance as Numerically, so, um, we had section 28. It’s agritourism. Um, this one would now be section 28, and when agritourism is approved, it will fall in right behind there, so OK. Um, on the agenda, I didn’t put that.

01:02:52,430	Um, no, thank you, thank you for pointing that out. You know. So, just a note. OK, the motion is to prove it, um, solar farms for a second public hearing and no vote means you do not. Um, Comm Bittner. Yes. Comm Connelly. Yes. Commissioners are off? Yes. Comm Streifel? Yes. Comm Rich? Yes. Comm Jarrett? Yes.

01:03:21,600	Comm Munsen. Yes. Comm Patrick? Yes. Chair. Yes. Paul approved. All right, it is approved to, uh, send the amendment to Article 8 to include section section 29 at this point, uh, solar farms to a second public hearing.

01:03:46,730	We’ll move on to our 4th public hearing of the evening, and that is to amend Article 8 to include section 30 data centers. This Article 8 is getting some work over tonight. Uh, Mitch, if you could take us through the details on this one.

01:04:08,070	Mister Chair, Commission, um, yeah, the, uh, this is a similar to uh what what was presented to the county commission in earlier to uh to allow it to go to a public hearing. Um, There were some changes. The at the last meeting where they suggested changes, which was to remove the 1 mile distance, which I did, I reduced it to 0.5 mile, but I did increase the decibel level. So it’s, it was kind of a compromise.

01:04:34,670	The idea is that um Data centers are, are, they can be. Um, uh, challenging. The, um, the standard planner models and, and to future, especially to future land use maps because they’re gonna they’re so large, the one in Ellendale is 600, well, not counting all the, the metal buildings there, the, the. Concrete tilt up building is 6,650,000 square feet.

01:04:59,400	And they’re um They Projected to create uh require 835 megawatts, 835,000 megawatts of power a year. So these things are, these are industrial challenges to our zoning. And um The they were if ever we do have an application, it’s gonna be controversial, I’m afraid so. We have to be careful on this.

01:05:29,770	Mitch called out the, um, just the, the size of this, um, what is that in estimate, uh, that you have heard for workforce. Um I don’t, I can get that information and things like that, it’s mostly maintenance. OK. Yeah, there may, may have a couple of texts. But it’s mostly a building maintenance.

01:05:51,600	I mean, I, I mean, if we ever did have a, an application, I’m sure that would, would come up. I just wanted to. Think about, I think there was 35% I’m sorry, I think it was 35 people that were going to work at that Ellendale. OK.

01:06:07,300	And most of them, like I said, are, this is a, according to the emergency manager that I’ve talked to out there that, you know, besides the construction, the temporal, I’m not calling the temporary workers, so. Yeah, it’s, it’s not a. I mean, they’ll have, I’m sure they’ll have some techs there.

01:06:30,200	But you know, data centers and facilities, they’re just, they’re basically house IT infrastructures, but they’re not limited to computer systems, networks, servers, application, appliances, services, and other associated components of the facility used for remote storage processing or transmission of digital data associated with computer systems, network services, applications, appliance services, and other associated components. There was discussion at the last meeting, the difference between crypto data, the data mining and the data centers.

01:06:56,000	To me, it’s all infrastruc uh IT infrastructure. And massive amount of that. And what this ordinance there was also discussion about the smaller size, like uh the ability to have a much smaller scale data center in a commercial zone or even in a residential area. This, this ordinance does not address those.

01:07:18,670	We, this is a 9-page ordinance, and it’s, we kind of want to keep it as. Simple as we can. This is more of a large scale data centers. I have uh some information necessary on this here. And it, and from what I read in here, Mitch, uh, this would, this would have to be zoned industrial.

01:07:40,670	Is that Am I reading that correct? Yeah, that’s correct. That that’s the way it’s written in here. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the problem. That’s the problem that we have as a, as a planning model. These we’re gonna plonk this huge structure in the middle of that of of somewhere.

01:08:06,130	And it’s most likely would be in an agricultural area, because these are large scale, a lot of, a lot of vary a lot of land that they’re gonna have to for this kind of thing. And Um The idea is that it’s It’s just challenging. So there are going to be conference controversial and so.

01:08:26,430	Um The idea is that we’re going to try with this, with this ordinance here, we’re going to try and detail with the information necessary to, to eliminate this controversies and these concerns for life safety and You know, the welfare of, of, of Burleigh County. So the first one is the detailed site plan. That’s in section 1.1. D. And um, Second one is a traffic impact study.

01:08:53,670	That’s to be determined by the county engineer if we need one. Uh, the emergency response plan again, that’s provided by the owner, the manufacturer equipment specification is in section 1.1.1. Noise impact study is in section 1.1. C. Evidence of land control, uh, lease agreements, etc. Section 1.1. A.

01:09:24,100	Evidence electrical utility approval signed purchase agreement by the power companies is section 1.1. J impact of water and electrical needs is in section 1.1 point B. The siding and standards in the zoning code are in section 1.1 and then section 1.1G. Uh, the minimum setbacks are in section 1.1. E, road use agreement is in section 3.10.

01:09:53,130	The decommissioning plan, reclamation bond is in section 4.1. And the time frame for substantial improvement again is in Article 8, the two-year. Uh, maximum length of application time. Shielded lighting is in section 3.8, and the landscape buffers in section 3.6.

01:10:20,600	Permitting requirements for this are gonna be vast and so it’s uh the building all data processing and storage is contained within the building. They must be contained within the building. You can’t have anything outside of the building. Written verification submitted by the utility companies providing sufficient capacity available. That’s the problem with these ones in the other parts of the country where they have affected the electric to cause rate increases for the neighboring properties. neighboring towns.

01:10:46,370	Um, facilities equipped with an environmental controls to maintain proper conditions. Applicant must provide any additional materials, uh, relevant to the application. That’s basically if we think of something besides what’s in this application. We can re-ask or require it.

01:11:07,730	The application varies at the time of application all required county code of ordinance will be met during the operations. And um as necessary from the um The Sorry, we met during an operation as measured from the property line. This is basically that sound, uh, study. Decibel level study. It’s um. Uh, this, the one in Ellendale has a soundproof, what’s called a soundproof screen. It’s a 40 ft.

01:11:39,770	Um Geotech fabric or anything. I, I haven’t seen it. I, I haven’t looked at it, but I talked to the uh emergency manager. It’s a 40 ft basically screen barrier that’s attached to a metal frame. And you can, it’s basically is designed to stop any sound from that property.

01:12:05,330	And so it’s Loud Very loud inside in the design standards, uh, I, I, I think the, uh, the half mile to me makes sense and here the um And it and it kind of calls out, you know, from multifamily or dwellings and single family, multifamily homes. And it says measured, measured from the nearest property line.

01:12:25,100	So just to put that in my head, uh, basically, you would have to have, you’d have to have a data center if you were going to have one, you would have to buy a full section of land and plop it in the middle of the section, correct? Yeah. Because, because we’re talking about as measured from the nearest property line.

01:12:43,270	So that’s a half mile from the nearest property line of any one of those called out things, not the actual building, or am I reading that wrong? Which section are you in 3 standards number 1. So it says as measured from the nearest property line to any of these sensitive properties. In my, in my interpreting that incorrectly? Yes, OK. Thank you.

01:13:08,500	Uh, so it would be reduced from 1 mile, so. Right. But as as the property of something that this, this data center would sit on, that would mean that a half a mile from the edge of that data center building to The nearest building or It’s as measured from the nearest property line.

01:13:35,200	I don’t Well, it’s, I mean, you have the property line of, of the data center. Yep. And the property line nearest of any of the ones that are listed in there, basically. OK. So it’s not it’s a farmstead. Here’s the, the data centers over here.

01:13:56,200	It’s a half a mile to that nearest farm so that’s where you would measure it. OK, I, I was just getting, I was getting thrown off with the, the call out of the property line of any of these properties, so it’s not necessarily from the building to building. It’s from property line to The OK. Got it. Mr. Chair. Yeah, Comm Bitner.

01:14:20,400	I’m not quite sure I understand that because with your, your question, yeah, I think you’re, you’re right, because if you, if you purchased a section of land. And just put a little uh shed in the middle of it, it’d be really difficult to be a half mile away from the nearest property line. I, I understand the question.

01:14:40,770	So I don’t I think we got to be pretty careful in that wording right there. I think that was a good catch on your part. Thanks. Well, how would you read it? I, I’m, I’m just trying to understand that start over.

01:15:01,530	Yeah, I’ll I’ll I’ll have to take a little closer look at that because I didn’t catch that in, in the original thing. So I think we can deal with that in a. In the next meeting. Yeah. Uh, any questions? Uh, yeah, Comm Munsen, just a, a clerk or a, a question. This is first reading, so we’ll have a 2nd reading on this one as well. So, OK. Yeah. Uh, Comm Rich, Mr.

01:15:19,700	Chair, I think you’re absolutely right. I think, a half a mile from a single family dwelling or a school or a church or synagogue makes sense, but not from, not from a property line. The property line might be. A long ways away from the dwelling. No, I didn’t.

01:15:39,700	No, I, I also would kind of counter that of saying that, well, if we say property line, then if you, if you take into account whatever the setback is, that would mean that, um, We would want to keep it so that that person, if they say they had a, a building in the middle of their property and they

01:15:55,030	wanted to build right up to the setback. But there’s still a half a mile. So I think something, I’m not exactly sure how to word that, but kind of thinking about like future someone building uh something on their, on their land in the future. Yeah, Comm Munsen.

01:16:13,030	Well, let’s think about the one in Ellendale, you know, you were talking about how massive this facility is. Um, so when you go from the outside building of that structure. And you read this. Number one, that structure has to be a half a mile from the property line. Of that dwelling.

01:16:35,170	And in the city of Bismarck will do the same thing, uh, I’ll put a sign up that has an electronic message center. That sign is measured from that point of the sign to the property line, not the dwelling. So I think the property line is important. Because again, you, like you said, that that 20 acres may be empty. But after the.

01:16:58,570	The Data centerer goes in, they could build a house. 15 ft from the Right, Property line, you know, so you, you, I property line is important. To be in there Yeah, this, Mr. Chair, this was reduced from the 1 mile to 0.5 mile from the last meeting they thought that that one mile distance was too far.

01:17:20,300	That’s fine. We had, but I did also, you see, in sec in uh item 7, I did drop the the decibel level of the 75, so I think that makes sense and I, I just I just want to get kind of a clarification and kind of put it in my head about kind of

01:17:35,200	what would it be an example of that and uh it does, it doesn’t seem quite. As clear as maybe it needs to be, uh, just when I just kind of when we think about that, like you say, the property line, if you’re gonna build right in the middle of a section, which is 1 mile by

01:17:49,070	mile, so if you’re in the middle, but the edge of your building isn’t gonna be. Right there. So, um, you know, building of the data center that’s how it’s measured. It’s measured from the data center, not the data center’s property line, not a section line. It’s measured from the building itself. Yeah.

01:18:10,800	So I don’t know, I, I can work with. I’ll see yeah, I, I, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll, uh, wordsmith this a little bit, uh, it would be a half a mile plus 15 ft. It’s really about what it turns into, yeah. That’s true. Yeah, yeah, Comm Sreifel.

01:18:29,530	Well, we’re talking about distance, I maybe missed this when you were, Talking about changing the mile to a 0.5 mile. Did the 3 miles between data centers, did that disappear? Is that? Yeah, yeah. And to that question. Um, they would have to be rezoned industrial. So it could be the creation of an industrial district. If we’re not separating these buildings by 1 mile. Comm, we had a subcommittee meeting.

01:19:01,530	Three weeks, 4 weeks ago, and, and we kind of talked in that meeting that. If, if we’re going to have data centers. Would it be better to have them 3 or 4 or 5 close together so that they’re affecting one another rather than having one every 3 miles.

01:19:21,930	And having, you know, the infrastructure that these folks are gonna need just for electrical coming in if you brought it to 1 point. That made more sense than bringing it to 3 or 4 points. Yeah. So if we’re gonna have them, it’d be a better idea to concentrate him in one area. Yep. Mr. Chair, uh, yes.

01:19:44,400	One more question for Mitch and, and again, wordsmithing in, in here when I was reading through this. In one area, we talk about having to have written verification submitted by the utility provider. Uh, for their power. But in another spot, we must have a copy of assigned electrical power purchase agreement.

01:20:05,670	Saying the same thing but two different ways, or are we Um Well, the copy of that agreement, it would be vital for our review. Well, documentation of it. Yeah. But if they’re in the process of coming to this board for a. Review for a permit.

01:20:33,400	They’re not gonna have a signed purchase agreement yet for that power, but there’s certainly should be able to have a verification. From the power company that it’s available. That would be pre-application? That would be review of the special use permit, and then, then they would go through the approval of that permit, we also go through the construction of that permit. So all these things would be required stages, right? OK. Mr. Chair. Yes, yes, Comm Bitner.

01:20:55,800	Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, along those lines, Um, in that committee meeting that where you’re talking about that. Did you have um any of the electrical providers in that meeting. Mr. Chair, Comm Bitner, yes, they were there, um, there was a new, there’s like 3 of the 3 people. What I, uh, Mr.

01:21:20,900	Chair, Mr. Comm Bittner, one of the things that I found was interesting. In in in in North Dakota, we have two data centers, uh, actually we have 31 right here in in Bismarck, you know, we already have one here in Bismarck, but, uh, the one in Ellendale versus the one in in Williston, uh, was an

01:21:39,730	interesting uh conversation, the one in Ellendale because of the way it was structured. Actually is lowering the local people’s, Electri electrical costs because of how they’re performing or how they’re operating that facility.

01:22:06,730	The one in Williston is, is a rough situation where they’re actually increased because of how they’re operating, and I, and I thought that was interesting to to have two of them in North Dakota, and each one affecting the locals differently. And so to have two examples in our state, one horrible and one positive I thought was interesting for us to be able to hear about all of that in that committee meeting.

01:22:26,530	Yeah, that’s a big deal, Comm, Comm Risch. Just a, uh, add to what Comm Munsen said was the Bismarck one really doesn’t make any noise, so the 75 decibels is, it’s pretty significant. So, and it sounds like the one in Ellendale is going to put a screen around and maybe it won’t make hardly any noise either.

01:22:44,730	I had a, I ran into a constituent up on, and he lives up by, um, North Washington off Fifty-second Street, and they’ve got a natural gas pumping station, I think is what he said, and all of a sudden it’s making a lot more noise and, and, and it’s an issue. the community.

01:23:01,030	So 75 decibels, I, I don’t know, that’s quite a bit of noise. Well, one of the examples that were given in the committee meeting is an older air uh central air unit. Beside your house will put out more decibels than what this ordinance says. The newer ones, of course, won’t, but the older ones are putting out more noise than this data center would.

01:23:20,530	Yeah, and I think, I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, how far that can, that can carry also, so that really that uh that the decibel is one thing and then and then the is it the sound uh power uh whatever it is, but anyway, it’s, it’s more of a, uh, yes,

01:23:36,030	your decimals can carry farther hum from the fans. From the exhaust fans on the building and to the, to the computers themselves, it’s a. It’s a sound that you can’t get away from, so and that was the that was the problem that the one up in Williston that they had promised him a decimal level of,

01:23:55,730	of 30 to 45. During their application. And it’s double that, if not more. And when I talk about controversial, these, these type situations, these special use permits, um, they Hammered Williams County. Not just with the, with the data center representative from Uh Politicians involved from the governor on down, and they, they pretty much.

01:24:27,730	Had to march to their orders and now they’re stuck with trying to fix this. I’m not saying that that it’s gonna happen again, but. These are controversial. These are very huge amount of money invested in these things. And You know, it’s, you’re going to try to roll over our our little ordinance here.

01:24:47,000	That’s just, I think that’s, uh, kind of resounding of just saying that, hey, I think this is good that we’re getting ahead of this, uh, instead of having something come up and then we don’t have any, we have, we don’t have any, anything to say what the requirements are, so I think this is as I said earlier, it does not, this does not involve

01:25:03,730	the smaller ones that were discussed at the stakeholders meeting. This is for the large, large scale ones. So any other questions for Mitch before we open the public hearing? Yes, Mr. Chair, Comm Bentner first, yeah. Makes not so much a question as a statement. Um, back when we were first considering wind turbines.

01:25:27,070	I actually borrowed a decibel meter from the city of Bismarck, um, at the time it was the health department, and so I went around and I, I actually um measured sounds in our daily life, everything from a A chain on a On a gate, on a corral to a pheasant crowing at a certain distance to whatever.

01:25:48,230	I don’t know, maybe we want to rerun something like that. The, the results of that are Like lost to history right now, but um something like that for a better understanding of what that sound level really means on a sustained basis might be helpful to us.

01:26:08,170	Mhm Any other questions for Mitch, um, Comm Connelly? Well, not so much a question, I guess, but first meeting out of the gate when, um, Us as new commissioners were appointed to this board. I came out with a pretty strong statement, primarily because of the news flash with the Williston Data Center and, uh, Comm Munsen mentioned, people reached out to me and said, and explained in pretty significant

01:26:31,930	detail that not all data centers are the same. So I do think it’s a benefit to Burlee County that it is a special use permit so that that scrutiny can be there and the controversial issue.

01:26:53,100	Um, we are a very strong and efficient, um, coal mining state and we have, we’re one of the ones that are very unique. We have more electricity then we consume, so it puts us in a, uh, unique position to where we can hopefully draw the right type of projects here that do utilize those services and keep our coal mines thriving, but, um, also, uh, Let’s scrutinize it to the point where we’re not increasing the onus on our

01:27:18,600	citizens as we’re measuring those out. So I just kind of wanted to state that. Yeah, Comm Munsen. One more question for Mitch. I don’t know how you do it, but is there? Is there either an expert or a process that you can show us how. An engineer Would predetermine.

01:27:44,270	A decibel Output For a facility like this. I mean, we can, and I appreciate Comm Bittner’s thought, we need to go around and see, and, you know, measure things so that we as a commission understand, you know, that our phone ringing on loud is whatever decibels, um, but how in the world would an engineer put together a program

01:28:05,600	that would be able to tell us that this is not going to be any louder. Then 75 decibels. Is there something that somebody can show us. Well that’s why they, we were, we were asking for an engineer, an acoustical engineer.

01:28:29,070	They’ll, they’ll provide us with this because there’s, you know, noise is affected by all environment and distance and all that sort of thing. I mean, the weather. Yeah. And so it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s baffling for me how you can figure from a half a mile what that sound’s going to be every day, and, you know, how, how, you know, high the decibel level, that sort of thing, but you know, that’s

01:28:45,600	what they get engineers for and then, and they’ll have to pay for that study and, and we even talk about buffering, right? You know, so if you buffer this area with evergreens. That’s gonna be different than if you buffer it with a windscreen or something else. Yeah Yeah I just want to explain.

01:29:05,270	I’ve worked in the noise, um, as the noise, uh, person for the state, um, some years back. And I’ll tell you a couple things. Number one, to me it seems like 75, my, excuse me, might be a little high because at 90.

01:29:22,400	If you’re exposed to 90 decibels for 8 hours a day that you will experience hearing loss. Um. There’s no two ways about it. Uh, the normal background already, uh, um, Noise level is somewhere between 35 and 45.

01:29:42,730	And, uh, so there needs to be some consideration, uh, about that distance, uh, to be sure that Uh, anybody located near because that yeah you can sleep at 45, 40 to 45 Be beyond that, it’ll keep you awake. Well, that’s why we’re here for this public hearing. We can certainly drop it to 45 if this board thinks it’s uh required. Yeah Yeah, thank you. I, I appreciate, I appreciate those comments.

01:30:04,070	Um, because in my operation, We wear earplugs on a regular basis, and I can tell you 75 decibels is on the high side. Um Comm Patrick is exactly correct on that. Thank you. Any other questions for Mitch before we open the public hearing, uh, Coiser Connelly. Hopefully it’s the last one, but if they exceed, like, say, the Williston one, exceeded what they told the county.

01:30:28,130	If they exceed, can there be a daily fine or a monthly fine associated with it until they come back into compliance by either adding infrastructure or Reducing it by some other means. Um Mr. Chair K Collin, uh, We, I mean, we’re, I’m not sure that we’re going to be able to monitor.

01:30:58,100	The acoustics from half a mile away. I’m not, I’m not sure how we’re going to be able to do enforce that as well. That’s, that’s one of the things that is going to be tricky on this. Williams County was told not to enforce their noise ordinance on the data center up there.

01:31:20,400	And so it’s, it’s You know, yeah, Comm Risch, Mr. Chair Mitch, I’m a little confused. I thought the 75 decibels. was from the site, not from a half a mile away. So you’re suggesting you measure it from a half a mile away. Yeah, it’s and it says as measured from the property line of the property of the data center.

01:31:39,870	And, and I think up in number one, it says that they’re, they have to be a half mile from the property line, so in essence if you. It’s this property line and then in number one, it’s calls out that half mile. So Wow.

01:32:01,170	So it’s uh I’m, I already have to get a decimal meter and I, I don’t know how to, I, I’m not sure the, the, the I, I think I know that we can require it at the time of permitting and they have to, as part of their as part of the special use permit they need to maintain that. Right.

01:32:18,100	I think it’s, that’s nice that it says in the, in number 7 that it that that needs to be maintained because uh that can be that game can get played, is that, yes, we were in compliance. Yes. And then we, and we didn’t have all our fans running or something and then all of a sudden it’s much louder, um.

01:32:34,800	I think Having this, uh, having seen that we’re gonna have a licensed acoustical engineer, uh, that would, I would likely come from a noise complaint of someone saying, hey, this, this seems like it’s, it’s more than it should be.

01:32:52,270	I is kind of about the way I read it is that this would likely come from more of a reactive state of, yes, we could study it upfront, but, uh, being a reactive, something reactive where someone says, hey, this is, this doesn’t seem like it’s 75 decibels, uh, and then the, the other piece of that is that uh that uh You know, it says Well, I, I guess it it’s, it’s fine because it’s.

01:33:12,570	If, if we do stick with the, the half mile, then it’s, then, you know, you’re reading that at a half mile, they could be, they could be blaring sound at 150 decibels at the at the site.

01:33:27,570	We don’t really care that it’s do whatever you want, but you have to make sure that at all edges of your property from this half mile that it is 75 or or whatever we call it out to be right, Mr. Chair, the, the idea is that at the Ellendel they’ve got that 40 ft sound screen. I don’t know if that’s made out of, but I’m sure just like anything else, anything manmade degrades after.

01:33:47,870	A certain amount of time and so it’s screaming behind, behind that screen, and, you know, it’s like you can’t, you can’t stand it, but on this side you hear nothing. I mean, I don’t know how that’s gonna be maintained for year after year.

01:34:07,600	But That’s what they’re, that’s what they’re putting it in to say that uh you will maintain this whatever decibel level we come up with is that I would, I would, um, Go with more than just a fine.

01:34:24,670	I would, I would say cease operation because that makes uh people will People in businesses, I guess, will respond to that, a fine, you know, we, we might think it’s a lot of money and it might be a drop in the bucket from what this data center is actually making so, um, I think it’s gonna, it’s gonna have to be something that has a lot of teeth. True. Uh yeah, Commissioners are off Chair Agnew, you know, uh.

01:34:42,400	Comm Patrick brought up kind of a and uh I’ve kind of been hearing a little bit of chirping about this a little bit, and the only issue I, I see with any of this is enforcement. How, what, you know, do we work with North Dakota Department of Health? Do they have, uh, because the, the whole problem comes down to, um, again, thinking worst case scenario.

01:35:03,530	Enforcement, you go to court, right? Um, they can push back on it, go to court, and, you know, As much as he’s a great Guy. Comm Bentner going out there with a decipel meter is probably not gonna hold up for enforcement. Just not gonna, um, as far as uh all this talk of acoustical engineers, um.

01:35:24,430	I spent a lot of time in consulting engineering on a lot of commercial and industrial projects. Never once have I even heard of an acoustical engineer. Let alone somebody licensed somebody that that deals with that, uh, you know, we got Mr. Weigel with more engineering out here in the audience.

01:35:44,230	Have you just a quick question, yes or no? Have you even? Heard of acoustical engineer running around the state of North Dakota. No. OK. So, uh, uh, again, to, to, to get anybody that is what I’ll say well versed in it, licensed, certified, I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re not talking about being able to place fines based on a

01:36:03,930	$35 decibel meter uh that you bought off of Amazon and provided Mitch. You, you can’t. Um, that’s, that’s, that’s not realistic, um. Qualifying basically qualifying this, yeah. Right. Correct. And that’s, and, and that goes into, to what Mr.

01:36:25,530	Patrick was saying, I mean, where are these acoustical engineers? Where are these individuals, these safety individuals that what I’ll say are credible enough for the county as, as a jurisdictional entity to come in and say, all right, uh, data center XYZ uh LLC, uh, we are now finding you $1000 a day, uh, per decibel that you. Exceeded, uh, the ordinance. They’re gonna say we’ll see you.

01:36:49,430	Yes, Comm Bittner. I think in all cases, the burden is on the applicant to prove that they comply with the ordinances. I don’t think we’re in a situation where we have to prove they’re not. Nice. Right. If, uh, there’s no other questions for Mitch, we will, uh, we can move into the public hearing.

01:37:14,330	So, we’ll open the public hearing. Uh, we’ve, we’ve heard from the, uh, the commission, uh, now if there’s anyone from the public who would like to speak on this matter of the amendment to Article 8 to include Section 30 data centers. Uh, please approach the lectern. Tell us who you are, where you’re from, and sign in.

01:37:30,630	If there’s anyone who would like to speak on this amendment to Article 8, please approach the lectern. And giving one last opportunity if there’s anyone hiding out there who would like to speak on this matter, please approach the lectern.

01:37:55,800	If not, we will close the public hearing and move into action on the amendment to Article 8 to include section 30 data centers. Uh, just one, you know, one thing, uh, uh, when Comm Bittner was, uh, talking about that is that, uh, really it’s, uh, OK, it’s maybe the, you know, the onus is to say. prove that you are in compliance, but, uh. I would, I would wouldn’t want to have a business.

01:38:17,930	Have the ability to just go hire whoever they wanted and uh they pay them to tell them what they want to hear, uh, so something, something in the, in lines in number 7 under datas design standards is that if we’re going to have someone gathering data that should somehow go against some sort of uh somebody to maybe quantify

01:38:38,470	those numbers instead of just taking uh, uh, maybe a, Someone who is hired by the the company to. To take those readings and report those readings. That’s a good, Mr. Chair, that’s a good question. I mean, we could ask for two. We could ask for two reports.

01:38:57,430	I mean, we, we are in the driver’s seat on this approval of this. And so it’s, you know, yeah, so go ahead. Yeah, Comm Patrick. Well, you can’t tell me there aren’t people around that, uh, And, uh, who are certified to measure sound, we might have to go to Minneapolis, but they are there. Yeah. I mean, that’s there’s like, I just.

01:39:16,230	And I, I think there used to be one in Grand Forks, um, but I don’t know if it’s still there. OK. Oh, he’s about to get busy. All right, so, uh, I would move this to a second hearing, uh, we have a very successful facility inside of Bismarck already operating perfectly within the, in the lines.

01:39:42,730	And I think Comm Connelly made it correct. You know, we have a lot of energy here and if we do this right, like they did in Ellendale, this could be a positive thing for us, so I, I do support it, so.

01:40:01,500	OK, so it has been, uh, it’s been, uh, moved to, uh, approve the amendment to Article 8 or recommend recommend approval for Article 8 to include Section 30 data centers by Comm Munsen, seconded by Comm Patrick and uh it was double seconded, but Comm Patrick got there first. And uh is there any further discussion on the motion? Yes. We had, you had some suggested changes.

01:40:22,770	Do you want to include that in your motion? Uh, oh, excuse me, the motion is actually not to recommend approval. It is to move this to a second hearing. Excuse me. Excuse me. So are there corrections before it goes to a second hearing? Yes, Comm Rich. I’d recommend we reduce it from 75 to 40 decibels from a half a mile away. OK.

01:40:50,070	So the So that’s, that’s one change any other additional changes to send Mitch with. To come back to the 2nd hearing. Yes. Um, I would, I would like to look again at the wordage of purchased. Agreement for the electrical power versus the, uh, verification submitted. I want to make sure that we’re doing that correctly.

01:41:14,700	Um I have no issue with the half mile. I like the option of changing the decibels. Uh, landscape buffers, um, I’d like to look at that worded that verbiage a little bit again.

01:41:36,670	Um Taking into consideration of facility, and I’d like to maybe even get some information from Ellendale, how their buffers are working and what kinds of buffers we can put in place. Uh, Mr. Chair, Ellendale has no ordinance on. No, not, but, but what they’re using for buffers and how they’re utilizing it. I didn’t see any. OK. Yeah. The, uh, landscape buffers are requirement of that industrial uh district.

01:42:03,670	And commercial districts too if they’re located next to a residential, but they’re 20 or 40 ft of vegetation. And we could require that as part of the development of a of a review and approval of the landscape buffer, so. OK.

01:42:27,670	I’d like to, I would like to have put something in, uh, 700 noises about the, uh, it says verification, uh, maybe in the form of a noise study by a licensed acoustical engineer, uh, including manufacturer specifications, data from comparable facilities, those types of things, but the, uh, noise study to be Somehow, and I don’t know the wording of this, but somehow that it is. qualified by.

01:42:48,530	Its qualified by somebody that The county hires, but the cost goes to the business, so I, I don’t know how. Exactly to word that, but some somewhere to so that it is someone that this entity or the county itself is hiring to actually qualify what, what is feed fed to us.

01:43:06,200	I mean, go ahead, whoever the business is, hire whoever you want, tell us what it is, we will qualify that or we will, uh, You put a second check on that, that’s a, it’s, it’s even in our building codes when we have an engineered set of plans if we don’t like that, we can reject it and ask for a second one, and we can choose that engineer because I really think the

01:43:22,870	overtime thing is going to be the, is going to, what’s, what’s going to come up, uh, that, uh, you know, a year down the road, 2 years down the road, something like that. Of, of figure out a word for it. OK. Any other discussion on the motion.

01:43:53,730	OK, uh, seeing none, uh, we’ll move into a roll call vote to send this amendment for Article 8 to include section 30 data centers to a second public hearing at the Planning and Zoning Commission. Marla, if you could take us through a roll call vote. So that’s all we’re voting on is to move it to a second to suggestions.

01:44:12,400	No that’s basically to, to bring this back to a second hearing with those in in involved, yeah. The motion is to approve movingness to a second public hearing. Um, yes, well means you proved no vote means you do not. K Comm Streifel. Yes. Commissioners are off? Yes. Comm Bittner? No. Comm Rich. Yes. Comm Patrick. Yes. Comm Munsen. Yes. Comm Jarrett. Yes.

01:44:50,870	Comm Connelly. Yes. And Chair. Yes. Uh, yes, Comm Bittner. Yeah, just for clarification, I thought the motion was not real clear. So that’s why I was voting against it. Obviously, I support uh a second public hearing, but we’re gonna need a little bit more work on this. Thank you. Yeah.

01:45:15,470	Absolutely, yeah, so, yeah, uh, if at that second public hearing, if we could bring those, uh those recommended changes back, uh, in, in the, uh, in the proposed amendment that would be fantastic. Mr. Chair. Yes. Uh, just a little side note from our subcommittee that we had, uh, in Bismarck, there’s an individual that actually has a mining center in his home.

01:45:37,400	And the decimal readings on that mining center are less than his air conditioner. That’s where that conversation came up. Oh, OK. Yeah, Comm Connelly.

01:46:01,330	Um And it, it would be awkward as far as how it goes about voting and stuff, but Comm Bittner, um I can see your point as far as time, uh, does it have to be the next meeting to move it to the 2nd hearing or can we push it out a little bit further, so, um, some of those nuances can be worked out. You know Yes. Yeah, that’d be.

01:46:18,430	It does not necessarily have to come to the, to the next meeting, uh, I guess if we are ready, great, uh, we just to, just to maybe add on to that, we do have quite a few things that, uh, sometimes they’re, they could come to the next meeting, but they don’t as far as latts and, and, and things like that, so, um, yeah, if we’re ready, it will, it will come if we’re not ready, then it doesn’t

01:46:34,070	necessarily have to. Well, these changes, uh, Mr. Chair, sorry, he’s, he’s changes are minor. I mean, it’s not going to take a whole lot of in-depth study on it. I mean, Uh I don’t know. It’s, it’s up to you.

01:46:52,600	There, there is no push on this, but the problem is we do want to get this in on the books before one of these people comes for an application. More, better sooner than later. Yes. Yeah, so, I mean, I, I can run it by, uh, Comm Bittner, Comm Munnen, and see what they think.

01:47:10,800	And if they think it’s OK to go ahead and send it in for a second. Hearing we could, we certainly could. Sounds good. OK, we’ll move into our, uh, last hearing of the evening, uh, this is the amendment to Article 8 to include Section 31, accessory dwelling units. So yet again, section 8 or uh Article 8. Comm, uh, chair.

01:47:38,000	The uh This, this is an ordinance that allows uh granny flats or whatever you wanna call them accessory dwelling units within the building and as a separated accessory dwelling. Uh, from the last hearing that we had, I made some changes as basically they were worth that whole lot of many changes made to it except for the uh the size, the consideration of the size.

01:48:06,800	Of the square footage, the um, Interior accessory dwelling. And it cannot exceed more than 40% of the principal structure. excluding the attached garage, it may not be greater than 900 square feet or less than 300 square feet. Those are for an interior model, addition to the house for a second, basically a second uh.

01:48:31,330	Group of people, units, um, the floor area of the accessory dwelling may not be greater than 900 square feet or 300 square feet. For uh the Separated accessory building. That’s on a 2 acre basically or 65,000 or 2 acre lot or one. If the lot’s greater than 5 acres, that can increase up to 1500 square foot for a detached accessory door.

01:48:58,470	Um That was about it, as from the, from the last. Last hearing. Uh, we, I included the non-conversion agreement. Uh, that’s at the back of your, the last part of your packet.

01:49:28,530	This gets recorded, Against the attached to the title of the property and um It’s just Basically saying what the You know, restricting it to that family member or members of the family. We had, we had talked about possibly renting these out later, but that was, that’s not the intent. Um And so these, these are agreements they cannot, they cannot start writing them out, and I mean they’re going to break this, this non-conversion agreement. And so that’s basically uh. Control we have on these.

01:49:53,570	Um, but I have had many requests for it. And recently and so I, I know 4 or 55 people that have asked if they could do it, and so Mitch, this is the 2nd hearing for this. This is the first hearing. This will be the first. OK. Just wanted, I wanted to clarify that.

01:50:12,300	So we’re we’re in the, in the same boat, so you’re, uh, we’re looking to have a hearing on this as the first hearing and then looking for a recommendation to send this to a second public hearing. Right? It has the basically the types of dwelling unit I included that at the end of the packet.

01:50:28,730	And to help further explain it, so. Yeah, I think it’s laid out very nicely. Are there any questions for Mitch before, uh, we open the public hearing. OK, seeing none, um, Mitch, thank you. uh We will open the public hearing on the amendment to Article 8 to include Section 31 accessory dwelling units.

01:50:53,330	So the public hearing is open if you like speak at this public hearing, please approach the lectern. Sign in. Tell us who you are, where are you from, and speak on this subject. Anyone would like to speak on this subject of the amendment to Article 8, please approach the lectern. And 3rd Call for public hearing.

01:51:16,270	Seeing none, we will close the public hearing and move into action on this, uh, the amendment to Article 8 to include Section 31 accessory dwelling units to potentially send this to a 2nd hearing. Yes, Comm Ronson. One question for Mitch. I should have caught this before, uh, in your size requirements after your diagrams.

01:51:40,330	You have listed no more than 800 square feet, but in the ordinance you have listed no larger than 900. Right, yeah, that was, yeah. Did we, you, you wanted 900 or wanted 800? No, we wanted to increase that to 9, that was at the last meeting suggestions and the suggestion for the increased size to the accessory structure. OK. Thank you.

01:52:04,270	Any other question or any other uh action or discussion. Yes, Comm Streifel. I have a question on the non-conversion agreement, um, underneath. Would be like the 3rd dot upon notice to the owner of the property, county staff, shall be authorized to enter the property for the purpose of inspecting the interior and the exterior of the accessories structure.

01:52:27,830	I don’t know. I guess I have a struggle with that one. Just upon notice to the owner of the property, county staff can. Can enter the property and inspect the interior next year. If there are complaints and following the ordinance.

01:52:48,070	I don’t want to go to any people’s houses, but if you got If they’re renting it out to another family. And they got a neighbor that’s your Fourth Amendment rights too where Just coming onto the property and inspecting things with just notice. Isn’t probably legal.

01:53:12,670	The, uh, how do, how do we do, I, I think that’s a good point, but, uh, I guess how do we do, um, inspections today as far as when you do an inspection to say uh. A dwelling or whatever, how, how is that handled? Well, yeah, um. Mm Yeah, something like this, these inspections are complaint based. We don’t just go knocking on people’s door. We send them a letter out of nowhere. We want to get in and look inside your house.

01:53:35,130	We’re, they are based on complaints. An obvious complaints, not so many, well, I think. No, you got to have. Visual proof. You got to be able to look at it and say, yeah, we think that there’s a second family living there and they’re renting it out because they’ve got 3 cars on the accessory dwelling unit.

01:53:57,530	It’s This is to protect not just the Everybody’s rights, but the neighbors have rights as well. Who’s, whose rights are more important. We’re going back to this agricultural recreation ordinance that was discussed at length, whose rights are more important.

01:54:18,370	Hoffel, do you, is there a maybe a suggestion on some wording that how we, how you’d want that worded. I, I don’t know, I guess I just have a problem with this part of it, just that. That, uh I understand where where it might be necessary. But I, you can’t just enter someone’s property and inspect buildings without. Without a search warrant. Um, Mr. Chair, go ahead, Comm Bittner.

01:54:43,000	Um, I would suggest we would probably want some guidance on that particular question from the state’s attorney. Um, because I do believe there’s um provisions within the North Dakota Century Code that government officials Actually have that power. OK. Chair, Comm off.

01:55:14,400	I, I, I agree with Comm Streifel, um, I think some verbiage change and we’ll say some uh work around on that would be just a simple verbiage change, something to the effect of. Uh, the Inspector be allowed onto the property if they’re not allowed onto the property, it’s an admission of guilt at that point in time and. Done.

01:55:31,470	You don’t, you don’t have to allow them on, that’s fine, but it’s, it’s again, it goes back to, uh, you know, the previous topic, the, Comm Bentner mentioned it’s burden of proof. OK, well, you either love us on or we’re just gonna assume that you’re guilty and that’s fine. We’ll, we’ll find. Mr. Chair, Comm Bitner, go ahead, that’s actually a good point because that’s exactly what happens with tax appraisals in Burley County.

01:55:53,400	Um, if you’re disputing the, the property tax valuation. And you don’t allow um the appraiser’s access. Um It, it’s gonna go with that higher evaluation period. Yeah. Yeah, Comm Connelly.

01:56:19,000	Um, just an outside the box may be thought is, is that, um, if you send a request to the owner to appear at say county Commission meeting and things for an explanation on it, um, so they can explain it, then you’re not entering the property at all, you’re asking them to come present that they’re in compliance. There might be something to wear if they’re coming.

01:56:34,470	I mean, there’s a lot of years, there’s a lot of people around to here and then if it does have to go to those next levels, uh. There’s some Um, precedent to go by on a case by case basis. Mr. Chair, yeah, this, this is, this would be handled very, very delicately. It’s not, that’s gonna. Write a letter to this we’re gonna be there tomorrow open up.

01:56:57,470	This is, yeah, the search warrants are almost impossible. They’re near impossible to get. Unless you have full on criminal activity. When I was in Mart, we had, we had a dangerous conditions on flooded houses and we had to get search warrants and they were just almost impossible to get. Even on an abandoned house.

01:57:18,830	And so this is, this may be a, you know, flippant way of writing that, but the idea is that, yeah, there would be some kind of notice to the owner. That with justification.

01:57:39,070	photos of what’s going on, the activities, that sort of thing, and justification of, of this inquiry and just to ask, OK, well, you know, ask them if they can help define this a little more further. Comm, excuse me, Comm. Comm Zuroff. Would you like a chance. Thank you for pointing that out, Comm Schafer. Commissioners all agree, Mitch, we know you would handle this delicately, but what happens in 10 or 15 or 20 years when when it’s the next Guy. I think it’s important to protect county too. Yeah. Yeah.

01:58:01,530	Yeah. Yeah. I. We can rewrite it. We can, we can, we can talk in tent with everybody at the table and current staff and everything as it is now, but it’s thinking.

01:58:17,630	For, you know, thinking for the future, what happens in 30 years when You know, as Comm Bittner pointed out, it’s a, you know, this, uh, maybe some, just some feedback from, from Julie and, and staff to see how what would be a proper way to word this, I guess. Yeah. So. Yeah, I was just going to say that. Yep. That’s the right way to do it.

01:58:32,530	Uh, can I entertain emotion to send uh this uh amendment to Article 8 to include Section 31, accessory dwelling units to a second hearing. It’s been moved and seconded. OK. It’s been, it’s, uh, it’s been moved by Comm Patrick, seconded by Comm Zuroff, not trifle irov I apologize.

01:59:00,230	And, uh, yes, is there any discussion on the motion? OK, seeing none, we’ll move into a roll call vote, Marlo, if you could take us through that. OK, the motion is to approve a second public hearing to accessory dwelling units. Um, yes, me and you the motion. No vote means you do not. Comm Munsen. Yes. Comm Patrick? Yes. Comm Jarrett. Yes. Comm Connelly. Yes. Comm Rich? Yes. Comm Streel? Yes. Comm Bittner. Yes. Comm Zeroff? Yes.

01:59:34,900	And Chair. Yes. All approved? OK, uh, this, uh, amendment to Article 8 to include Section 31, accessory dwelling units. We’ll move to a second public hearing here.

01:59:54,700	Uh, that is all the public hearings we have for the evening, uh, is there any other business? I don’t believe we have any other business, um, I guess maybe one thing I do want to point out is that, uh, uh, you know, this is obviously 5 public hearings tonight, uh, a lot of feedback, a lot of good banter, I appreciate that.

02:00:10,270	Uh, thank you all who are, uh, really putting in a lot of bit some thought into these, uh, how we can, you know, protect and keep safe and, and have a lot of considerations for the uh for the residents.

02:00:27,900	And, uh, and basically just the community, uh, well, not being, uh, we’re not anti-business we’re not trying to keep uh any of these businesses from setting up shop and doing business in Burley County, and I just want to point that out is, is I think uh sometimes we do get a little bit of a black Guy because we’re here to set regulations and suggest regulations and uh regulations aren’t meaning that we don’t want business here, so I want to make sure that, uh, that I just point that out.

02:00:44,330	Is it just because we’re making regulations doesn’t mean we are anti-business or trying to keep businesses out of the county. Chair? Yes. On that note, I’ll just say whenever I have what I’ll say in my past professional career, uh, ever been approached about uh how stupid all these regulations are, I, I always just reply with, well, then talk to your

02:01:05,070	county commissioners and get It has been moved and seconded to Adjourn. Is there any opposition to adjournment. Hearing none, meeting Adjourned.