Planning commission recommends Buckingham Minor Subdivision be sent to Kasson City Council

At the Kasson City planning commission meeting, planning staff presented the Buckingham Minor Subdivision proposal for 206 Third Avenue NE and the commission voted to recommend the item to the Kasson City Council.

Ian, a planning staff member, said the lot was originally platted in 1876 as two lots and has since been combined; the applicant, property owner John Buckingham, asked to reconfigure the parcel into two lots so twin homes (a two-unit attached building with separate lots and a common wall) could be constructed in the future. "This property was originally platted back in 1876 as two lots," Ian said while showing the proposed certificate of survey. He also noted that because the site is in an R-1 single-family district, "the twin homes specifically will need another approval from the city of Kasson which would be in the form of a conditional use permit." Ian told the commission that a public-hearing notice had been sent in error for this meeting and that the required CUP hearing and notice will occur later when an application is submitted.

Staff recommended two conditions for the subdivision: that the plat not be recorded until the CUP for twin homes is approved, and that recording wait until the existing single-family house and detached garage are demolished to avoid creating a property line through an occupied structure. Commissioners asked technical questions about setbacks and dimensional standards; Ian clarified that a twin home differs from a duplex under local code because each unit sits on its own lot and therefore can have separate owners, and that the minimum lot area for a twin-home unit is 4,000 square feet per unit (versus 8,000 square feet for a single-family lot).

Applicant John Buckingham, who identified himself as the property owner and a previous local developer, told the commission the existing building is a rental but said his plan for the new twin homes is to have them be owner-occupied. "Owner occupied," Buckingham said when asked whether the future units would be rentals or owner-occupied. Commissioners also reviewed local examples shown in GIS imagery and raised neighborhood infrastructure concerns for Third Avenue NE — including the roadway’s narrow paved width and the lack of sewer and storm infrastructure — which staff said would be appropriate topics for the forthcoming CUP public hearing.

A commissioner moved and another seconded to recommend approval of the Buckingham Minor Subdivision as presented; the commission voted in favor and forwarded the recommendation to the Kasson City Council. The commission did not record detailed roll-call vote names in the transcript. The item is scheduled to appear before the Kasson City Council for final action.