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Baxter Planning Commission will change its protocols when it comes to approving plats for large subdivisions.
City Engineer Tom Bennett brought for the idea citing concerns about utility capacity for large subdivisions. Building and Codes Inspector Bob Lane said developers will now have to get preliminary approval from department heads before bringing the submission before the planning commission.
“It’s called growing pains,” Lane said. “And every city faces this as I said in there, there is no line in the sand. all we’re asking is when these people come in with these plans is to give us a little time to see how these developments affect our utilities. And if there need to be adjustments made, we’ll know it on the front end.”
Lane said that previously there was no issue was capacity. He said that now that growth has accelerated to its current point, proposals larger than five lots will need to go through the departments.
Lane said that he doesn’t think the growth in Baxter will stop, but will need to slow to make sure the city can keep up.
“If there wasn’t a capacity right at this time, we would ask that that may be broken up in phases to give us time to catch up with them. Like I said there is no place to stop, we’re going to have to keep going. So it would maybe lengthen the time, we may slow their process down a little bit, but it won’t stop.”
Lane said that developers would have to come to the planning for each phase. He said that there was an upcoming potential proposal plat for 10-lot subdivision off of Chesnut. UCDD Planning Director Tommy Lee said that this possible plat could serve as the test for the new protocol.
