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Weatherford planning panel approves final plat; staff says easement can be adjusted afterward
Summary
The commission unanimously approved a final plat despite a recent request by an adjacent owner to alter a public access easement; staff recommended approval so the applicant would not be held up and said the easement can be modified later.
Chair Brian McCallan opened the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting at 2:37 p.m. and announced a quorum was present. After brief procedural business, the commission considered a final plat that had prompted questions about an adjacent public access easement.
A staff member recommended approving the final plat as submitted, saying it met the requirements of the subdivision ordinance. Scott McDonald, the city’s director of development services, told commissioners that an adjacent property owner had sought to change a public access easement that was dedicated several years ago but that staff had spoken briefly with the applicant and the adjacent owner and recommended allowing the plat to move forward. "Ultimately, we had an adjacent property owner that came in, had some questions about changing the public access easement, which was dedicated years ago," McDonald said. He added that the parties could later work through updating the ingress/egress and public access easement to straighten it out.
Commissioners sought clarification on whether the easement concern required the panel to withhold approval. A staff speaker and McDonald said the plat itself could be recorded as presented and that subsequent adjustments to the easement could be documented later. Staff noted that nothing on the plat would change immediately other than the referenced curvature in the easement and that obtaining dedicated right-of-way would help clean up the record.
A staff member apologized to the commission for the late notice, saying the easement issue had been brought to staff's attention minutes before the meeting and there had been no opportunity to resolve it in advance. One commissioner said the parties had become heated but that the situation had been calmed before the vote.
The commission then adopted a motion to approve the final plat; the chair recorded that the motion passed unanimously. Earlier in the meeting the commission also approved the minutes from the prior meeting; that motion likewise passed unanimously. There were no citizen comments on non-agenda items. Chair McCallan closed the meeting at 2:43 p.m.
The action allows the applicant to record the plat now; staff said the adjacent property owner and applicant can work afterward to update and straighten the public access easement.
