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Planning Commission

Planning Commission Sioux Falls

Why is the Helpline Center getting so many city contracts?

l3wis 1Comments

If you check the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting you will notice that the Helpline Center is getting ANOTHER contract with the city to handle phone traffic. They also have contracts for other phone services with the city.

I will admit the city DOES need to use private phone services sometimes but it seems they are sending a buttload of duties over to this private non-profit. Why not buy them and make them a city entity? Probably break even.

I find all these contracts interesting since the CEO of Helpline is Janet Kittams who was the previous chair of the planning commission and still has a seat until April of 2025. She also served as chair when attendance was less then ideal. This is a blatant conflict of interest. Heck, she even signed the contract herself!

While the Helpline Center has had city contracts for a long time, it seems lately they are getting quite a bit more.

Wonder if a city councilor can tell me how much TOTAL we spend on the Helpline Center each year and if these services can be spread out to other contractors or better yet, teach city employees how to answer a phone. Seems pretty simple to me.

Miranda Bayse Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Councilor ‘Lucy’ Bayse proposes ordinance change without consulting local fencing industry

l3wis 4Comments

A new councilor is at it again, making an ordinance change that 1) doesn’t benefit homeowners, only makes fencing more expensive and 2) doesn’t give homeowners any options. Councilor Bayse proposed the change at the Planning Commission Meeting last night, but didn’t even bother to show up as a Planning staffer presented the item (don’t blink you might miss the meeting);

ยง 160.480 FENCES.
(l) A fence post must be secured below ground level in all residential zoning districts.

He said a ‘couple’ of people complained that their neighbors(?) put fence posts in 5 gallon pails of concrete and didn’t bury the pails just had them sitting on the ground. So why not write an ordinance that says;

‘No fence posts can be put above ground in pails of concrete or other substrates.’

There is also a million different ways you can secure a post. You can attach it to another out building or your house, you can use L brackets and bolt them to a concrete patio pad. Heck, there are probably so many different ways to fix this, it’s not even funny.

I spoke with a person who is in management for a large fencing company in Sioux Falls. He had no idea they were proposing this. Fortunately it hasn’t arrived to the council yet so he has a few weeks to shake them down, and he intends to.

Instead of making regs based on a couple of your friends bitching, why not actually research the topic, talk to professionals in the field, heck, have a public round table. But for god sakes stop passing ordinances to make it look like you are doing something. And don’t pull away the football at the last minute either!

Lincoln County Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Lincoln County Commissioner Joel Arends schools the Sioux Falls City Council on growth plans

l3wis 4Comments

Trust me, Mr. Arends and I do NOT see eye to eye on many political things, but when it comes to joint jurisdiction, I hear him. During the joint county meeting tonight he basically told the council they are trying to take control of an area (joint jurisdiction) where the constituents in that jurisdiction can only vote for county commissioners but NOT city councilors (out of city limits). As Joel said it, ‘taxation without representation.’ After his mini rant the city council really didn’t know how to react. Not sure what the heck the Planning Director was talking about. In my humble political opinion there should be NO joint jurisdiction areas. You either are in the county fully or the city fully or both. Those are your 3 choices. I don’t think the city council should have ANY authority over someone who doesn’t live in the city limits.

Downtown Sioux Falls Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Shape Places rears it’s head

l3wis 1Comments

Recently a prisoner transitional housing proposal came in front of the city council (Item #38). While the council moved it to 2nd reading, they seem to be opposed to approving the rezone to institutional from multi-family residential.

The problems are evident, changing from a regular apartment to a recovery home, buying the property BEFORE properly zoning it (the client in this case has pulled this song and dance before with other properties, so they KNEW exactly what they were doing, asking for forgiveness later, the oldest trick in the book).

While many have mentioned the sex offenders living at the facility, this is actually NOT a bad thing because 1) they would be supervised and 2) several unsupervised sex offenders already live in the neighborhood.

So what’s the problem? Shape Places, passed by the city council, and after opponents had a successful petition drive to repeal it, the voters also approved it. I helped a smidgen on the petition drive, and the ONLY real substantive change they wanted was to KEEP conditional uses in zoning (this gives the planning commission and city council the ability to put conditions on the rezone). Shape Places was stripped of this, so the Planning Commission and City Council really only have one option, approve the rezone and all the headaches that go with it, or DENY it which will likely leave this property as is, which is a dump.

If the council had the authority (before Shape Places) to put conditions on the rezone they could have worked with the property owner to at least make this a transitional, unsupervised housing (and that may be their plan moving forward).

As I tell people, the developers in town wanted this to ‘speed up the process’ or more like put things under the radar, the council passed it, and the voters passed it, it is what we have now.

The council CAN revisit Shape Places whenever they want to, and they have the power to modify it to re-allow conditional uses. I believe BOTH Minnehaha and Lincoln County Planning Commissions allow for conditional uses.

This probably happens more then we think, someone buys a property only to find out they are stuck with stringent zoning.

I support deregulation when it makes sense, but not giving our elected officials the ability to modify zoning on a case by case basis has really tied their hands.

Planning Commission SF City Council Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Planning Commission approving items with three votes

l3wis 4Comments

Just for clarity, the SFPC is supposed to have 9 members, they currently have 8. When Councilor Pat Starr asked planning staff at the city council meeting Tuesday night about how an agenda item can pass the SFPC with just 3 votes the staffer said that they are short a member right now and that the chair cannot vote and with 2 recusals they could only get 3 votes for approval but was considered ‘quorum’.

I love how they just make the rules up as they go along.

I have argued for a long time we wouldn’t have these issues if there wasn’t so many conflicts of interest on the board.

I hold nothing against members who invest in development and contracting work, they are volunteers after all, but this position shouldn’t be a stepping stone to make sure your deals go thru and with turning most of the agenda into ‘consent’ we have NO clue what projects are getting approved that they are involved with.

Every member should be required to say what specific item they have a conflict with and why. Some members have done it in the past but most just say ‘I have a conflict, bye’.

I feel sorry for the members of the public who have to address the SFPC, because by the time an item makes it to the board, the decision has already been made and they kick it over to the rubber stampers to seal the deal.

During the Active Transportation Board meeting yesterday a constituent asked how they can get more involved and a city employee told them they need to start going to subcommittee meetings. I told this person afterwards that is the runaround the city gives you when you try to make changes to city ordinance. I told him I work directly with my elected officials. We elect them to help us with reasonable requests, they can go to the 9 AM meetings on a Wednesday morning and report back.

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