The main attraction at this week’s council meeting was the rezoning request from Brandon and Dennis Hrubes of Lakeside Acres.
This section in particular brought in over a dozen members of the public to the meeting to hear the decision and advocate in favor or opposition for the request.
Eight people came to the podium to speak to the council during the public hearing; Bill Schultz (Algona), Chelsea Anderson (Clear Lake), Andy Tisor (Clear Lake), Melinda Anderson (Clarion), Troy Hovscheidp (Clear Lake), Scott Kennhy (Clear Lake), Kelsey Hrubes, Brandon Hrubes’ wife, and Dennis Hrubes.
Five spoke in favor of the project and three spoke opposed.
The proposed project, in its current form, located south of 15th Ave. S. and west of S. 8th St., includes approximately 72 single family homes, 45 manufactured homes and a commercially zoned area for multiple buildings.
The request has been in the process since it was first introduced in June of last year and is currently in its 5th revision.
The previous council meeting brought up this request and was approved to be sent to the Planning & Zoning Commission for review, which it was at their May 28 meeting.
The Planning & Zoning Commission voted to recommend that the city council approve this version of the plan.
City Administrator Scott Flory introduced the request, as he did at the last meeting, and then gave the floor to Brandon Hrubes, the property owner, to describe the plan in its current form.
The homes will be a variety of one and two story designs and will be “slab on grade due to the low water table.” The home designs will also have an option for an attached garage and each unit will have two parking spaces as required per city code. The development also includes a pool, pool house, activity courts, playground and gathering structure. A home owners association (HOA) is also included.
“There’s a bunch of people that want to invest in our town here,” Hrubes said. “They just don’t have the means or desire to spend $300,000 to $400,000 for new housing. We know that we need to help more families with this demand.”
Hrubes also mentioned the concerns brought up by the Planning & Zoning Commission, those being whether Clear Lake needs another mobile home park, the density of the development and drainage.
“We no longer have a mobile home park zoning request. We have completely abandoned that out of the proposal,” Hrubes said.
Instead, Hrubes said that it is a more restrictive zoning than the mobile homes zoning and allows the city to assess real property tax on every home in this development, just like all the other homes outside of the mobile home park.
“In this development, we will require brand new homes…to be brought in,” he said. “We won’t even allow a one year old home to be brought in. It’s a minimum of $100,000. Not everyone can afford a $100,000 home, you still have to have a certain income level, of course.”
The main cause for concern is the drainage issue.
“I am not aware of any issues with drainage,” Hrubes said. “Yes, I know there’s a couple of moments, a couple of issues, that have happened. Mainly because of the lack of or poor communication [with county supervisors].”
Their current plan for the drainage is to reroute the drainage pipe up to South Main Street and over to the ditch to where it originally dumps.
When it came time for the council to vote on the motion, they were split. Each member gave a brief reasoning for their stance and an official vote followed.
Due to a conflict of interest First Ward Councilperson Mark Ebeling abstained from the vote.
At-Large Councilperson Creighton Schmidt voted in favor, Third Ward Councilperson Beth Ann Schumacher voted opposed, Second Ward Councilperson Bennett Smith voted opposed, and At-Large Councilperson Dana Brant voted in favor. This left the motion in a tie, causing it to fail.
In other business
Chief of Police Mike Colby gave an update on the outdoor warning sirens.
Over the last 12-18 months the county received a grant to replace all of the sirens in the county. With that upgrade, the sirens have a feature inside of them that caused them to automatically go off when there’s a warning that qualifies for the activation of sirens.
“Starting sometime around the middle of May to late May, we had some activations [that] clearly were accidental or were going off on their own,” Colby said. “RC Systems, the vendor who purchased and installed the sirens, located that some of the control boards actually had some moisture get onto them outside the weather-proof boxes at the actual site.”
Chief Colby received a letter from RC Systems the day of the council meeting “letting us know that was their best guess for the reasons of the activation.”
The moisture may have come from the large amounts of rain that the area has had throughout May, causing the control boards to malfunction.
“They’re doing some testing on those boards. They’re trying to figure out why the moisture would come in from the boxes that are supposed to be weather proof,” Colby said.
by Jenna Prather
The main attraction at this week’s council meeting was the rezoning request from Brandon and Dennis Hrubes of Lakeside Acres.
This section in particular brought in over a dozen members of the public to the meeting to hear the decision and advocate in favor or opposition for the request.
Eight people came to the podium to speak to the council during the public hearing; Bill Schultz (Algona), Chelsea Anderson (Clear Lake), Andy Tisor (Clear Lake), Melinda Anderson (Clarion), Troy Hovscheidp (Clear Lake), Scott Kennhy (Clear Lake), Kelsey Hrubes, Brandon Hrubes’ wife, and Dennis Hrubes.
Five spoke in favor of the project and three spoke opposed.
The proposed project, in its current form, located south of 15th Ave. S. and west of S. 8th St., includes approximately 72 single family homes, 45 manufactured homes and a commercially zoned area for multiple buildings.
The request has been in the process since it was first introduced in June of last year and is currently in its 5th revision.
The previous council meeting brought up this request and was approved to be sent to the Planning & Zoning Commission for review, which it was at their May 28 meeting.
The Planning & Zoning Commission voted to recommend that the city council approve this version of the plan.
City Administrator Scott Flory introduced the request, as he did at the last meeting, and then gave the floor to Brandon Hrubes, the property owner, to describe the plan in its current form.
The homes will be a variety of one and two story designs and will be “slab on grade due to the low water table.” The home designs will also have an option for an attached garage and each unit will have two parking spaces as required per city code. The development also includes a pool, pool house, activity courts, playground and gathering structure. A home owners association (HOA) is also included.
“There’s a bunch of people that want to invest in our town here,” Hrubes said. “They just don’t have the means or desire to spend $300,000 to $400,000 for new housing. We know that we need to help more families with this demand.”
Hrubes also mentioned the concerns brought up by the Planning & Zoning Commission, those being whether Clear Lake needs another mobile home park, the density of the development and drainage.
“We no longer have a mobile home park zoning request. We have completely abandoned that out of the proposal,” Hrubes said.
Instead, Hrubes said that it is a more restrictive zoning than the mobile homes zoning and allows the city to assess real property tax on every home in this development, just like all the other homes outside of the mobile home park.
“In this development, we will require brand new homes…to be brought in,” he said. “We won’t even allow a one year old home to be brought in. It’s a minimum of $100,000. Not everyone can afford a $100,000 home, you still have to have a certain income level, of course.”
The main cause for con-
