PBO 101: What are the Design Review Board and Planning Commission?
Summary
The city council discussed the roles and responsibilities of the zoning board and planning board.
- Zoning board functions were reviewed.
- Planning board responsibilities were clarified.
- No specific decisions were made.
- Further discussion on board collaboration was noted.
- Next steps for board coordination were not specified.
AI-generated from the meeting transcript. Check the video for anything load-bearing.
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Transcript
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Can you tell us a little bit about the zoning board and their function and then the planning board and their function? Absolutely. So when we do get a project such as this, Mike is correct, the first stop is the design review board, which is a great opportunity to meet with the three elected officials. They can hear about the project. And then moving it on to the planning commission is generally the next step. The planning commission are seven residents of the township that are appointed. And so these are your neighbors and people that also understand the issues before the township. And they are tasked with the responsibility of hearing how a project does or does not comply with the provisions of our ordinance. So that would come through the presentation from usually from myself or my department. We would do sort of an analysis of what the reviews have been to date. Again, whether that's our internal staff reviews, whether that's our external consultants that review the proposal. And then they're also tasked with hearing the taking public comment. These meetings are, we send out notices to all residents within 500 feet of that subject property. We actually go above and beyond the state requirement of 300. We go to 500 feet. And that's the same with zoning board. When there's a zoning board, people in that same type of area are notified as well. That is absolutely correct. And that notification is something that's very important to our department because that notification requirement for both the planning commission and the zoning board, they're required to be sent out within certain time frame and in a certain manner. So oftentimes our department's busy trying to strategize and place these items on agendas and trying to coordinate that timing.