Planning Commission Agenda and Packet 2018 12 13

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Planning Commission Meeting Minutes October 11, 2018 Page 7 of 17 Hoefner asked for comment from the city attorney. Melinda Culley stated that there is a federal law that addresses the application of zoning laws to religious institutions and assemblies, which was addressed in the staff packet. However, that was not directly relevant to the Commission's decision since they were not going to make a final decision, just a recommendation. She suggested using the Code requirements to make their decision. Hsu asked the applicant if there were funeral services in the church. Lord replied that she had done one funeral with a casket and they averaged about three funerals a year. Cremation is the new trend. Ritchie stated that the cemetery website advertised open spaces. She added that funerals were allowed under church use. Hoefner asked staff to confirm that the proposed structure would be less than 1 % of the church land. Staff confirmed. Brauneis closed the public hearing and asked for commissioner comments. Williams stated that two out of the five criteria were in question. She did not think the land use was appropriate according to the Comprehensive Plan. For criterion 1, she was concerned that the potential decrease in property values would affect the economic prosperity of the immediate neighborhood, though nothing had been presented one way or another to prove that issue. For criterion 2, she did not believe that the land use was appropriate for a neighborhood. On criteria 3-5 she could go either way, but noncompliance on 1 and 2 were non-starters. Moline stated that his grandfather and uncle were pastors and that the place for churches was in residential neighborhoods where the community lived. He thought that the use was appropriate since cemeteries were a commonplace association with churches and that it met all of the criteria of being a church and had done so since 1988. He added that the Commission had to judge the application by the SRU criteria. Hsu stated that the applicant did a good job of reaching out to the neighborhood, even though there was no requirement to do so, and that they had responded to their neighbors' concerns by adding a screen and limiting accessibility. He stated that if there were not the cremated remains the Commission would unquestionably pass it. So the issue was that there were human remains in the proposed wall. There was no right or wrong answer to how to feel about that fact, but he understood why a church would want those remains near where the community practiced its faith. As for the Comprehensive Plan, he thought that the economic arguments about property values might be something to consider, but there had been nothing entered into the record so he could not judge that aspect. He added that there has to be strong evidence that something is prohibited otherwise it is not. He stated he would be in support of it. He suggested to the neighbors who wanted to argue the Comprehensive Plans in front of Council that they bring evidence about their property values. 9