Alexander council completes May business at June meeting

When Alexander city council members ended their May meeting the process of approving legal items on the agenda was started, but not completed. Since there were only four council members present, with the mayor counting as the fifth for a quorum, by law the best they could do is have the first public reading on three ordinances and go home.

Near the top of the agenda for the June 17 meeting was the appointment of Lonny Chapman to fill the vacancy in the Ward-4 Seat-1 position. With five other members in attendance, that gave the council the six votes needed to read by title and suspend the third reading of the three ordinances, allowing them to go into effect that night. For more on the appointment of Lonny Chapman see article at this link.

The first ordinance approved by the council was the City of Alexander Subdivision Rules and Regulations. The ordinance establishes standards and procedures developers must follow to develop property and build within the city.

The ordinance is based on the Saline County Subdivision Rules and Regulations. The city adopted Saline County’s ordinance in February 2015 as a temporary solution to a problem. Developer’s of Meadow’s Edge, along Highway 111, wanted to begin designing the subdivision but Alexander didn’t have its own subdivision rules and regulations to follow.

The expectation was to later convert the county language in the ordinance to city. When the current planning commission was formed, and had enough members to begin holding meetings, that project was put at the top of the to-do list.

Next on that list was updating the city’s zoning ordinance. Passed in 1982 the previous ordinance had one major shortfall. It had only two residential zones. R-1 allowed all single-family residential housing, whether it was site-built or a manufactured home; called mobile homes or trailers back then. R-2 included R-1 plus apartments.

The new zoning regulations provides for five residential zones. All housing in the R-1 category must be built on-site. They are R-1.(SF) [Single-Family], R-1.(SFD) [Single-Family or Duplex], R-1.(MF) [Multi-Family only], and R-1.(AC) [Apartment Complex]. The difference between multi-family and an apartment complex is street access. An apartment building built in a multi-family zone is built along a city street. An apartment complex does not contain city streets and does not allow traffic thru access.

The fifth type of residential zoning is R-2.(MU) [Mixed-Use]. This zone permits only single-family units but they can be either site-built or factory-built homes.

During his report to the city council Planning Commission Chairman Michael Huck noted one aspect of the new zoning regulations that may slowly change the look of Alexander housing. Any factory-built home either moved from location to location within the city, or moved into the city from outside can not be older than 20 years when moved. As an example he said in 2019 anything built before 1999 won’t be allowed.

The third ordinance on the agenda authorizes the city to use electronic transfers between banking accounts rather than needing to write a check. Mayor Paul Mitchell noted this was one of the items state auditors found when conducting the audit of the city’s financial procedures for 2017. The city was using electronic transfers without the necessary ordinance allowing the procedure.

All three ordinances were approved by a six to two vote of the council. Present at the meeting and voting “Yes” were Joe Pollard, Joy Gray, Juanita Wilson, Harold Timmerman, Dan Church, and Lonny Chapman. Absent, which counts as a “No” vote, were Elizabeth Bland and Jeff Watson.

The next meeting of the Alexander City Council is July 15 at 6 PM in the courtroom at city hall. The public is invited to attend.