2010-02-05 TWITHERS - Laserfiche WebLink

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YEH: Yeah, basically that ordinance comes into play or gets triggered by a plan approval request. And so I was going to get into that a little bit. But if you look thorough the background report that was provided by staff, somewhere towards the back two-thirds of that portion you’ll see that on March 28, 1994 the Planning Department did in fact give plan approval already. So we were going to suggest that was one of the conditions, along with the drainage conditions, that we were going to request to be deleted. What, if you take a look at, and this is a good opportunity for me to explain a little about this issue and why we’re sitting here today, is because basically if you take a look and continue on past that plan approval document, the premise for issuance of the plan approval at that time was based on a letter from the Withers to operate this fruit stand; and in there they did indicate that it would provide people the opportunity to sample and consume the fruits on the farm, along with island health made snacks. So as it turns out through the evolution of the business, they have a 25, basically approximately 25- to 30-square foot area that they put in some of these other nonconsumable knickknacks that visitors tend to like to buy. And that’s why we’re sitting here today, because if it weren’t for that area, we wouldn’t be getting to this whole special permit issue, because the plan approval had already been issued. So because of that, what we’re requesting the Commission to consider is a deletion of the new plan approval requirement that has been suggested by staff as a condition, because we’re saying plan approval was given. Nothing has really changed. We haven’t relocated the building. The drainage has never been an issue. They’ve been operating for 15 years on the same basis. And so in the discussion that I had with Kelly, and to his credit, he has pointed out some of these provisions that may or not be triggered depending on what the Commission does today. When I did have discussions with him, and Kelly is here to confirm or whatever, we discussed the fact that they had been in operation. And basically I had understood that from a practical standpoint, setting aside this ordinance provision, but from a practical standpoint if we weren’t really changing the location or doing any expansion, a drainage study really wasn’t something that was going to be at least considered mandated; and that’s just a practically issue. Cause they have been operating 15 years. There have been no complaints, no drainage issues on the road, anything like that. So I know that’s a long-winded discussion but it gave me an opportunity to kind of talk about the history of where the Withers have come from then until now on at least on those issues. IWASHITA: Just to follow-up with staff on the ’94 plan approval and -. WOODWARD: Right. I believe staff has got some, there were several conditions that they would like to have changed. IWASHITA: Well, I just wanted clarification, Mr. Chair. WOODWARD: Okay, sure. IWASHITA: In the report for this matter, background report, there is included the final plan approval from March 21, 1994; and in that plan approval there’s a reference to off-street parking and a ditto which basically says as per plan. So I’m assuming there was a site plan that had the 7 EXHIBIT A