Planning Commission Minutes 2000 06 13

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Attorney, Sam Light, stated, yes, under the non-conforming use statutes the city has the ability to maintain and continue to use a non-conforming use as existed at the time it became non- conforming. Sam Light was available for other legal questions. Public Hearing Closed Commission Comments: Commissioner McDermott still feels that we have not got into a solution of the issue in terms of how the money will be available to under ground the line. That will be the job of the City Council. Commissioner McAvinew disagrees with Staff’s recommendation. He understands Staff’s position; however, he does not feel that at least this does not meet the first two criteria. Commissioner Lipton was prepared to offer a motion that is consistent with the motion that he offered at the last meeting. He feels that the Public Service Company can live within their existing vested rights in what they have. It is his preference to see the lines ultimately buried if at all possible, but they don’t have to be. It depends on the business deal and the law that surrounds how the business deal gets done. He is opposed to seeing any further provision of rights in terms of either height, width or use of the right-of-way and easements. He is ready to make a motion and turn it over to Council where this ultimately will be decided anyway. Commissioner Pritchard would like homeowners to know that he does not think that the citizens that live outside of these power poles should be responsible for paying for it. He hopes that City Council will look at assessing each property owner that has a vested interest in this and have them be responsible for these lines possibly being put under ground. This is really an aesthetic issue. Commissioner Kalish disagrees to some extent as to who should pay for under grounding the lines in that occurs. She would like to get the sentiment to City Council that this is a community of 19,000 people and not a community of 1,200 property owners here and 300 property owners there. Similarly though, if another event like this comes up in the future she feels that it is incumbent upon everyone to realize that this is a community and that they pay for things collectively. It would be a huge burden on the current property owners to ask them to bear the cost of under grounding the lines by themselves. Commissioner Leh does not feel that the first criteria has been met by the proposal of the Public Service, nor is criteria number four. He does not think that this proposal is consistent with the spirit and intent of the comprehensive plan. Commissioner Leh feels that under grounding the lines is a good thing for the entire community. He would like to see some effort to explore the possibility of putting some of the burden on Public Service to help pay for under grounding. 6