Zoning issue brings rare 3-2 vote on Pierre Commission

It goes years without even one Commissioner dissenting.

Here’s the decision that prompted such a hen’s tooth of local government.

The Dokkens for months have been seeking city permission to rezone their house and its three acres house at 2301 South Dakota Highway 1804 on the north end of town to allow them to turn it into duplex — with a unit upstairs and a unit downstairs — and rent it out.

It’s a neighborhood of two dozen homes on each side of Highway 1804, said City Planner Sharon Pruess.

If the idea were approved, the Dokkens plan to buy the house two lots away in the semi-rural neighborhood and live there with their three children while renting out the duplex.

The Dokkens first sought get their property rezoned from single-family residence to multiple family residential. The city zoning commission approved that plan.

But that would allow an apartment building to be constructed there.

At a city zoning commission meeting on Feb. 25, three neighbors voiced opposition to the multiple family re-zoning, but were amenable to rezoning the Dokkens’ lot to two-family residential. The planning commission then approved the Dokkens’ new request to rezone it to two-family residential.

But Pruess told the Dokkens they needed to get in put from adjacent homeowners and the public in general to make sure it fits the city’s comprehensive plan, benefits more people than just the Dokkens, is consistent with trends in zoning and land use in the area.

On March 19, the City Commission considered the plan. Several neighbors of the Dokkens showed up to object. The Commission voted to take more time and ask the Dokkens to notify more nearby residents of the plan and measure their response.

A public hearing was set for Tuesday, April 23. The Dokkens and several neighbors showed up at the Commission meeting.

Jack Dokken read a long account of their plans and why it fits the city’s larger plans and the neighborhood on the north end. “This is not your average neighborhood in the city,” he told the Commission. “This is a very rural setting and it’s uncommon to see and interact or even visually look at your neighbors regularly, or even on a daily basis.”

He said under the plan, there would not be more people living in the two houses — the house he would buy to live in with his family of five — and the duplex, which would be limited to four people.

Pruess told the Commission that the Dokkens had gone around to contact more of their neighbors, garnering four more signatures approving of their rezoning, to go with the 13 signatures they had gathered in March. HOwever, opponents also worked and came up with signatures, including four who earlier had supported the Dokkens’ plans but now said they were against it, Pruess said.

Don Adams, who said he lives across the road, on the west side of the neighborhood, spoke against the Dokkens’ plan on Tuesday.

‘They don’t want it’

“I talked to all our neighbors,” he told the Commission. “They all signed my petition and they don’t want it.”

The Dokkens’ plan will increase traffic in the area, Adams said.

The development is not hooked up to the city’s sewer system, so each property has its own septic system and drain field.

Adams said the Dokkens will have to put in a second septic system for the duplex and the lot isn’t big enough for that.

Jack Dokken rebutted Adams’ allegation and said his current septic system will handle any duplex tenants. Dokken explained it as a business plan for his family to have a rental property providing income.

Harvey Wald lives in one of the homes in the Pierre Acres Addition. He told the Commission on Tuesday he supports the Dokkens’ plan but only if there is a clear restriction against rezoning it to more than two-family residential.

Jack Dokken assured Wald that was the case.

“If the restriction is put in, I’m not against it,” Wald said. “If it isn’t put in, you’re gonna have a fight on your hands.”

Dokken said he and his wife reached out to more neighbors to let them know of their plans and collected four more signatures, for a total of 17.

But Adams said four who earlier signed the Dokkens’ petition to allow the rezoning switched and signed Adams’ petition against it, for his total of about a dozen signatures.

Commissioner Vona Johnson spoke out in favor of the Dokkens’ request for rezoning.

“We asked the Dokkens to go back . . and get more signatures. So I just think the Dokkens did what we asked them to do, to reach out to people,” Johnson said. “I am concerned that people who signed both (petitions) , to me that nullifies their signature.”

Commissioner Jamie Huizenga wasn’t for it.

“It seems like we are still at a bit of an impasse regarding the neighbors up there.”

Usually in city zoning changes, “all the neighbors are in favor,” Huizenga said.

“I have no doubt you will take care of this property,” he told the Dokkens. “ But it’s the next owner. If you get to that point, then we get involved in neighborhood squabbles.”

Commissioner Jim Mehlhoff: “This is still a spot-zoning situation. If we say this is OK here, how do we deny it (to someone else?)”

Huizenga moved to deny the Dokkens’ request and Mehlhaff seconded it. Mayor Steve Harding joined the two in voting “aye,” to deny the Dokkens request; Johnson and Commissioner Blake Barringer voted “no,” in a show of support for the Dokkens.

After the meeting, Barringer said he agreed with Johnson that the Dokkens did what the Commission asked.

“I think they should bring it right back and ask to get the whole (neighborhood) rezoned, “Barringer said.

It’s almost weirdly unusual for this City Commission to not vote unanimously. By a pretty close to comprehensive look at the past four years of Commission action, there have been two times when one Commissioner opposed the majority. Both times it was on relatively non-major issues involving a detail about street repair work.

This one, a surprising and dramatic 3-2 split, hasn’t been seen for about five years on the Commission, Mehlhaff told the Capital Journal. And that was about a similar issue, a request by a someone to have some property replatted, Mehlhaff said, emphasizing he was going off his memory. He and Huizenga and Harding have been on the Commission about a decade.