Shabbona zoning board to use standardized findings-of-fact worksheet for variance recommendations

The Shabbona Zoning Board Planning Commission on June 25 discussed adopting a standardized "report of findings" worksheet to guide its recommendations on zoning variances. Staff said the sample worksheet and narrative were provided by the village attorney's office and recommended the board begin using the simplified form immediately to ensure findings of fact accompany variance recommendations.

Staff explained the worksheet captures petitioner narratives, the hardship claimed, and answers to a set of factual questions that feed the board’s recommendation to the village board. "The worksheet attached to it, we're actually gonna go through. That is, the actual report of findings that Dominique has said we should start using as of tonight," the staff member said, describing the worksheet as a simpler translation of code provisions into plain questions. Board members worked through the sample, asking whether each negative-impact question (public health, property values, development, light/air/fire risk) would apply; for the illustrative case in an industrial zone they generally answered no and concluded the worksheet would lead to a recommendation to approve in that example.

Members also discussed process: staff emphasized the worksheet is intended to make the factual bases explicit so the village board — which retains final authority — can see the zoning board's reasoning. The staff member noted that attorney Dominic provided the example but that the attorney's office would not itself draft the village's final documents. Several commissioners said the worksheet would help avoid recommendations that later lacked documented findings, a problem they had observed at prior meetings.