Commission approves code change to create annual registration for mobile vendors, removes permit for political-party signage

Plain Planning & Zoning Commission members voted July 16 to advance a zoning code amendment to regulate mobile vendors via an annual registration rather than a per-location permit, and to finalize small clarifying edits that council requested for the sign code.

The change to mobile-vendor rules (ZC-25-13) replaces a per-location permitting approach with a one-time annual registration covering a calendar year; vendors still must notify staff of the specific locations and date/time ranges where they will operate. Derek Hutchinson, planning staff, said, "It's for 1 calendar year. It's January. It's a calendar year." He also told commissioners the application form will continue to include a section where vendors specify dates and times for each location.

The code change also removes a prior requirement that political candidates or their parties obtain a permit before placing signs; that permitting requirement was deleted after council feedback. Hutchinson said the sign-code changes are largely clerical and intended to remove references to the word "village" and to simplify language for the municipality. "We did take out the original one that did not permit the electric cords. We did take that out there. They do wanna allow electric cords during use," he said, describing the mobile-vendor revisions.

Fees and timing: Commissioners and staff agreed that the registration will be on a calendar-year basis and that the city’s finance/accounts office will set the registration fee; that fee had not been finalized in the meeting record. Staff said the fee had not been set by accounts and described prior fee discussions, but did not provide an adopted dollar amount. The code will allow for temporary/short-event registrations (for short-term events) separate from the annual registration.

Action taken: The commission moved and approved ZC-25-13, the zoning-code amendment to Chapter 11.94 regulating mobile vendors. The transcript records affirmative votes from Commissioners Coit, Price, McCullough and Swank; the motion passed. The commission also approved CZ-25-3, the sign-code edits to Chapter 11.99, which removed the political-party permitting requirement and made clerical and commercial-sign clarifications. Commissioners recorded unanimous affirmative votes for that item during the meeting.

Next steps: Staff said it will add the missing explicit "annual" language where needed, adjust the application form to capture vendor location dates/times, and submit final code text and accompanying fee language to council for adoption.