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Council tables sheds for now

(9/23) The City Council tabled discussion on allowing sheds in Meade’s Crossing at their September meeting until a related ordinance is passed.

The ordinance provides the enabling language for a Development Rights and Responsibilities Agreement (DRRA) to allow the sheds, according to City Manager James Wieprecht.

Within a community village, individual storage sheds are prohibited, and the pending Community Village Zone ordinance would add "unless otherwise specified in a development rights and responsibilities agreement adopted and applying to the applicable parcel" to that section. Until that ordinance is passed, there's nothing enabling a DRRA to make the allowance for sheds, he said.

"We need to have the enabling language passed first," Wieprecht said.

The council rendered a consensus at its March workshop to pursue regulatory changes that would allow sheds in Community Village developments, specifically for Meade’s Crossing, under certain circumstances.

The council decided the solution would be to amend the development’s DRRA to allow sheds and to designate the development’s Homeowners Association (HOA) as having the regulatory power to govern the specifications, which they determine to be allowable.

Previously, the council decided to find a means of allowing sheds in a Community Village, as a result of a request presented by Steve Smith, representing Meade’s Crossing, who was seeking a means that would allow sheds to be constructed on single-family home-properties within the development.

An additional governing entity that has the power to impose further rules and restrictions is a development’s HOA. However, while an HOA can create regulations which are stricter than that of town regulations, an HOA cannot generate rules that are less strict than the towns, or which contradict a municipal regulation, according to Mayor Bradley Wantz said.

Smith had noted that, while the HOA provides for lawn care for the townhomes present, it does not provide the same for the single-family home, resulting in those in single-family homes having to store their lawncare and other outdoor accessories out-of-doors.

The council is anticipating the enabling ordinance and the development’s DRRA to proceed with discussion and adoption in October.

The DRRA amendment resolution would permit sheds up to 120 square feet or single-family homes but would still not allow sheds on townhome lots. Considering no sheds are currently allowed in Community Village, "Anything is an improvement," Wantz said.

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