Scott City Council plans meeting with P&Z commission

The Scott City government hopes to straighten out a zoning mess affecting one area of the city within as short a time as possible.

The city council will meet with the city's Planning and Zoning Commission at 7 p.m. today to discuss the zoning of the I-1 area adjacent to Interstate 55 south of Main Street. At the city council's regular meeting Monday night, Mayor Tim Porch said the meeting with planning and zoning may take hours but he wants a recommendation from the commission by the end of the night. That recommendation would then have to be discussed in public meetings before the commission and the city council, a process which will take weeks.

But cleaning up the zoning confusion in the area is a priority for the city government, Porch said.

"Something needs to happen. If we drag our heels on this they're going to just walk away from it," Porch said of developers who hope to improve the area.

An area of the city wedged between the railroad tracks south of Main Street and the Interstate is currently a "light industrial" zone. The area has several de facto uses due to lax city regulation in past years, including residential and commercial. The legal dilemma means residential structures cannot be built on empty lots under city ordinance.

Much of the longer-than-normal council meeting Monday night was dominated by discussion of the issue, with several council members expressing their desire to clean up the zoning code as quickly as possible.

Porch, city administrator Ron Eskew and council members said property owners in the area will be key to drafting new zoning areas in the problem section.

In other business:

• The council approved Porch's appointment of Rob Henderson as Ward 4 Councilman by a vote of 6 to 0. Henderson replaces Ron Worl, who recently resigned his seat for health reasons.
• The council voted 6 to 0 to add Martin Luther King Jr. day to the list of city holidays starting in 2008.
• Porch issued a proclamation making Oct. 3 Science Day, encouraging families to perform simple experiments with their children on that day and reinforce the importance of science education year-round.
• The council voted 6 to 0 to change the city's rules for submitting plats for land development. The new provisions add a requirement that a plat be submitted in electronic format as well as the traditional document form.