More trees and tiny houses

 Below are more pictures from the Christmas Tree walk in Potawotomie Park. The first is a tree from the Middle School's 6th grade social studies class.

The sign clearly says who sponsored this tree.

The tree below is from Bombers for Academic Excellance and has school supplies that children who need them are invited to take.

Hope Community may be the only church with a display.

I am not sure why a dinosaur is emerging from the IBEC tree.

This is the Rensselaer Park's giving tree. People are encouraged to take the envelopes, which contain requests for gifts from needy children, and fulfill the requests.

This appears to be a tree decorated by young children. I could not find the sponsor's name when I took the picture.

One of the 2021 projects that Main Street Rensselaer wanted to finish was a path from College Street to the shelter and restrooms in Iroquois Park. There are no restrooms in Potawotomie Park, but the rest rooms in Iroquois Park are only a very short distance away. The path should help people find them.

On Thursday evening the Rensselaer Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) met. The first item on the agenda was a request for a conditional use permit. A Hispanic woman wanted to sell food from a residential unit in an R-2 zone. People would order over the phone and then stop by to pick it up. After discussion and questions, the Board learned that although she owned the residence, she was not living there so her case did not fit the business-in-a-residence provision of the zoning code. They suggested that she find another site and will try to help her. She withdrew her request so no vote was taken.

The second item was for a conditional use permit for an Air B&B in a B3 zoning district. The property in question has a Front Street address, but it is in the alley behind Fenwick Farms. (A property cannot have an alley address.) The owner of the property combined a small empty lot with the lot that has the old carriage house (once used for storage by the Fendig Summer Theater and currently without a roof). His plan is to add a tiny home to the existing building and make it a short-term rental. It will have a connection to the larger building that will, when finished, have an office and space devoted to art on the first floor and a rental on the second. The tiny home exists and is currently in San Francisco. It has only 160 square feet of space.. There was a discussion of why a motel is allowed in a B3 zone but not an AirB&B, There seems to be some technical differences that I did not understand. The permit was granted.

Before they adjourned, the Board discussed how they should handle these short-term rentals going forward. Rensselaer currently has two that are operating and both seem to be quite busy. There is another being planned on Washington Street north of downtown.  The expectation was that because there is a demand for this type of alternative to motels, there will be more in the future. The lawyer for the Board said he would research what regulations other communities have for this type of rental unit and report back.

There was mention during the discussion that some organization was interested in doing a little village of ten tiny homes in Rensselaer. I did not catch what type of renters or owners they were interested in.

The Airport Authority also met on Thursday evening but I chose to go to the BZA meeting because I thought it would be more interesting. I do not know if I was right or wrong.

In October the City Council had a public hearing for a planning grant it was seeking. KIRPC announced that the State had approved the application.

If you are over 65 and would like to use the smaller garbage cans for 2022 (with a lower garbage fee), stop by City Hall to sign up. You will need to fill out a form and show proof of age.